Introducing…The Victorian Collection at the Armstrong Browning Library: a Baylor Libraries Digital Collection—Theater, Art, and Music

By Melinda Creech, PhD, Graduate Assistant 

Marie Ada Molineux (1856-1936), Author, Bacteriologist, Psychologist, Charter Member of the Boston Browning Society. Nell Pomeroy O'Brien, painter. 1936. Courtesy of the Armstrong Browning LibraryThe Armstrong Browning Library is pleased to announce the release of The Victorian Collection online. This new digital collection contains over 3,000 letters and manuscripts connected to prominent and lesser known British and American figures and complements the Armstrong Browning Library’s unparalleled collection of materials relating to the Victorian poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The letters and manuscripts in this growing collection can be browsed and searched by date, author, keyword, or first line of text. Letters from the collection are currently on display in Hankamer Treasure Room.

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Theater, Art, and Music

In addition to letters from literary figures, letters about science, exploration, religion, and politics, many letters related to the arts — theater, visual arts, and music — are also a part of the Victorian Collection.

The ABL owns an album once belonging to Fanny Kemble, (1809-1893), a notable British Actress. The album contains letters to Mrs. Kemble from such notables as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Charlotte Cushman, Owen Wister, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and James Ballantyne. Mrs. Kemble’s note below comments on Mr. Ballantyne’s review of her work and points to a favorable opinion by Sir Walter Scott.

Note from Fanny Kemble. 25 June [1830].

Note from Fanny Kemble. 25 June [1830]. Envelope address.

Note from Fanny Kemble. 25 June [1830]. Envelope verso.

*****

The ABL also owns twenty-two letters from Kate Field, an American journalist, correspondent, editor, lecturer, and actress. Her letters are always rather flamboyant, often written in purple ink. In this letter she is very nervous about Mr. Phillips opinion of her performance. She writes to Mrs. Sargent—

I am dying to know what Mr. Phillips thinks of my performance on Monday last. The sight of him, the dread silence of the audience, the noise of pianos, and the pounding in the entry, completely upset me, and I had hard work to pull through – I know that I was artificial in my delivery I was self-conscious. Everybody has criticized me but Mr. Phillips, and he of all others is the one I want to hear from. I don’t want to badger him into criticism, however, and I ask you to be my messenger.

Kate Field performed “Woman at the Lyceum” on Monday, 12 April 1869 in New York.

Letter from Kate Field to Mrs. Sargent. 14 April 1869. Page 1.

Letter from Kate Field to Mrs. Sargent. 14 April 1869. Pages 2 and 3.

*****

Percy Florence Shelley, the only surviving son of Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and novelist Mary Shelley, inherited the baronetcy from his grandfather and spent most of his life involved in the theater, building a theater in his home, Boscombe Manor. Many of his friends acted in and attended the productions, including Henry Irving and Robert Louis Stevenson. This letter to Tom Taylor, English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine, relates some details of the Shelley’s family life and describes the plays that were being planned for the theater.

Letter from Percy Florence Shelley to Tom Taylor. 11 January 1871. Page 1.

Letter from Percy Florence Shelley to Tom Taylor. 11 January 1871. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from Percy Florence Shelley to Tom Taylor. 11 January 1871. Page 4.

Letter from Percy Florence Shelley to Tom Taylor. 11 January 1871. Page 5.

*****

The ABL also has a collection of letters written to Tom Taylor. Most of the letters are letters of condolence to his wife upon his death. One of the letters is from Richard Doyle, a noted illustrator during the Victorian era, particularly in Punch magazine. The letter informs Taylor that Doyle has found the misplaced sketch of a view from Tennyson’s window. In March 1856, during a visit that Doyle and Tom Taylor had made to Farringford House, Doyle had done a drawing of the view from Tennyson’s window (“View from the Drawing Room painted in 1856 by Richard Doyle”). The letter contains a wonderful drawing of Tennyson and his family.

