I broke off the previous positing just when I had got to the point where - on my first day with the Headlam Papers - I had found something so relevant to my project that it didn't feel real.
And on Day One at that, in my second hour in the Collections and in the first folder of letters I had looked at.
A heads-up: I've not found anything so absolutely relevant since - although I have found so many interesting things that the project might end up going in different directions from what I'd envisaged.
Perhaps, I am now finding, if Classics is a marker of a young man's educational progress in the 19th century, then letters might not be the best place to find this evidence.
I am writing this on Tuesday 20th February - a week on from my first day with the collection. Here is the account of what happened when I found a letter to Isabella Headlam (1818 [or 1815 - see the last posting]-1871) from her brother Francis John (1829-1908) dated May 2nd 1841, when he will have been around 12.
Could this be a letter from school I wondered as I started reading it - i.e. a letter of the sort that I was in Durham to consult?
Oh yes - it was. Francis was writing to his sister from Eton, where he had just begun his time as a pupil.
 |
| Eton College - 'a very nice place' according to Francis John Headlam in his letter to Isabella - as its gateway might have looked while Francis was a student. Nineteenth-century view, sourced from here (in the public domain) |
The handwriting didn't look to me like that of a 12 year-old - it looked as mature as that of any of the other correspondents. But there was one difference. This writer seemed not to have been bothered about how much paper he filled up. The paper he was using was larger than that used for many of the other letters and the writing is quite large.
More than that, Francis goes onto a second sheet of paper - just for a few lines (no writing over at 90 degrees here, of the kind I'd been faced with earlier in the folder).
I wish I could share the handwriting here but the photos I took need to be for personal use only - though I shall seek permission to reproduce them.
I plan to give a full summary of the letter at some point, but for now here are some high points.
Francis begins by telling his sister that Eton 'is a very nice place at least as far as I have seen'. Then he talks about the structure of the school day, starting as follows:
We have always one holiday in the week off not two and also a half one for whole schooldays. We go into school at 7 and come out at half past then we do anything we like till 8 when we go in again and then come out at half past eight we then do not go in again till eleven.
As he continues, he comes to mention just one subject, and it is... Greek!
In the afternoon we have very little to do as we generally say by heart what we did in the morning or else we do Greek Grammar and come out as soon as we have said.
And that's it. Still in the same paragraph he tells Isabella that he has all the things he needs with him before telling her about a problem he has (I think... I'll need to have another go at the handwriting) possibly with blisters. Then he turns to the 'quality of amusements' available at school which include 'bathing'.
Then he turns to a second subject: Botany. Here, unlike with the Greek, he goes into detail, and sounds really engaged, perhaps because this would be especially interesting to Isabella? Then - this is all in one paragraph - he moves onto something about a statue of George III and then he talks, quirkily, about (I think) two of his Masters, and then about his room, which he doesn't like.
He ends by saying he will write more soon - but there wasn't another letter from him in the folder. Hopefully I'll find others in different folders.
The remaining letters were more like the others and included letters from correspondents whose letters I'd already read. Of these, one stood out, dated February 6th 1885, informing Isabella about the death of 'Dear Mary' who had died very young. Here I felt increasingly as though I was intruding into personal grief. Mary had, the author wrote, died 'an early death...before she has known [word I can't read] sorrow'.
Just when I had reached the final letter in the folder, the librarian came over to tell myself and other remaining library users that our time was up for the day.
So, on that first afternoon, I had found one letter that was deeply relevant and many others which provide lots of context for the life of the Headlam family as seen though letters to one of its members.
I came away having gone though a range of emotions as I read the words of successive correspondents. One was for sure excitement at having found the letter from Francis where the one subject mentioned in an account of the school day was Greek.
There wasn't anything said about how he was finding the subject, and the lack of any details could be the point. Greek, it would seem from the letter, was just much as a part of his day as 'coming out' and 'going in' to school.
I'll write up what I found on my second day in the Collection - which left my head spinning - as soon as I can.
No comments:
Post a Comment