Mount Edgcumbe <1>
Monday May 29th 1854
My dear Henry
I have but a minute to save the Post, in order that you should get this before leaving the poor old Abbey. I am sorry not to have had a glimpse at you while you were so comparatively near. I am delighted to hear that the Work of the Royal Commissioners has turned out so well & so handsome, & that they have given you 15 copies of it, I remember your telling me of it at the time. It certainly was the least they could do, after all the trouble & vexation they & others gave you.<2> Milord <3> begs me to thank you very much indeed for your kind intentions of presenting him with a copy. He will be charmed to accept it – but says he is almost ashamed to receive anything so very handsome & great!
He desires me to explain that he is building a Chrystal Palace on a diminutive scale, with a house inside it, for his winter residence – & he further says that if you can find means of drying the air for him, he will carry it anywhere by means of an invention which has been seen & much approved of by Mr Gurney, the He of Commons ventilating man, who wants Milord to patent it.
I hope you & Constance <4> will see Horace <5> in London – He is with Jane <6> I believe.
Love to Constance & Ela <7>
Yr very affte
Caroline
I go to Town on the 3rd
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot
Esqre
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
2. 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.
3. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
4. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
5. Lt Horace Charles Gaisford (1851–1879), WHFT’s nephew.
6. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).
7. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.
8. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].