Letter from Richard Doyle to Tom Taylor. 10 July [1856]. Page 1.

Letter from Richard Doyle to Tom Taylor. 10 July [1856]. Page 2.

*****

The Nevill Album contains letters pertaining to the visual and performing arts. Lina Nevill, novelist and Secretary of the Women’s University Extension, arranged for several public exhibitions of art, including the Southwark Exhibition in 1891. The Earl of Carlisle sent a painting by Walter McClaren, “A Capri Mother and Girl” for the Exhibition.

Letter from George James Howard, Earl of Carlisle to Lina Nevill. 28 April 1892. Page 1.

Letter from George James Howard, Earl of Carlisle to Lina Nevill. 28 April 1892. Page 2

*****

The Norris Album contains several letters focused on music. This letter, from Hungarian violinist Ludwig Straus, is written in musical annotation and German.

Letter from Ludwig Straus to an Unidentified Correspondent. 06 October 1872.

*****

In this letter N. J. Heineken, a musician and contributor to the journal, The Musical Standard, bemoans the fact that Miss Hodge has asked him a question about the guitar. He says:

It will never repay you for the learning its twinkle, twinkle, tunes may serve the purpose of the love sick swain as a serenading instrument but is most beneath the attention of he who can appreciate the old Cantors [glorious] [fuges]…

Letter from [N. J. Heineken] to Miss Hodge. 15 May 1893. Page 1.

Letter from [N. J. Heineken] to Miss Hodge. 15 May 1893. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from [N. J. Heineken] to Miss Hodge. 15 May 1893. Page 4

In another letter to Miss Hodge, Heineken praises and critiques Miss Hodge’s composition, affirming that “I have been much pleased with your truthful and ingenious song.”

Letter from N. J. Heineken to Miss Hodge. Undated. Page 1.

Letter from N. J. Heineken to Miss Hodge. Undated. Pages 2 and 3.

~~~~~

For the complete series of blog posts on the Victorian Collection:

Literary figures represented in the Victorian Collection are covered in the blog series: Beyond the Brownings

 

 

Introducing…The Victorian Collection at the Armstrong Browning Library: a Baylor Libraries Digital Collection—Religion and Politics

By Melinda Creech, PhD, Graduate Assistant 

Marie Ada Molineux (1856-1936), Author, Bacteriologist, Psychologist, Charter Member of the Boston Browning Society. Nell Pomeroy O'Brien, painter. 1936. Courtesy of the Armstrong Browning LibraryThe Armstrong Browning Library is pleased to announce the release of The Victorian Collection online. This new digital collection contains over 3,000 letters and manuscripts connected to prominent and lesser known British and American figures and complements the Armstrong Browning Library’s unparalleled collection of materials relating to the Victorian poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The letters and manuscripts in this growing collection can be browsed and searched by date, author, keyword, or first line of text. Letters from the collection are currently on display in Hankamer Treasure Room.

~~~~~

Religion

Many of the letters in the Victorian Collection are from clergymen. The letters run the gamut of different types of Christian faith. There are letters from Catholics, Anglicans, Congregationalists, Unitarians, Universalists, Friends, Brethren, “High” Church, “Low” Church, “Broad” Church, and even Baptists, written by such well-known correspondents at John Henry Newman, Charles Kingsley, William Johnson Fox, Frederick Temple, and John Keble.

One album of letters that is particularly interesting contains a group of letters collected by Charles Room. Room was a student at the Baptist College in Bristol, presided over the Baptist Church in Evesham, Worcestershire and was assistant pastor to Dr. John Rippon at New Park Street Baptist Chapel in Southwark and minister of the Baptist Church, Meeting House Alley, Portsea.

In this letter R. W. Overbury, pastor of the Baptist Church at Eagle Street, London from 1834 until his death in 1868, invites Charles Room to preach at his church.

Letter from R. W. Overbury to Charles Room. Undated. Page 1.

Letter from R. W. Overbury to Charles Room. Undated. Page 2.

