HAM/1/3/1/2
Letter from Mrs Sarah Dickenson (née Chetham) to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
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2.
Typed.
Taxal Janry: 21st: 1771
my dear Miʃs Hamilton
before you did me
the honour to write to me, I told you I was the
worst Correspondent in the World. & I have not
deceiv'd you. but how is it poʃsible you shou'd
wish for a Letter from me, who in this little
retirement can find nothing, which deserves
to be the subject of one, to a young Lady? my
whole employment is my Family & Children;
if you cou'd see some of them, I think they wou'd
divert you, but that which is pleasing to a fond
Mother, is too insignificant to be committed to
paper. but I shou'd think nothing triffling, which
wou'd in return procure me a Letter from you.
You will easily gueʃs, who is the bearer of this, by
his complexion; he has had great disadvantages
by being brought up at a Country School, but I
hope your fine Town will polish him. You'l excuse
me not saying more at present, I woud not let this
opportunity slip by without paying my compts-. to you,
tho' I am under a good deal of Anxiety upon part-
ing with my dear Boy. Sally often talks of you
with pleasure & gratitude. I beg you will present
my best respects to Mr & Mrs: Hamilton, & I am
Your Affect & oblig'd
S Dickenson
Mr D: desires I will give
his Compts: to you, tho he has
not the pleasure of knowing you.
▼
To
Miʃs Hamilton
Northampton
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red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Taxal January 21st: 1771
my dear Miss Hamilton
before you did me
the honour to write to me, I told you I was the
worst Correspondent in the World. & I have not
deceived you. but how is it possible you should
wish for a Letter from me, who in this little
retirement can find nothing, which deserves
to be the subject of one, to a young Lady? my
whole employment is my Family & Children;
if you could see some of them, I think they would
divert you, but that which is pleasing to a fond
Mother, is too insignificant to be committed to
paper. but I should think nothing trifling, which
would in return procure me a Letter from you.
You will easily guess, who is the bearer of this, by
his complexion; he has had great disadvantages
by being brought up at a Country School, but I
hope your fine Town will polish him. You'll excuse
me not saying more at present, I would not let this
opportunity slip by without paying my compliments to you,
though I am under a good deal of Anxiety upon parting
with my dear Boy. Sally often talks of you
with pleasure & gratitude. I beg you will present
my best respects to Mr & Mrs: Hamilton, & I am
Your Affectionate & obliged
Sarah Dickenson
Mr Dickenson desires I will give
his Compliments to you, though he has
not the pleasure of knowing you.
▼
To
Miss Hamilton
Northampton
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Mrs Sarah Dickenson (née Chetham) to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/3/1/2
Correspondence Details
Sender: Sarah Dickenson (née Chetham)
Place sent: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Northampton
Date sent: 21 January 1771
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mrs Sarah Dickenson to Mary Hamilton. Mrs Dickenson writes that she had given Hamilton warning that she was a poor correspondent and wonders at her wishing to correspond with her as she feels her life would not interest a young woman. Mrs Dickenson devotes her time to her family and children. The children 'wou[l]d divert you, but that which is pleasing to a fond mother, is too insignificant to be committed to paper'. Alluding to her son John, Mrs Dickenson notes that Hamilton can guess who the 'bearer of this [letter is], by his complexion; he has had great disadvantages by being brought up at a country school, but I hope your fine town will polish him'. She continues that she is anxious over 'parting' with her son and that she would not miss the opportunity of sending her compliments to Hamilton and ends the letter noting that Mr Dickenson sends his compliments although he has not 'the pleasure of knowing you'.
Dated at Taxal [Derbyshire].
Length: 1 sheet, 248 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).
All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.
Acknowledgements: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.
Transliterator: Christine Wallis, editorial team (completed 27 July 2020)
Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library
Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 4 April 2022