Monday Novr 5th /66
My dear Father,
Please thank Mamma <1> for her letter which I received today. I am much obliged for the view of the interior of the church. I think it is fair. Sir W Sherrington’s <2> monument looks a good deal better from there than Sir John Talbots. <3>
I find from Snow Harris <4> book on Electricity that you furnished a model of an electric engine, that is electro-magnetic, which you never told me. I see also that Mr Llewellyn <5> who must be nr L of Penllergaer, <6> constructed a boat which he propelled on his lake by electro-magnetism.
Mullock comes up today so I shall see him tomorrow and be able to enter at the Temple. Today I have been looking at the South Kensington Museum. There is there a cabinet or rather a chest with ornament in laid carving on it, said to be Italian of the 14th century which the museum bought for 92 £. It is almost exactly the same in character as a certain chest wh. or box which I rescued out of the gardeners shed at Lacock one day seeing that it was curious. So if ours had been preserved in good condition we would might have 90 £ by it.
They go on flooring the newest part of this building with the tile paving and various forms of decoration which on the whole I think satisfactory and handsome.
The electrotype <7> articles are deceptive. They carry out the imitation of old articles by oxydizing the silver & bronzing the copper. I should prefer them without that. I think an object in bright copper is silver is generally preferable to one oxydized.
I find my lodgings somewhat inconveniently far from my club. <8> The pens at the club are bad which is a great nuisance
Your affect Son
Charles –
[envelope, flap blindstamped "New University Club":]
H Fox Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
2. Sir William Sherington or Sharington ( ca.1495–1553); in 1540 he bought the dissolved Lacock Abbey for £783 and in 1546, he became vice treasurer of the mint at Bristol. Using this position, he amassed an ill-gotten fortune allowing him to purchase several manors, chiefly in Wiltshire. These frauds soon came to the knowledge of the government, whereupon in 1549 Lacock Abbey was searched by the council’s agents resulting in him being sent to the Tower. After he eventually made full confessions, he threw himself on the king’s mercy and was pardoned in 1550.
3. John Ivory Talbot (d. 1772), created a Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford University 1736; was MP for Ludgershall 1715–1722 and Wiltshire 1727–1741.
4. Sir William Snow Harris (1791–1867), electrician; knighted in 1847 for his improved lightning conductor. He wrote extensively on the subject of electricity up to this period, which makes it difficult in pinning it down to a particular publication.
5. John Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882), Welsh photographer, JP & High Sheriff.
6. Lake at Penllergaer.
7. Electrotyping, a manufacturing method for producing facsimiles, grew up concurrently with photography, having been announced by Moritz von Jacobi in St Petersburg at the end of 1838. A mould was formed from an original (such as a printing plate) and this mould was made electrically conductive by brushing with graphite; electricity could then be used to deposit copper in this mould, thus duplicating the original. In the printing industry, it eventually supplanted the stereotype process, where a paper maché mould was employed to make duplicate plates. [See Larry J Schaaf, Sun Pictures Catalogue Twelve: Talbot and Photogravure (New York: Hans P Kraus, Jr, 2003), pp. 40–41].
8. New University Club, St James’s Street, London SW.