Laycock Abbey
18th December 1845
My Dear Henry
The English Clergy are tempted to risk the climate of the West Indies by lucrative Livings – Mr Bridges <1> had one in Jamaica of £3000 a year, & lived there many years. One evening he saw his four daughters (who were in a pleasure boat with many others) sink in the Sea, in a perfect calm. Only 4 Men were saved, & they could not account for it. This quite upset him, & he was so disgusted with life that he took his Son (all that was left to him) then an infant, to Canada, & lived in the Backwoods & somewhere near the Mohawk Indians for several years. His Son is now the age of Valletort <2> & is going on board Captain Graves’s Ship the Beacon which is ordered to the coast of Asia, & he means to accompany & stay some time in the East. His son had an attack on the chest in North America & was so ill that he determined to leave it in the first Ship that sailed for Europe. When he got to Quebec he found a Sicilian vessel just getting under weigh & he & his son were landed at Palermo, & the first thing he saw walking by the Sea was Lord Normanby <3> who had been Governor of Jamaica when he was there! His son has a passion for the Navy & so he has consented much contre coeur. <4> He first saw the No 1 – of the Pencil of Nature <5> at Mr Atwood’s <6> at Maizemore. He says Thornthwaite in Newgate Street & Willet in Cheapside both profess to sell the prepared Paper as well as Instruments. He wants to know if they sell what is really prepared in your method, or you can recommend anybody else. He seems to know the Bishop of Glocester <7> very well & first mentioned Mr Bowerbank <8> to him for this place, & now after all I am afraid we shall not have him, as he has heard the Duty here is so very hard (considering they pay the Curate so little). But it is Mr Becket <9> who has made it so it was not so formerly
[envelope]
W. H. F. Talbot Eqr
31. Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Rev George Wilson Bridges (1788–1863), photographer and traveller. [See Doc. No: 05463].
2. Capt. William Wilson Somerset Bridges (1831-1889), RN. He was serving on the ships Volage and Hibernia, surveying different parts of the Mediterranean. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.
3. Constantine Henry Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby (1797–1863).
4. Against his inclinations.
5. WHFT, The Pencil of Nature (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, June 1844–April 1846 [issued in six fascicles])
6. Thomas Attwood (1783–1856), radical MP, banker & manufacturer.
7. James Henry Monk (1784–1856), Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol.
8. Rev Lewis Bowerbank (1782-1853), curate of St Cyriac's, Lacock, 1846-1847; former Rector of St Catherines, Jamaica, 1823-1843; friend of Rev George Bridges.
9. Clergyman.