Edinburgh
Christmas day
My dear Charles
We all wish you a merry Christmas –
This was a most beautiful day, warm and pleasant. I have seen no snow this winter and hope there will be very little severe weather if any. How do you find the climate of Torquay at present? Is it too mild and relaxing? I shall like to have some account of my cousins in Glamorganshire <1> – Are they all pretty flourishing? Our late Lord Provost is gone to Italy for three years it is said to rest himself and economize. The new one <2> speaks much of improving the Town but I believing [sic] nothing has been as yet actually done or even begun. He will not be able to attain the popularity of his predecessor.
Your affte
Father
[envelope:]
C. H. Talbot Esq.at Mr Mallock's
Cockington Court
Torquay
Notes:
1. The grandchildren of Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776–1855), WHFT’s aunt.
2. William Chambers (1800–1883), publisher and author, Lord provost of Edinburgh, 1865–1869, and the chief promoter of the Edinburgh City Improvement Act of 1867. He is attributed to a great part of Edinburgh’s modernisation programme by demolishing its medieval slums and creating wider and healthier streets for its inhabitants. An acknowledgement of this accomplishment was to have a street in Edinburgh, Chambers Street, named after him. One of the publications of note to emerge from W. & R. Chambers, a joint venture with his brother, Robert Chambers (1802–1871), was Chambers’s Encyclopædia, 10 volumes, 1859–1868.