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Document number: 03444
Date: 03 Feb 1837
Dating: 1837?
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: FEILDING Charles
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Last updated: 20th February 2012

Lacock Abbey
Feby 3

My dear Henry

I agree that it is not very pleasant to have to announce his fate to Mr A. <1> but I think he is prepared for it – he seems to me aware that he does not, because he has not time, give the attention to your concerns he ought, he feels in short, as you & I also do that the experiment which was made when Phelps <2> was discharged of doing without a Bailiff has not succeeded, & I think perhaps your treating it in that manner would be as easy a way of administering the dose as any, for certainly those things are easier to write than to say.

There is no question but that a good superintendent is absolutely necessary to the well being of this Property – I have been taking some trouble to get Mr Elgar <3> established as parish Doctor for this part of the union, & hope to accomplish this good work when the election takes place at Easter – I conclude Mr Awdry has written to you about the gates on the common at Bewly <4>, & his Idea of placing gate keepers which I hardly think they have a right to insist on – we [sic] have a good many of the garden men & servants ill with the fluenza as they call it, but no deaths as yet – Banks the mason <5> the only one dangerously ill. at Corsham, Melksham & Chippenham <6> it has been very fatal, the truth is this village is very healthy which I attribute to its being on a gravelly soil, & near running water – no epidemic ever spreads, whereas Bowden & Nash Hills <7> are subject to Typhus, there is I believe hardly an instance of an Abbey ill placed as to salubrity – I heard in a round about way through Horatia <8> & [illegible] that they were all better at Melbury, <9> which I am very glad of. The recollection of your Uncle Ilchesters <10> dreadful rheumatic fever while we were abroad made me uneasy about him. We shall be very glad to see you arrive on the 11th

Yrs ever aff
CF.

Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Sidmouth
Devon


Notes:

1. Mr Awdry, solicitor.

2. Philip Phelps, Surveyor of Taxes & Bailiff, Lacock.

3. Mr Elgar, physician.

4. Misspelling of Bewley Common, Wiltshire, 1 mi E of Lacock.

5. Probably George Banks, snr (1786–1864), stonemason & coalseller, Lacock.

6. Corsham Court, Wiltshire, 3 mi NW of Lacock: seat of Ld Methuen; Melksham, Wiltshire: market town near Lacock, 2 miles S; Chippenham, Wiltshire: largest town near Lacock, 3 miles N.

7. Bowden Hill, Wiltshire, 1 mi SE of Lacock; Nash Hill, also Naish Hill, a hill and farm 1 mi NE of Lacock, Wiltshire.

8. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.

9. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.

10. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).