*****

Rev. John Rooker, an Anglican minister, was the Director of the Church Missionary Children’s Home, Highbury Grove, Islington, and vicar of St. Peter’s, Clifton Road, Bristol. The letters he collected in the Rooker Album consist of a large number of letters to and from clergy, including this letter from Brooke Foss Westcott, biblical scholar, theologian, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and Bishop of Durham. He is perhaps most well known for co-editing, with Fenton John Anthony Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek in 1881. In this tender letter Westcott answers Rooker’s question about a reference in a book responding:

My great hope is that I may perhaps sometimes encourage a young student to linger with patient faith over the words of Scripture and hear then the message which he needs. We need all of us to write out the promise εν τη υπομονη κτησασθαι τας ψυχας.

[“In patience possess your souls” Luke 21:19]

Letter from B. F. Westcott to John Rooker. 9 August 1884. Page 1.

Letter from B. F. Westcott to John Rooker. 9 August 1884. Pages 2 and 3.

*****

The ABL has many letters from Anglican bishops, including letters from Christopher Wordsworth, youngest brother of William Wordsworth and Bishop of Lincoln. In this letter to an unidentified correspondent, Wordsworth mentions his publication, “Pastoral to the Wesleyans.”

Letter from Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln to an Unidentified Correspondent. 13 March 1870. Page 1.

Letter from Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln to an Unidentified Correspondent. 13 March 1870. Pages 2 and 3

*****

Comparative religion was an important focus in the nineteenth century as scholars such as Edwin Arnold began to introduce research on world religions. In this letter Emily Marion Harris, English novelist, poet, and educationist, finds a point of comparison between the Book of Common Prayer and prayers that Arnold described in his book, Pearls of Our Faith.

Letter from Emily Marion Harris to Elizabeth Purefoy Fitzgerald. 21 November [No year]. Page 1.

Letter from Emily Marion Harris to Elizabeth Purefoy Fitzgerald. 21 November [No year]. Page 2.

Letter from Emily Marion Harris to Elizabeth Purefoy Fitzgerald. 21 November [No year]. Page 3.

*****

Another interesting set of letters and manuscripts come from Dryden Phelps. Dryden Phelps was the nephew of William Lyon Phelps, Browning scholar and founder of the Fano Club, an annual gathering of Browning aficionados who have visited “The Guardian Angel” painting in Fano, Italy, about which Robert Browning wrote a poem. Dryden Phelps, a missionary to China, reveals in this letter his missions strategy of using the poetry of Browning and Tennyson to introduce his Chinese students to English literature and the tenets of Christianity. Dryden attributes Browning’s popularity in China to the fact that he is “terse, succinct, witty, epigrammatic, unique in a brilliant use of words, profound, a lover of nature, and of human nature, a lover of life.” A Chinese poetry scholar with whom he had studied commented that “he [Browning] is like one of our own poets!” Dryden surmises that one of the highest services we can render China at this moment is to open their eyes to such men as Browning.”

Letter from Dryden Phelps to A. J. Armstrong. 3 May 1928. Page 1.

Letter from Dryden Phelps to A. J. Armstrong. 3 May 1928. Page 2.

Letter from Dryden Phelps to A. J. Armstrong. 2 October 1928. Page 1.

Letter from Dryden Phelps to A. J. Armstrong. 2 October 1928. Page 2.

*****

The following manuscripts are Phelps’s students’ efforts to translate the poetry of Browning and Tennyson into Chinese.

Chinese Manuscript by an Unidentified Author. Undated.

“Then Welcome Each Rebuff” by Robert Browning, Translated by an Unidentified Author. Undated. Recto.

“Then Welcome Each Rebuff” by Robert Browning, Translated by an Unidentified Author. Undated. Verso.

“Flower in a Crannied Wall” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Translated by Paul Liu. Undated.

“Flower in a Crannied Wall” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Translated by Ghipi C. Chang. Undated.

