[blind stamp]
London
April 26. 1854
My Dear Constance
The day of prayer & humiliation was observed with particular solemnity today in London.<1> The churches were crowded, the streets nearly deserted. The sermon which I heard was remarkably good and was listened to with breathless attention.
Text from 2 Kings 19, 25
“Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it & of ancient times that I have formed it? How have I brought it to pass that thou shouldest be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps.”
I saw your brother<2> & Harrt<3> yesterday. She say that Mr Digby<4> is much better & has been out of doors and seems little altered by the accident. Nevertheless she says that so speedy a cure causes her doubt and anxiety as to its reality? Harriet says if ever you come to Town there is a private hotel next door to her, the apartment of which she strongly recommends – Ld Mt E has been to Mt Edgcumbe & back<5>. He found it too cold, much colder than Torquay. He has been out driving in a carriage the first time for 5 months.
Truly I wish Mr Williams<6> would be more sparing of his holidays! I do not know whether you know Mrs Dowdeswell<7> well enough to write to her. I wish we had some means of thanking her for her kindness to Charles<8> during a visit so unexpectedly long. I hope however he has been of use in making the holidays more pleasant for his companions Dodo & Jack<9> who must doubtless like to have society of their own age. Tomorrow I mean to go to Lacock & return Monday or Tuesday. The Royal Commissioners who presided over the Great Exhibition of 1851, Prince Albert being their head, made a compact or agreement with me, as the Patentee of the Photographic Art, that if I would allow them to make photographic plates, to illustrate their great work, on the results of the Exhibition, they could present me with 15 copies of it when finished.<10> Accordingly they have done so. The work is very handsome
It consists of 4 vols splendidly bound in Russia. As I only want 1 copy for my own library, I shall give away the others to friends who have permanent libraries and to my old College library at Cambridge.<11> I have given the first Copy to your brother & hope it will be long preserved in the library at Markeaton.<12>
I think I must have taken away with me all your fine weather and lost it on the road for there is none here. The weather is sombre
Adieu
Your affte
Henry
Notes:
1. Referring to the outbreak of the Crimean War, the leader in the Times that day explained: 'According to the ancient custom of England and of all Christian States, having engaged, as we believe, in a just and necessary war, we shall assemble this day for common acts of humiliation and prayer. If a word is required in defence of a custom which some people may think too natural to be Christian, and to usual to be right, one simple consideration will be sufficient. Should this war proceed to the length which it threatens, and which seems, indeed, now hardly to be avoided, there is not a hearth, not an individual in this empire, that will not share its sacrifices and its glories, its losses and its gains. But, not to mention private calamities, and the news that will bring day by day desolation to many hearts and ruin to many households, public triumph and disaster will alternately gladen and afflict every soul among us.'
2. William Mundy (1801-1877), politician, WHFT's brother-in-law.
3. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
4. Presumably Edward Digby, 9th Baron Digby (1809 –1889), the husband of Theresa Anna Maria Digby, née Fox Strangways (1814-1874), WHFT's cousin.
5. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797-1861), WHFT's brother-in-law. He was returning Mt Edgcumbe, near Plymouth, the home of his wife and WHFT's half-sister, Lady Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding (1808-1881).
6. Rev James Augustus Williams, tutor to Charles Henry Talbot.
7. Amelia Letitia, née Graham, m. 1839 William Dowdeswell, JP (1804-1887). He was the brother-in-law of Constance's cousin, Sophy Dowdeswell, née Mundy (1812- 19 May 1847), m. 1833, John Christopher Dowdeswell (1812-1850), and died in childbirth.
8. Charles Henry Talbot, 'Tally" (2 Feb 1842 - 26 Dec 1916), antiquary & WHFT's only son.
9. 'Dodo' has not been identified; possibly John Henry Gilchrist-Clark (1830-1881), 'Jack', Scottish JP; WHFT's son-in-law.
10. Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851: Reports by the Juries. Four volumes, illustrated by original photographic prints from negatives by Hugh Owen and Claude Marie Ferrier. In the copies given to WHFT, a dedicatory sheet was inserted (most likely printed up by him): 'This Work, on the Results of the Great Exhibition of 1851, Illustrated with Photographic Plates, being One of Fifteen Copies Given by the Royal Commissioners to H.F. Talbot, Esq. of Lacock Abbey, as The Inventor of this Branch of the Photographic Art, was by him presented to _____'. This publication caused WHFT considerable consternation at the time, for he felt that the Commissioners had stealthily and unfairly taken the job of printing the plates away from Nicolaas Henneman. For a summary of this complex situation, see Nancy B Keeler, 'Illustrating the "Reports by the Juries" of the Great Exhibition of 1851; Talbot, Henneman, and Their Failed Commission,' History of Photography, v. 6 no. 3, July 1982, pp. 257-272.
11. Trinity College, Cambridge.
12. Markeaton Hall, Derbyshire, the home of the Mundys. Its collections have long since been dispersed.