Over the last couple of weeks, I've increasingly enjoyed the glimpses I've had into the lives and interests of the Headlam young people that their letters provide. What I had not found all that much yet, though, was anything concerning their formal education.
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| Palace Green photographed from Whorton Park (see below) after an eventful day finding out about Headlam young men |
That changed today. By today I mean Wednesday 28th February - as ever, it's taken me a few days to finalise typing up and to add in the quotations, some of which have needed to be retrieved from the photos I took of particular documents whose handwriting can take a while to decipher...
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| Photo of 5 North Bailey, the Ironside provider I read about on my previous day with the Headlam Papers |
As I've mentioned previously, on my first very day with the Headlam Papers, I read a letter from Francis John to his sister Isabella sent when he was just a short time into his time at Eton. My account of finding that letter - and getting quite enthusiastic about it - is here. Today, I got to read about this young man - and some of his brothers - from the teachers and others who were writing to his father John Headlam.
The correspondence I looked at today was dated between from 1833 and 1847 and - neatly and coincidentally - it was topped and tailed with things concerning Cambridge.
Indeed now I think of it, so many of my days have had their arcs - each has been distinctive - and yet this hasn't been through design. Rather, what I've looked at has been determined by what the librarians find it easiest to retrieve. I'll return to this point later in this post...
The first Cambridge-related letter, from 1833, was from a Thomas Smith saying - amidst providing news of his own family (a daughter getting married... a son going into Law...) that he is pleased to hear that John's son - this must be his oldest son, Thomas Emerson - is doing well academically given that:
there is a shameful profligacy at Cambridge, & as I have understood, no less at Oxford
The other, meanwhile, concerned another of John's sons, Arthur. Arthur must presumably have been one of the Cambridge students who managed to keep away from anything amounting to 'shameful profligacy' at university, since he is being congratulated on his success in the Classical Tripos. This, I would come to find out as the day unfolded, was characteristic of the academic success of this particular son.
In between reading these two letters concerned with Cambridge, I saw letters conveying how well - or not - John's sons were progressing at several schools, and at Cambridge and Durham Universities, the latter of which then very-newly established.
Many of the papers were in the form of bills for school fees and updates on the progress and wellbeing of the youngest three sons, from 1836 onwards.
I will need to go though all these letters carefully - in some cases I've only had time for a quick read though, and sometimes a not very satisfactory read though as the handwriting can take time to decipher. But I have photos of the key letters, so this is something I can follow up on.
I'll start with the oldest of the three, Edward. There were some striking details such as his tendency to talk in class, which is noted in a letter of 6 August 1839, as is Edward's 'resistance to authority'. Conversely, though, he is described as a 'very good boy' in a letter of 1843.
The son for whom there was the most consistency is the middle of the three: Arthur. The reports keep stating that he is doing well and that he excels, notably, at Maths.
As for Francis John, whose 1841 letter from Eton I had read a couple of weeks earlier, his progress was variable. In a letter from when he will have been around ten - dated 13 June 1839 - he is described as progressing well, although, John is advised, he needs to work on his Latin composition. A letter of 31 December of the same year, meanwhile, reports on his progress, especially in Latin, and says that he is due to start Greek too - suggesting I assume that he is doing sufficiently well to be given this opportunity (no. 259 in the catalogue - that note is for me!).
When Francis moves to Eton, however, his promise isn't matched by his progress. In a letter of 1841, for example, John is told that Francis will need to work harder both at school and during the holidays at home.
Something must have worked though: for letters from 1843 note an improvement in his progress.
That's all I am able to share at the moment about the individual boys. I need to go though everything - ideally once I've got my photos off my phone and put them on a larger screen, or even printed them out. But I have the raw evidence at least and am able to give at least an overview of what I have found. I need to stress though that I've not got everything sorted out yet - though that can be fixed once I go though everything.
This includes: which boy is being referred to in each case, and which school they are at any point - apart from Eton in the case of Francis. That is the one school I am clear on, helped by the fact that on my first day in the archives, I read the letter from there that I keep mentioning. Other schools that appear are Durham Grammar School and Sedbergh - another Grammar School?
I wonder what determined which school each boy would go to - given that it's Arthur who was most consistently successful, for instance, why not Eton for him?