*****

Scholars in the nineteenth century were very interested in archeology and reclaiming antiquities. Many letters describe trips to the Middle East to search for treasures. This letter from the Director of the British Museum records a contribution by Mrs. Norris toward the purchase of the Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript written over 1600 years ago, containing the Christian Bible in Greek, including the oldest complete copy of the New Testament. Edwin L. Norris was a British philologist, linguist, and orientalist who wrote or compiled numerous works on the languages of Asia and Africa. It is unclear what relationship Mrs. R. Norris had to Edwin Norris, if any. Arundell James Kennedy Esdaile was a British librarian, and Secretary to the British Museum from 1926 to 1940.

Letter from Arundell Esdaile to Mrs. Norris. 30 October 1934.

*****

In this letter Thomas Hill Lowe, English cleric and Dean of Exeter (1839-1861), responds to Henry Phillpotts’s criticism of his sermon about changing the Athanasian Creed in the Book of Common Prayer. Henry Phillpotts was the Bishop of Exeter from 1830–1869.

Letter from Thomas Hill Lowe to Henry Phillpotts. 21 February 1852. Page 1.

Letter from Thomas Hill Lowe to Henry Phillpotts. 21 February 1852. Page 2.

*****

Joseph Barber Lightfoot, an English theologian, Bishop of Durham, and fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, writes to and T. G. Bonney, an English geologist, president of the Geological Society of London, and tutor at St. John’s College, Cambridge, bemoaning the rivalry between Trinity and St. John’s. He is also annoyed by religious newspapers, writing:

I quite agree with you about religious newspapers. Nothing more nearly drives me to despair than the correspondence in the _______ and _____. I think possibly that St. Paul would also have failed to recognize any likeness to himself in the pictures of him which are drawn by many of our German friends

Todd Still, Dean and Professor of Christian Scriptures at George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University, suggests that one of the newspapers could be The Church Times. He adds, “As for Lightfoot’s remark regarding ‘German friends,’ this is his gracious way of saying that he categorically disagrees with the portrait of St. Paul being painted by F. C. Baur and the Tubingen School.”

Letter from Joseph Barber Lightfoot to T. G. Bonney. 18 May 1875. Page 1.

Letter from Joseph Barber Lightfoot to T. G. Bonney. 18 May 1875. Pages 2 and 3.

 

Politics

Political letters also comprise a large portion of the Victorian Letters Collection. Our collections contains letters from Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, William Ewart Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, and others. The collection also contains many letters from military leaders. The following are only a sampling of the many.

In this letter Lilian Whiting, American journalist, editor, poet, short story writer, and member of the Boston Browning Society, writes about her attendance at a dinner in New York on March 1, 1912 honoring William Howells’s seventy-fifth birthday. Howells was an American novelist, literary critic, and playwright. President Taft and Winston Churchill gave speeches there. Winston Churchill was a young man of thirty-eight who had just become First Lord of the Admiralty the previous year. Whiting comments on and quotes a from Churchill’s speech, rather uncomplimentarily. She writes

Excepting the President, the host, the guest of honor & Mrs. [Alden], – the speeches were unspeakably & ludicrously poor! Winston Churchill’s was as common & as cheap as a table waiter might have made – “As a midshipman”, he preceded to give a chapter of cheap reminiscences of himself – the only link with Mr. Howells being that he had a copy of ‘Silas Lapham’ & “climbed the mast with [it] Howells went up & has been going up ever since” & the copy of ‘Silas’ fell out of his pocket to the deck & that is the only time Howells ever went down!

Letter from Lilian Whiting to Miss Carrie. 5 March 1912. Page 1.

Letter from Lilian Whiting to Miss Carrie. 5 March 1912. Page 2.

*****

In this letter to an Unidentified Correspondent, Benjamin Disraeli, then serving his second term as Prime Minister of Great Britain, mentions two residences, Marlboro House, the residence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and Portland Place, the residence of the unidentified correspondent.

Letter from Benjamin Disraeli an Unidentified Correspondent. 23 May 1879. Page 1.

