Trin Coll Cam. <1>
Wednesday May 8
My dear Father,
I received your two last letters, I have not been to Mortlocks bank yet but they must have got the checque. I am glad to get my college-bill.
I have not time to write any more to night, however I will write soon ,. please tell Mamma <2> so for I owe them some letters at Millburn, <3> you saw I dare say that Myers has got a scholarship also. Purkiss a sizar in our year & Turnbull who was plucked in his Little-go. <4> There were only 4 given to our year. Plowden, a Harrow man got one in the 3rd year, He is evidently a man of consideralbe ability, but I believe he reads very little. He always had a name for being one of the cleverest me fellows at Harrow, and he has long heenjoyed an undoubled reputation for idleness. he read I believe pretty hard last term for these scholarships. He must have a good deal of ability, for he overslept himself and came in late on the morning when we had a miscellaneous classical paper and the examiner sent him out again without letting him do the paper – I believe he is a good Greek scholar, & I don’t think he knows much mathematics. He is also captain of the University Cricket Eleven
Your affect son
Charles–
[envelope:]
H Fox Talbot Esq
Millburn Tower
nr Edinburgh
Notes:
1. Trinity College, Cambridge.
2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
3. Millburn Tower, Gogar, just west of Edinburgh; the Talbot family made it their northern home from June 1861 to November 1863. It is particularly important because WHFT conducted many of his photoglyphic engraving experiments there. The house had a rich history. Built for Sir Robert Liston (1742-1836), an 1805 design by Benjamin Latrobe for a round building was contemplated but in 1806 a small house was built to the design of William Atkinson (1773-1839), best known for Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford. The distinctive Gothic exterior was raised in 1815 and an additional extension built in 1821. Liston had been ambassador to the United States and maintained a warm Anglo-American relationship in the years 1796-1800. His wife, the botanist Henrietta Liston, née Marchant (1751-1828) designed a lavish American garden, sadly largely gone by the time the Talbots rented the house .
4. A preliminary examination (a practise continued until 1961).