TRANSCRIPTION

To : Mrs Elliott, Stony Strafford

Dear Daughter   Sheffield Park July 6^th 1743

I received yours and glad to hear you are all well as we are all at present, thanks to God. Likewise those things and like my cap mighty well and give you thanks for your trouble you have sent no charge of the handkerchiefs. But if you don't it shan't be forgot. I've been very uneasy since I had yours about your sister and you, and sorry there should be any shyness betwixt you. I could not help crying for I have always been a indulgent mother to you all and should be glad you would be one to another. I've reprimanded her in her letter so would have you not to be very uneasy about it, but to live lovingly and part such forget and forgive and experience will make all those things natural to you in time, for God knows how soon we may be deprived of either seeing or hearing from one another. Dolly is a very fine girl and goes to school very willingly and learns her books fast. At first she was a little sulky and though Cawton snub her for it and now she talks and rattles to him and say don't I mend.

I've not got the yarn from the Whiteng yet but have got the blow ready so will get it done as soon as it comes for I've spoke to Betty Hanley to work it as soon as it's ready. Please to let me know whether you'll have your gown made here or no. I've sent your sleeves and work basket. It cost 10 pence. I would have you send your brother 2 or 3 pound of butter every journey while the weather is so hot. 4 pound will not keep good. I'm afraid to let your father pay for it.

Your grandmother joins with love to your spouse and also all from your affectionate Mother.

D. Wright

P.S. Please to give my love and respect to all who are down and hope Cousin febey will accompany back down

 

COMMENTARY

Letter[i] dated : 6^th July 1743

To : Catherine Elliott, Stony Stratford, Bucks

From : Dorothy Wright, Sheffield 

This is the first in a series of letters written mostly by three female members of the Wright family of Sheffield, between 1743 and 1795; a period of great changes, with wars, revolutions, changes of monarchy and of prime ministers. It was the time of the War of the Austrian Succession; 1740-1748, the Seven Years War; 1756-1763, and the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1785. Britain, through the Honourable East India Company, was cementing its place in India, closer to home was the Jacobite uprising of 1745 and the start of the French Revolution in 1789.

In 1743 King George 11 was the last English monarch to lead an army into battle at Dettingen on 27^th June 1743. The Hardwicke’s Marriage Act of 1743 was passed and in 1751, England changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.  Most of Europe had been using the latter calendar for many years, so the practice of denoting dates as “Old Style” or “New Style” had arisen to distinguish between European and British dates. Eleven days were deducted from the calendar in 1752[ii], which caused much confusion in the general population, with some Londoners demanding; “Give us back our eleven days”!  Also, 1^st January 1752 became the first day of the year instead of 25^th March as it had been. Perhaps of more ominous importance; was the reduction of the tax on gin[iii], in 1743.

These letters do not mention such events, focusing instead on the small, the domestic; family, children, food, clothes, and their social life. It gives us a small window into the lives of women who were not of the nobility, about whom we usually hear, but were educated and comfortably off nevertheless.

In this first letter, dated 6^th July 1743, we meet Dorothy Wright[iv]. Dorothy had married Thomas Wright[v] in what is now Sheffield Cathedral on 4^th February 1717/18. They had twelve children. She wrote this letter from her home in Sheffield to her daughter Catherine[vi], seemingly known as “Kitty” within the family. Catherine “Kitty” was the second child, and oldest daughter, and she had married George Elliott[vii] on 5^th February 1743/43, just a few months before the date of this letter. George Elliott, unlike the Wrights and the Coopers has not left us much information about his life. According to the marriage licence and the parish register for the marriage he was from the parish of Stony Stratford and a chapman. Chapman was an old term for a merchant, trader or peddler. After the marriage the couple went to live in Stony Stratford – some 116 miles from Sheffield.

The letter hints at a sibling disagreement between Catherine “Kitty” and a sister but does not give us any clue as to what it was about. We must presume that the sister was Rebecca[viii], who was the third child of Dorothy, she and Catherine “Kitty” were close in age. There were six sisters in all, Catherine “Kitty” and Rebecca being the eldest, three who had died in infancy before the date of this letter. Then there was Dorothy[ix], known as “Dolly”, baptised in 1737, and only about 6 years old at the date of this letter. The disagreement cannot have lasted long as Catherine “Kitty” and Rebecca were soon corresponding again.

Catherine “Kitty” and Rebecca had six brothers, all of whom survived into adulthood. We will meet some of them over the course of these letters.

As a mother, Dorothy, was concerned about the wellbeing of her children. Dorothy “Dolly” was the eleventh of her twelve children. She was the second child to be named Dorothy;  the first only having lived a few years and died two years before the birth of this Dorothy “Dolly”. At the date of this letter “Dolly” was about six years old. It is not clear from the letter if she was going to an actual school or receiving her lessons at home from a tutor or governess. Cawton is probably the tutor, teacher or governess and possible related to the Wright family, as Richard Wright[x], the brother of Thomas Wright, married Ann Cawton[xi] in 1709/10.

Dorothy mentioned Catherine’s “Kitty” Kitty’s grandmother. It is not clear whether it is Dorothy’s mother Rebecca Jervas[xii], née Marsden, 1680-1749, or her mother-in-law, Dorothea Wright[xiii], born Coppie, who married Richard Wright[xiv] in 1684, and for whom a burial has been impossible to trace.

The butter! Catherine was in Stony Stratford and her mother was in Sheffield. We do not know which of the six brothers the butter was to be sent to, but in all probability all the brothers were still living in Sheffield. Today the thought of sending butter, in a cart from Stony Stratford to Sheffield over rough roads without refrigeration on a journey would probably have taken several days is not an appealing thought. It is difficult to know the reason she does not want her husband to pay for the butter. Did he think it an unnecessary extravagance? Or did she think it was going to arrive in bad condition and then he would not want to pay?

Finally, it has been impossible to trace who exactly “cousin Febey” was.

Notes & Bibliography