Letter from Benjamin Disraeli an Unidentified Correspondent. 23 May 1879. Page 2.

*****

The Armstrong Browning Library has several letters written by William Ewart Gladstone, British statesman and Prime Minister.

This letter was accompanied a pamphlet on vivisection. Gladstone explains that the subject is one “I have never been able to examine with all the care it deserves but I have always had & expressed the opinion that the practice, . . . ought to be confined within the limits of strict & well defined necessity.”

Letter from William Ewart Gladstone to [J. E. Walker]. 27 September 1878. Page 1.

Letter from William Ewart Gladstone to [F. E. Walters]. 27 September 1878. Page 2.

*****

This letter, written to Charles Lee Lewes, may perhaps be referring to Essays and Leaves From a Notebook, by George Eliot, early essays written by Eliot, published posthumously. She had bequeathed all her literary rights to Charles Lee Lewes, the eldest son of George Henry Lewes, her residuary legatee and sole executor of her estate.

Letter from William Ewart Gladstone to C. L. Lewes. 23 October 1889. Page 1.

Letter from William Ewart Gladstone to C. L. Lewes. 23 October 1889. Page 2.

*****

In this letter, Gladstone reports that he has no occasion for the works sent by Clement Sadler Palmer, a London publisher and antiquarian bookseller.

Letter from William Ewart Gladstone to Clement Sadler Palmer. 3 August 1895. Page 1.

Letter from William Ewart Gladstone to Clement Sadler Palmer. 3 August 1895. Page 2.

*****

Robert Peel, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for a second term in 1841, writes to Frederick Marryat, a Royal Navy officer and novelist, complimenting him, assuring him that he has received his letter, but stating that it is not in his power to speak to him on the subject of his letter

Letter from Robert Peel to Frederick Marryat. 11 July 1841. Page 1.

Letter from Robert Peel to Frederick Marryat. 11 July 1841. Page 2.

*****

This manuscript, written by Napoleon III, provides a guardian for the chateau of his mother.

Letter from Napoleon III to an unidentified correspondents. Undated.

*****

This fragment in German written from Konigsburg is signed by Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, known as the “Romantic” monarch.

Unidentified Manuscript, signed by Friedrich Wilhelm IV. 1844.

*****

In this undated letter, found in the DeCastro Album, William Pitt the Younger, British statesman, declines an “excursion up the river” with  Walter Scott, Scottish novelist, poet, historian, and biographer, but invites him to London to discuss some business.

Letter from  William Pitt to Sir Walter Scott. 15 August [Undated]. Page 1.

Letter from William Pitt to Sir Walter Scott. 15 August [Undated]. Pages 2 and 3.

On the verso of the letter is a note in an unidentified hand that reads: “To my father.”

Letter from William Pitt to Sir Walter Scott. 15 August [Undated]. Verso.

~~~~~

For the complete series of blog posts on the Victorian Collection:

Literary figures represented in the Victorian Collection are covered in the blog series: Beyond the Brownings

Introducing…The Victorian Collection at the Armstrong Browning Library: a Baylor Libraries Digital Collection—Science and Exploration

By Melinda Creech, PhD, Graduate Assistant 

Marie Ada Molineux (1856-1936), Author, Bacteriologist, Psychologist, Charter Member of the Boston Browning Society. Nell Pomeroy O'Brien, painter. 1936. The Armstrong Browning Library is pleased to announce the release of The Victorian Collection online. This new digital collection contains over 3,000 letters and manuscripts connected to prominent and lesser known British and American figures and complements the Armstrong Browning Library’s unparalleled collection of materials relating to the Victorian poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The letters and manuscripts in this growing collection can be browsed and searched by date, author, keyword, or first line of text. Letters from the collection are currently on display in Hankamer Treasure Room.

