7 Clifford Street
Friday Decr
Dear Henry
I am come & have brought you a book called Dieffenbach’s Celtica <1> – & also some odd numbers of Mone’s Anzeiger – which will interest you I think. I shall leave them at Nicoles <2> – in case you come up.
I stay here till the middle of next week – Are you to be at Lacock all the winter – Can you tell me anything of the Mundys? <3> I last heard from the Trahernes <4> at Venice.
John <5> comes to Melbury <6> for Xmas. Are you for or against Rothschild? <7>
Yr Affe
W F Strangways
Henry F. Talbot Esqe
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Lorenz Diefenbach (1806–1883), Celtica (Stuttgart: Imle & Liesching, 1839).
2. Nicolaas Henneman (1813–1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT’s valet, then assistant; photographer.
3. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
4. Charlotte Louisa 'Charry' Traherne, née Talbot (1800–1880), WHFT’s cousin and her husband.
5. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.
6. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there
7. Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1808–1879), banker and philanthropist, elected to Parliament in 1847 but not allowed to take his seat as he refused to take the Christian oath. [It was not until 1858 that the matter of an alternative oath was resolved].