Single Letter

HAM/1/4/2/25

Letter from Frederick Hamilton to John Dickenson

Diplomatic Text


My dear Sir,

      You have laid me under the greatest poʃsible obligations by
your unwearied attentions to me & my dear unfortunate daughter;
when the fatal moment has paʃs'd I beg you will entrust the
care of her funeral to my worthy friend Mrs. Mann. I wish it to
be very private, but at the same time not unbecoming the
beloved object, every expectense shall be immediately defray'd.
From my regard to Mrs. Mann's health, & of the Proprietors of
the House, who have behaved with great attention to Mrs Hol=
man
, I expreʃsly forbid that her body shou'd be open'd in the
House, there is no knowing what a dangerous disorder might
be produced by the putrid effluvia; as this apprehension is
is founded in reason, I shudder at exposing the lives of good
& innocent persons to any hazard, for the same reason I recom=
mend
that the funeral shoud be accellerated; with my best
regards to Mrs. Dickenson & your dear Daughter I remain your
                                                         Faithful, humble Servant
                                                                   Frederick Hamilton
Brock St. Bath
      June 6th. 1810.[1]



It appeared to me by this letter that somebody had wrote to Mr. Hamilton
to prepare to have the body opened as I should not have proposed such a neceʃsary
Inspection to him. J D.




John Dickenson Esqr.[2]
      No. 49 Welbeck Street
                             London
[3]


[4]
6 June 1810[5]

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


Notes


 1. This dateline appears to the left of the closing salutation and signature.
 2. Postmarks 'E 7 JU 7 1810' (indicating that the letter went through the post on 7 June 1810) and 'BATH' above address when unfolded.
 3. A large '8' is written to the right of the address, possibly indicating postage due.
 4. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
 5. This annotation appears in the right margin, written vertically.

Normalised Text


My dear Sir,

      You have laid me under the greatest possible obligations by
your unwearied attentions to me & my dear unfortunate daughter;
when the fatal moment has passed I beg you will entrust the
care of her funeral to my worthy friend Mrs. Mann. I wish it to
be very private, but at the same time not unbecoming the
beloved object, every expense shall be immediately defrayed.
From my regard to Mrs. Mann's health, & of the Proprietors of
the House, who have behaved with great attention to Mrs Holman
, I expressly forbid that her body should be opened in the
House, there is no knowing what a dangerous disorder might
be produced by the putrid effluvia; as this apprehension is
founded in reason, I shudder at exposing the lives of good
& innocent persons to any hazard, for the same reason I recommend
that the funeral should be accelerated; with my best
regards to Mrs. Dickenson & your dear Daughter I remain your
                                                         Faithful, humble Servant
                                                                   Frederick Hamilton
Brock Street Bath
      June 6th. 1810.







John Dickenson Esqr.
      No. 49 Welbeck Street
                             London




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



 1. This dateline appears to the left of the closing salutation and signature.
 2. Postmarks 'E 7 JU 7 1810' (indicating that the letter went through the post on 7 June 1810) and 'BATH' above address when unfolded.
 3. A large '8' is written to the right of the address, possibly indicating postage due.
 4. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
 5. This annotation appears in the right margin, written vertically.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Frederick Hamilton to John Dickenson

Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/2/25

Correspondence Details

Sender: Frederick Hamilton

Place sent: Bath

Addressee: John Dickenson

Place received: London

Date sent: 7 June 1810

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Rev. Frederick Hamilton to John Dickenson. The letter relates to the funeral arrangements for Mrs Holman. Frederick Hamilton wishes it to be a very private affair but at the same time he does not want it to be 'unbecoming the beloved object'. He forbids that Mrs Holman's body be 'open[e]d in the House, there is no knowing what a dangerous disorder might be produced by the putrid effluvia', and he does not want to risk the health of others. Included on the sheet is a note from John Dickenson in which it appears to him that someone had previously written to Frederick Hamilton to have the body opened or he 'should not have proposed such a necessary Inspection' to him.
    Dated at Bath.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 184 words

Transliteration Information

Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now incorporated 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: XML version: Research Assistant funding in 2013/14 provided by G.L. Brook bequest, University of Manchester.

Research assistant: George Bailey, undergraduate student, University of Manchester

Research assistant: Carla Seabra-Dacosta, MA student, University of Vigo

Transliterator: Joseph Doherty, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted December 2013)

Transliterator: Limeng Tang, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted December 2013)

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 November 2021

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