~~~~~

Science

The term “scientist” was coined by William Whewell in 1833. Previously such persons were known as natural philosophers. Whewell was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Researching ocean tides, publishing in the fields of mechanics, physics, geology, astronomy, and economics, composing poetry, translating Goethe, and writing sermons and theological tracts, he was quite a polymath. Groundbreaking discoveries in science mark the nineteenth century: evolution, natural selection, germ theory, genetics, atomic theory, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, electricity, telecommunication, and many others. The Armstrong Browning Library, although primarily concerned with the collection of literary letters and manuscripts, has accumulated an interesting collection of science-related letters. A sampling of those letters follows.

William Whewell, 1794-1866, portrait by James Lonsdale, Courtesy of Trinity College, University of Cambridge; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation.

A letter from William Whewell, who coined the word “scientist,” to Richard Owen, a biologist, anatomist, and paleontologist, who studied fossils and coined the word “dinosaur,” discusses the nomenclature of bones.

Letter from William Whewell to Richard Owen, 16 March 1847. Page 1.

Letter from William Whewell to Richard Owen, 16 March 1847. Page 2.

Letter from William Whewell to Richard Owen, 16 March 1847. Page 3.

*****

Henry Bence Jones, 1813-1873.

Ada Lovelace, 1815-1852

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry Bence Jones, an English physician and chemist, writes to Lady Lovelace, English chemist, writer, and daughter of Lord Byron and Annabella Milbanke, describing two experiments that he conducted, using an iron tube and coiled wire. The experiments he described involved changing iron to slate and producing a sound in the tube by passing a current through the tube.

Letter from Henry Bence Jones to Lady Lovelace. 4 November 1844. Page 1.

Letter from Henry Bence Jones to Lady Lovelace. 4 November 1844. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from Henry Bence Jones to Lady Lovelace. 4 November 1844. Page 4.

*****

Lady Lovelace also worked with Charles Babbage on his computing machine. The ABL owns one of Babbage’s letters. In this letter Babbage thanks Booth, the executor of Kenyon’s will, for the gift of a telescope, which had belonged to the Brownings’ valued friend, John Kenyon. EBB in a letter to RB (17 February 1845) makes a reference to Babbage. She compares Tennyson submitting to the criticism of others like “as if Babbage were to take my opinion & undo his calculating machine by it.”

Charles Babbage, 1791, 1871.

Letter from Charles Babbage to [James] Booth. 20 December 1856.

*****

Richard Owen, 1804-1892. Courtesy of Armstrong Browning Library.

Richard Owen, the paleontologist who first coined the word “dinosaur,” writes a letter to Edmund Belfour, Secretary of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, reporting on his observations at the Collections at the Jardin du Plantes in Paris. It appears that he was there studying the bones of fish and reptiles.

Letter from Richard Owen to Edmund Belfour. 8 September 1853. Page 1.

Letter from Richard Owen to Edmund Belfour. 8 September 1853. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from Richard Owen to Edmund Belfour. 8 September 1853. Page 4.

*****

Charles Wheatstone, 1802-1875. Courtesy of Armstrong Browning Library.

Charles Wheatstone, who experimented with acoustics, optics, electricity, and telegraphy, and is known for his contributions to spectroscopy and telegraphy, writes to an identified correspondent about viewing his “curious productions.”

Letter from Charles Wheatstone to an Unidentified Correspondent. Undated.

In another letter Wheatstone declines an unidentified correspondent’s request to become a resident curator for the Observatory at Kew.

Letter from Charles Wheatstone to an Unidentified Correspondent. 27 July 1842.

*****

Adam Sedgwick, 1785-1873, by Samuel Cousins, after Thomas Phillips. Courtesy of  © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Andrew Crosse, 1784-1855.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam Sedgwick, British geologist and mentor of Charles Darwin, writes to Andrew Crosse, an early pioneer and experimenter in electricity, bemoaning his own recent illnesses and injuries and acknowledging Crosse’s recent “interesting” experiments.

Letter from Adam Sedgwick to Andrew Crosse. 10 July [No year]. Page 1.

