Saturday Jany 25th
My dear Father,
I received your letter this morning. The one which you forwarded was from Aunt Harriot, <1> and asked me to Markeaton on the 10th or 11th February for a week. I have accepted. I enclose for four admission tickets to the Friday evening lectures of the Royal Institution. <2> I should. Will you sign them simply, without filling up either name or date? I forgot to bring up 5 tickets signed by you which I have locked up in a drawer at Lacock, and in that case I made the mistake of getting you to fill up the date name, in consequence of which I was not able to take any one with me. I hope by your leaving the name blank which is I believe a common practise to get Mallock <3> or some other friend to go with me. Farrar <4> lectures in Public School Education on the 31st of this month and as I do not go to Merstham till Saturday, I shall probably go and hear him. – Swainson <5> who heard his lecture last summer described it as a great joke, and the audience as indulging in roars of laughter.
I am lodging in a house where I lived some years ago, kept by a former Servant of the late Lord Ilchester. <6> which I knew to be comfortable, and I should think my sitting room, which is rather small must be as warm as any in London. – I do not yet know how many days I am to stay at Merstham, but if the number of days intervening between that visit and the 10th February be very short I may find it a better plan to go th through London and direct by Midland to Derby than to pass the interval at Lacock. If so I may catch another Friday evening at the R I, perhaps that is a lecture of Huxley’s. <7> Tyndall <8> has been lecturing on Faraday, <9> I see. If I had not been asleep I should have got there to hear him. –
Today is a very fine day for London. Yesterday was cold, and last night rainy, which wetted me, and exasperated me for a man stole my umbrella, the last time I dined at the Temple, and I had not yet brought a new one. –
On Thursday night there was a fire in Regent St, in one of the houses adjoining Vigo St & Sackville St. I went out to see but the night was cold for gazing. Three steam fire-engines were working in the middle of Regent St one of them was particularly restless vomiting clouds of sparks & bits of cinder and occasionally whistling. The dust got into ones eyes at some distance off. Not much fire was to be seen from Regent St just a cloud of sparks from Sackville St. I saw it first at 10 minutes to 10, and as I went round that way to my hotel at about 12 oclock, the engines were raking out their fires and departing. Their consternation and action I could not then be made out. – I have seen no notice in the papers of this fire but shall look again. – I see in the Illustrated <10> the death of Sir Charles Miller <11> of Froile [sic] whom I met at Spye Park <12> last year. I think of writing to San Remo <13> tomorow –
Your affect son
Charles
Notes:
1. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
2. Albemarle Street, London, founded in 1799.
3. Charles could have been friends with either of two sons of Charles Herbert Mallock (1802-1873) of Cockington Court, Torquay, whilst at Harrow. Charles Herbert Mallock (1840-1875), later a barrister, entered in 1854. Richard Mallock (1843-1900), later an MP, entered in 1858. Both left Harrow in 1859, the year of Charles Henry's departure.
4. John Farrar (1802–1884). [See Doc. No: 09321].
5. A friend of Charles from Trinity College, Cambridge.
6. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
7. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825– 1895), man of science, Fullerian professor at Royal Institution, 1863–1867.
8. John Tyndall (1820–1893), natural philosopher, succeeded Prof Michael Faraday (1791–1867), scientist as scientific adviser to Trinity House and Board of Trade, 1866.
9. Prof Michael Faraday (1791–1867), scientist.
10. Possibly the Illustrated Times, London (1855–1872).
11. Sir Charles Hayes Miller (1829–1868).
12. Spye Park, Wiltshire, 2 mi SE of Lacock.
13. Where the Talbot family was on holiday: Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife, Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter, Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter and Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].