Sheffield Archives LD1567/1

TRANSCRIPTION

 London    June 16^th

Dear Daughter   

I received yours with ---- of ----- to hear all is so well ---- with you and that the children is too. Positively (?) in spirits as your father wrote me with the ----. I have not been well myself -- but am better thank God. Your sister and I goes to Hackney on Saturday and shall stay there the next week -- ---- out the Monday following by Nottingham stage with Miss Preston. Shall tell you more when I see you. Shall be glad you would bring money and come and meet me. It will do Nancy good a ride. Your brother Charles is going into partnership which will be a fine thing for him but must defer Portickston till I see you. I have nothing material to write you for goes very little abroad. It has been such weather. I did not care to stir out.

Your sister joins with love to you and Nancy & Dolley. Likewise to Mr. Elliott and Jackey, which concludes me, your affectionate Mother

D. Wright

COMMENTARY

Letter[1] dated : June 16

To : Catherine Elliott, Norfolk Street, Sheffield

From : Dorothy Wright, London

Dorothy unhelpfully does not state a year on this letter, however internal evidence suggests 1757.

She mentions that her son Charles Wright[2], one of Rebecca’s younger brothers, was going into partnership. He had come to London as apprentice to Thomas Whipham[3], Citizen and Goldsmith of London, in 1747. He was made free of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in 1754 and received the Freedom of the City of London in the same year. A silver mark was registered to Charles Wright in partnership with Thomas Whipham in October 1757[4]. Therefore, this letter must have been written in the June shortly  before October 1757.

It is now nine years since the date of the last letter from Rebecca to her sister and many births, marriages, and deaths had happened during that time.

Dorothy was no doubt happy; now having more grandchildren, though she does not mention them! Her eldest son Jervas[5] had married in February 1749/50 and his only child Margaret[6] was born about 1752. Her second son, Joshua[7], had married a year earlier in February 1748/49 and had four children, two boys and two girls. Her fourth son, Thomas[8], had followed his sister Rebecca, to London and was apprenticed on 4^th February 1744/45 to Robert Cooper[9], a member of the Worshipful Company of Coopers, and the brother of David Cooper[10]. Thomas became a Freeman of the City of London in 1753. The fifth son, Charles, arrived in London in 1747.

There had been changes in the family of David and Rebecca Cooper as well. Rebecca Cooper[11], born in 1747, just after the first surviving letter written by her mother Rebecca, had died in 1754. Another daughter named Catherine[12] had been baptised in 1749 and she was still alive at the date of this letter.  Then came two of the three sons, David[13] junior in 1753, and Philip[14] in 1755; both survived until a good age. So, at the date of this letter Dorothy had three Cooper grandchildren and six Wright grandchildren to dote on.

There were also changes in the wider Cooper family. Francis Cooper[15], David’s father, died in March 1747/48, his wife survived him, living in Hackney, until 1766. Then David’s brother Philip Cooper[16] died in early 1755, the same year as the birth of his nephew Philip (David’s son); perhaps the nephew was named after his uncle. Philip, David’s brother, left a widow and three young children.

In this letter Dorothy talks of going to Hackney and staying there for a week. In all probability she was going to stay with Rebecca’s mother-in-law, Mary Cooper[17] née Harris. She mentions a Miss Preston who has been impossible to trace. David Cooper Junior was apprenticed in 1768 to a Richard Preston, a mercer in Holywell Street. Perhaps Miss Preston was a kinswoman.

Finally, in a coincidence that only a family historian would notice, in 1918, a direct descendant of Thomas Whipham, master and later in partnership with Charles Wright, married the widow of a direct descendant of Rebecca Cooper, the sister of Charles Wright!