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Document number: 8408
Date: Tue Jun 1861
Harold White: Jun 1861
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: TALBOT Rosamond Constance
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA61-100
Last updated: 18th February 2012

Millburn Tower <1>
Tuesday.

My dear Papa,

Mama <2> is gone to Edinburgh, so she commissioned me to answer your letter and send the portraits for Lady Ilchester. <3> We chose the best and I hope she will like them, though I do not think either of them does Tilly <4>justice. Mama will be very glad to have Uncle William’s <5> and Lady Ilchester’s to add to her collection. We are just come in from a long walk, so I have only a few minutes before post time. It is exceedingly fine and pleasant, but, as with you, grown quite cool, and some days since you left have been very windy and showery. I hope you will receive this in time as you propose leaving so very soon, for the letters take two whole days in coming.

Please give my love to Aunt Caroline <6>and Ernestine, <7> and ask the former how she likes the new cartes de visite of Tilly and her husband, <8> for there is only one in this collection she has seen before, that of Tilly sitting, by Ross and Thomson. <9>Perhaps she would like Tilly to send her one of the other.

I have no time for more, so goodbye, dear Papa; love from all,

Your affectionate daughter
Rosamond.

The ink is of a shocking colour!

Notes:

1. 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 .

2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.

3. Lady Sophia Penelope Jolliffe, née Sheffield (1822-1882); first m. WTHF Strangways, 21 July 1857; second m. 1st Baron Hylton.

4. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.

5. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.

6. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.

7. Ernestine Emma Horatia Edgcumbe (1843-1925), WHFT’s niece.

8. John Gilchrist-Clark (1830–1881), Scottish JP; WHFT’s son-in-law.

9. Ross & Thomson, Edinburgh photographers.

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