Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/3/1/4

Letter from Mrs Sarah Dickenson (née Chetham) to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text

[1]
4.
      Typed[2]

                             Taxal Febry: 10th: 1772
      ▼

      My Dear Miʃs Hamilton may justly
accuse me of neglect. I dont know how it was, but at
the time when civility most demanded I shou'd write
to you, I cou'd not do it. I had myself so lately drank
of the bitter Cup of Affliction, that I was fearful of adding
to yours,[3] by writing to you; & that my Heart wou'd
dictate to my Pen, too feellingly, for your Sensibility.
I hope your good Sense has enabled you to resume your
wonted Chearfulneʃs, & agreeable employments; & that
I shall have the pleasure of hearing from you very soon.
Your little Friend (who you was so partial to) desires her
love to you. She grows fast, & is exceʃsively fond of Books.
much more than her Needle; but we propose in Spring
to send her to a boarding School. indeed it is high
time, for she is almost ran wild.
I hope Mrs: Hamilton is well. please to present my
most respectful Compts: to her; & believe me my Dr:
Miʃs: H——                               Your sincere Friend
                                                         & obliged Humble: Servt:
                                                         S Dickenson

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. This letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 10-11).
 2. Moved annotation here from space between dateline and letter, written diagonally.
 3. Mrs Dickenson had lost a daughter, and perhaps another child too, in 1771 (see HAM/1/3/1/1). Hamilton had lost her father in September 1771.

Normalised Text



     

                             Taxal February 10th: 1772
      ▼

      My Dear Miss Hamilton may justly
accuse me of neglect. I don't know how it was, but at
the time when civility most demanded I should write
to you, I could not do it. I had myself so lately drunk
of the bitter Cup of Affliction, that I was fearful of adding
to yours, by writing to you; & that my Heart would
dictate to my Pen, too feelingly, for your Sensibility.
I hope your good Sense has enabled you to resume your
wonted Cheerfulness, & agreeable employments; & that
I shall have the pleasure of hearing from you very soon.
Your little Friend (who you was so partial to) desires her
love to you. She grows fast, & is excessively fond of Books.
much more than her Needle; but we propose in Spring
to send her to a boarding School. indeed it is high
time, for she is almost run wild.
I hope Mrs: Hamilton is well. please to present my
most respectful Compliments to her; & believe me my Dear
Miss: Hamilton                Your sincere Friend
                                                         & obliged Humble Servant
                                                         Sarah Dickenson

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. This letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 10-11).
 2. Moved annotation here from space between dateline and letter, written diagonally.
 3. Mrs Dickenson had lost a daughter, and perhaps another child too, in 1771 (see HAM/1/3/1/1). Hamilton had lost her father in September 1771.

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/1/3/1/4

Correspondence Details

Sender: Sarah Dickenson (née Chetham)

Place sent: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 10 February 1772

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mrs Sarah Dickenson to Mary Hamilton. Mrs Dickenson apologises for her neglectful correspondence and notes that her daughter, Sally, is growing more fond of books 'than her needle' and that she is to be sent to boarding school in spring.
    Dated at Taxal [Derbyshire].
   

Length: 1 sheet, 187 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: 2 April 2022

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