Coedriglan
Sept 11th 76
My dear Henry
I think I ought to have the Letters back which I lent you so long ago – I am sorry not to have had the opportunity of looking them over with you but it is not convenient to me to leave home now & I have a wish to see them again. I have others I could lend you but perhaps you may make out some time to come & see me and it would be pleasant to read them together Miss St George & a niece & two nephews of hers are now staying with me. We have just been reading some of Aunt Susan’s<1> letters together & enjoying them much –
I have not heard very lately of my brother & Emily <2> who are in the steam Yatch [sic] Lynx in the Channel somewhere I suppose – Olive<3> is at Dover at the Lord Warden Hotel <4> – she seems much the same – still suffering from want of real sleep and nervous pains in the feet & legs – We were glad she was persuaded to leave London for a time & it may do her good – the Llewelyns are now at Malvern <5> where Mr Llewelyns sister, Mrs Moggridge & her husband & daughter are staying – Have you been in Scotland or had Matilda <6> & her family to stay with you? I dont know if you have heard that Edward Nicholl <7> has just got the Chaplaincy of the Lunatic Asylum at Maidstone instead of Macclesfield where he has been I think four years and of which he was very tired – I have got two of my nephews at St Hilary now – Rice & Spencer Nicholl – Rice’s children enjoy the place much – his wife is of a Glamorganshire family & a very pleasing woman – it is a nice drive for me to go & see them – I should like to shew you my walks in the wood here they are so pretty. My garden is gone to nothing since I went away but the place is all ready to be made up again if I had the time but I have many repairs to do first – Give my love to your folk
& believe me Yours affly
Charlotte L Traherne
[envelope:]
W. H. Fox Talbot Esqre.
&c &c &c
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham.
Notes:
1. Susannah Sarah Louisa O’Brien, née Strangways (1743–1827), WHFT’s great aunt.
2. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician, WHFT’s Welsh cousin, and Emily Charlotte Talbot (1840-1918), his 1st daughter.
3. Olivia 'Olive' (1842-1894), daughter of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), WHFT's Welsh cousin.
4. Opened in Dover in 1853.
5. Malvern, or Great Malvern, 9 mi SW of Worcestershire. John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882), Welsh photographer, JP & High Sheriff; and his wife, Emma Thomasina Llewelyn, née Talbot (1806–1881), photographer, WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
6. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.
7. Rev Edward Powell Nicholl (1831–1902), Vicar of Lacock from 1864 until his resignation in 1870; photographer.