There were some other bits of information I should mention, including ones that give some information about the classical texts that will have been studied...
I saw a list of classical texts from 1838 (250 in the catalogue)
From 1853 [check], meanwhile, there is a bill (320 in the catalogue) from 1853 for a list of books including some classical texts [info to follow - or message me via susan.deacy@bristol.ac.uk or iodama2000@yahoo.com if you would like this sooner].
The bills from Durham Grammar School include fees for Greek and Latin, for Latin only (cheaper than for both languages), Maths (cheaper still) and French ('when desired'). There are fees listed for entrance exams in Classics and Mathematics, and for scholarships in Greek and Latin.
In addition to the correspondence concerning the progress of John's sons at school, I read two letters dealing with different matters.
One was concerned with an insult that the author, a man named Arthur Lonsdale, had suffered at the hands of two of John's sons when they had knocked him down while riding on horse back and never apologised. This letter only gives a date of 'Thursday evening', though, according to a note from the archivist in the online Catalogue, it dates to around 1835.
Who could the two sons have been? John had six sons who survived infancy:
- Thomas Emerson 1813-1875
- John 1818-1871
- Morley 1822-1884
- Edward 1824-1884
- Arthur William 1826-1909
- Francis John 1829-1908
As for the other letter that didn't fit the pattern, this one also concerns something that the author is unhappy about. It's from the oldest son, Thomas Emerson, and was sent a year later than the one from Mr Lonsdale, in June 1836. Here, writing from Cambridge (this is the only thing I read to day authored BY one of John's children), Thomas shares with his father how deeply disappointed he is to have failed to get a University scholarship - so much so that he now feels tired of Cambridge.
Reading the sense of disappointment and disillusionment that comes through felt all the more poignant to me coming as it did following a letter I'd just read of April of the same year from a Charlotte Downes with whom Thomas ('Tom' she calls him) had been staying where she expresses her hope for his success.
A couple more things that interested me - of a general kind.
Firstly, the previous letters I'd read had been sent in envelopes - and some of the original envelopes were still present - and as I've mentioned, one letter I found was still IN its envelope. But the ones I looked at today were the earliest letters I'd looked at to date and they turned out to date from before envelopes were commonly being used. Instead, the correspondents had folded up their sheet/s of paper and fixed the letter with a wax seal.
I've just done some very quick research into the use of wax seals and see that the colour of the seal would depend on such things as the gender of the author (red if from a man, for instance) and whether the author was in mourning in which case they'd use a black seal. When I was working my way though the letters, what interested me was the very fact that there were seals rather than envelopes. In the future, I'll pay attention to the colour of the seal.
But even if I had known what I now do about the colour of wax seals, I wouldn't have had all that much time to consider which colour particular correspondents had used. This is because - and here I get to the second general point about today's session with the Collection - I approached the task of working through correspondence differently today than previously.
As I mentioned in my posting about what I did yesterday, I spent time away from the library while the librarian worked out what further materials could be retrieved for me. While I was waiting, I decided to create a long-list of documents that looked particularly relevant to my project. Then, when back in the library, I focused almost exclusively on these documents.
This meant that I read more than on previous days that was directly relevant to my research, but with two drawbacks. Firstly, I lost the excitement at coming unexpectedly upon something concerned with young people. Secondly, I was aware that I was potentially missing interesting stuff that, while not directly relevant to my project, might help give context for the Headlams. The letter I read on my first day with the Collection about Isabella's correspondent's hunt for baskets, for instance, had helped put the information that Francis John shared with her about what he was up to at school into context.
As I may, therefore, have missed interesting things, I would like some time to go back to these folders. For now however, as my time with the collection is so short, efficiency can win out.
I'm sorry that this posting isn't as complete as I'd like it to be - as I found so much, I haven't had time to share all of it. But I've tried to give an overview at least.
After the library closed, I made my way as usual to the train station. As my train was delayed, I had a wander around and discovered steps up to Wharton Park, which, I've since found out was developed in the 1850s, so around the time of the correspondence I've been reading. The views from there over the city are stunning as these photographs - one at the top of this posting, the other above the present paragraph - hopefully convey.
More asap...
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