Wedy 21st
My dear Henry
I write to acknowledge the P.O.O.<1> for which many thanks. I do not suppose the Queen’s jeweller would give information if one could ask him; but there is a Lady living here, a Miss Pattison [sic], sister of the poor murdered missionary Bishop,<2> who told our Vicar that she had once had a servant, whose brother was footman at Windsor, & had the care of the plate. If I can ask him anyhow in a roundabout way, a few shillings might extract many answers & particulars from him.
Yr aff cousin
Louisa C. Frampton
Accidentally looking over an old account of the Paris Exposition,<3> I see the Queen contributed largely to the department of antiquities, especially articles illustrating the reign of Charles 2d.<4> Then probably she may have some antique silver plate of his, though it has never been mentioned.
Lulworth Villa
Babbicombe<5>
Torquay
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Notes:
1. Post Office Order - a type of money order, suitable for small amounts, not specifying the name of the payee. It was essentially a guarantee of transfer of funds from one postmaster to another.
2. Bishop John Coleridge Patteson (1827 - 20 September 1871), the Anglican Bishop of Melanesia. He was murdered on the island of Nukapu in the Solomon Islands by natives, an action thought at the time to have been in revenge for the abduction of some of their tribe by white men. The martyrdom stimulated much interest at the time in England in missionary work, although later it developed that the killing might well have taken place because of his close relationship with a chief's wife.
3. The Exposition Universelle, or Paris Exposition. The most famous one was held in 1867, although since she said it was an 'old account', she may have been referring to the first one, held in 1855.
4. For another expression of Frampton's interest in Charles's plate, see Doc. No: 09983.
5. Now, more commonly Babbacombe; a district in Torquay, Devonshire.