link to Talbot Project home page link to De Montfort University home page link to Glasgow University home page
Project Director: Professor Larry J Schaaf
 

Back to the letter search >

Document number: 00826
Date: 29 Oct 1818
Dating: confirmed by Doc no 00823
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: FEILDING Charles
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA18-35
Last updated: 4th July 2010

28 October.

My dear Henry.

I have no great deal to say or much time to express that little - but <1> as I am getting away from the Carlisle post Office - I send you word of it that you may direct your letter to S: St <2> not that I am yet going there but that they will forward my letters from thence. I wonder not to have heard from you, & hope that you have been better occupied - My Tour has been shortened considerably we did not go to Glasgow but came from Drumlanrig <3> to Edinburgh with which place I was very much struck, it is the most singular Town I have ever seen - we were there 3 days & are now proceeding South - I shall be at Ld Granthams <4> for one week by the time you receive this letter then at Sprotbrough <5> till the 20th Nov. & at Cambridge by the last day of the month - but I will let you know the exact day time enough - I am sure you will have been very much shocked at poor Charles FitzGerald's <6> miserable end - & have felt for me, & my sisters great distress of mind in thus losing a 4th grown up child.<7> & in such a horrid way. The state of cultivation in Scotland has much disappointed me (though in some parts it is beautiful) & the habitations of the poorer orders are wretched beyond description - We were unlucky in the time of year we were at Edin: none of the clever people happened to be there & the courts of justice being closed I had no opportunity of hearing any of their eloquent speakers which I was very anxious to do - my sport shooting has been much less than I expected amounting indeed to nothing. God bless you my dear boy Pray write to me

Yr ever affe Friend

C.F.

Notes:

1. Possibly deleted.

2. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.

3. Seat of the Charles William Henry Douglas-Scott, 4th Duke of Buccleuch, 6th Duke of Queensberry (1772-1819) in Dumfriesshire. [See Doc. No: 00823].

4. Thomas Philip Robinson, 3rd Baron Grantham (1781-1859).

5. Sprotborough Hall, Doncaster.

6. Charles Feilding Fitzgerald (1795 - 5 October 1818), the nephew of Charles Feilding. He drowned while shooting duck at his aunt's, Lady Charolotte Strutt, Baroness Rayleigh, née Fitzgerald. [See Doc. No: 00824].

7. Lady Sophia-Charlotte Fitzgerald, née Feilding (d. 1834). Of her many children, the ones she lost were Robert (d. 1812), Emily (d. 1816), Louisa (d. 1816) and Charles (d. 1818).