Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/4/7/2

Letter from Elizabeth Hamilton (née Onslow) to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


Wimpole Street Sunday Even:


My Dear Madam,
      I feel myself much obliged
to you for the great perseveriance shown me
by you in trying to get sight of such a Goʃsiping
Old Woman; the Many Daughters I have had to
Chapron has been the real cause.[1] I go out of
Town on Tuesday for the Summer, & having no
Carriage & a bad Walker; would you have the Goodneʃs
to fix upon any Hour to Morrow between twelve
One, & four O'Clock for my having the Honour
of seeing you here? Various things have happend in
my Sisterhood since we met that I shall have
Pleasure to relate & equal satisfaction to hear
you relate Pleasant Anecdotes of your Family. I am
      My Dear Madam, very Much your Obliged Humble Servant
                                                         E. Hamilton


                                                         [2]
Honble. Mrs. Hamilton
Mother to Marchioneʃs
of Abercorn[3] &c
May or June
1795


Mrs Dickenson No. 4
Boulton Street
Piccadilly[4]

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


Notes


 1. Hon George Hamilton and his wife Elizabeth had ten children who survived to adulthood, of whom nine were daughters and eight were still living in 1795. Of those, three are known to have been married by the end of this year: Cecil had married the Marquess of Abercorn, her cousin John Hamilton, in 1792 (they would divorce in 1799), Elizabeth had married Glynn Wynn in 1793, and Isabella married Lord George Seymour in 1795 (possibly after the date of the letter). At best then, Mrs Hamilton still had up to six unmarried daughters to chaperone.
 2. Seal, in black wax, in the top-right corner.
 3. Lady Cecil Hamilton, who married in 1792 John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn (divorced in 1799).
 4. This address is written vertically.

Normalised Text


Wimpole Street Sunday Evening


My Dear Madam,
      I feel myself much obliged
to you for the great perseverance shown me
by you in trying to get sight of such a Gossiping
Old Woman; the Many Daughters I have had to
Chaperone has been the real cause. I go out of
Town on Tuesday for the Summer, & having no
Carriage & a bad Walker; would you have the Goodness
to fix upon any Hour to Morrow between
One, & four O'Clock for my having the Honour
of seeing you here? Various things have happened in
my Sisterhood since we met that I shall have
Pleasure to relate & equal satisfaction to hear
you relate Pleasant Anecdotes of your Family. I am
      My Dear Madam, very Much your Obliged Humble Servant
                                                         Elizabeth Hamilton


                                                        


Mrs Dickenson No. 4
Boulton Street
Piccadilly

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



 1. Hon George Hamilton and his wife Elizabeth had ten children who survived to adulthood, of whom nine were daughters and eight were still living in 1795. Of those, three are known to have been married by the end of this year: Cecil had married the Marquess of Abercorn, her cousin John Hamilton, in 1792 (they would divorce in 1799), Elizabeth had married Glynn Wynn in 1793, and Isabella married Lord George Seymour in 1795 (possibly after the date of the letter). At best then, Mrs Hamilton still had up to six unmarried daughters to chaperone.
 2. Seal, in black wax, in the top-right corner.
 3. Lady Cecil Hamilton, who married in 1792 John Hamilton, 1st Marquess of Abercorn (divorced in 1799).
 4. This address is written vertically.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Elizabeth Hamilton (née Onslow) to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/7/2

Correspondence Details

Sender: Elizabeth Hamilton (née Onslow)

Place sent: London

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: London

Date sent: between May and June 1795
notBefore May 1795 (precision: high)
notAfter June 1795 (precision: high)

Letter Description

Summary: Mary Hamilton has written on the sheet that the letter was written to her from 'Mrs [E] Hamilton mother to Marchioness of Abercorn'.
    The letter relates to Mrs Hamilton arranging a meeting with Mary Hamilton.
    Dated at Wimpole Street [London].
   

Length: 1 sheet, 139 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 31 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 November 2021

Document Image (pdf)