Letter from Adam Sedgwick to Andrew Crosse. 10 July [No year]. Page 2.

Letter from Adam Sedgwick to Andrew Crosse. 10 July [No year]. Page 3.

*****

In this letter, Victorian poet, Sophia Lydia Walters, writes to Mr. Craig-Brown, thanking him for a photo of Mr. Lang and promising to send a copy of her book.  She goes on to recount a story about meeting a Mr. W. Coffin, who took her to “a meeting of the aeronautical Society, where I saw flying machines – or rather strange machines hung on ropes down which they slid and then broke.” She says he has a “sad name.” Ironically, I ran across an announcement that a Sophia Lydia Walters married a Mr. Walter Harris Coffin in 1892. The letter was tipped into a volume of her poetry, Lostara.

Letter from Sophia Lydia Walters to Mr. Craig-Brown. 19 May 1890. Page 1.

Letter from Sophia Lydia Walters to Mr. Craig-Brown. 19 May 1890. Page 2.

Letter from Sophia Lydia Walters to Mr. Craig-Brown. 19 May 1890. Pages 3 and 4.

 

Exploration

The nineteenth century was also an age of exploration. Explorers sailed to the North and South Poles and explored the interior of the African continent. One of the albums acquired by the Armstrong Browning Library belonged to Louis Arthur Lucas (1851-1876), merchant and traveler in Africa. Many of the letters refer to his travels in Africa.

This letter from Frederick Arthur Stanley, Earl of Derby and Colonial Secretary from 1885-1886, to Major General Stanton, British Consul-General in Egypt, reports that Dr. Hooker, the Director of the Gardens at Kew has requested an introduction of Mr. Lucas to Stanton regarding Lucas’s proposed exploratory trip to the Lake District of Africa.

Letter from Frederick Arthur Stanley to Major General Stanton. 11 October 1875. Page 1.

Letter from Frederick Arthur Stanley to Major General Stanton. 11 October 1875. Page 2.

*****

Frances Rawdon Moira Crozier, 1796-1848.

F. R. M. Crozier was the Captain of the HMS Terror, one of the ships of the ill-fated Franklin Expedition. In this letter to Sir Thomas Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty, Crozier expresses his confidence in the seaworthiness of the lifebuoys used for the voyage. There is another interesting inscription in pencil at the bottom of the page:

Capt. Crozier —who commanded the same ship as Sir John Franklin’s expedition & was lost with him in 1843-6 . My brother was lost with him.

This letter was found with other letters removed  from an album of letters and autographs collected by Mr. Louis A. Lucas. However, no one with the surname Lucas was found among the crew lists of either the Terror or the Erebus.

Letter from Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier to Sir Thomas [Hamilton]. 28 March [1845]. page 1.

Letter from Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier to Sir Thomas [Hamilton]. 28 March [1845]. Page 2.

*****

Samuel Baker, 1821-1893.

Florence Baker, 1841-1916.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ABL has several letters from Samuel and Florence Baker. Samuel Baker was an English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, writer and abolitionist. Barbara Maria Szasz was orphaned and sold as a slave to Samuel Baker. Together they became African explorers, searching for the source of the Nile River and discovering Lake Albert. Returning to England they were married, and she became Lady Florence Baker.

Moses Montefiore, a British financier and banker, activist, philanthropist and Sheriff of London, was Jewish and an advocate for Jewish causes. He lived to be 100 years old. His wife, Judith Montefiore, was a British linguist, musician, travel writer, and philanthropist. She was Jewish and wrote the first Jewish cookbook written in English.

In this letter Samuel declines Mrs. Montefiore’s invitation due to illness.

Letter from Samuel White Baker to Mrs. Montefiore. Undated. Page 1.

Letter from Samuel White Baker to Mrs. Montefiore. Undated. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from Samuel White Baker to Mrs. Montefiore. Undated. Page 4.

*****

The Burr Album contains letters on a variety of subjects —science, exploration, politics, art, travel, and literature. Mrs. Ann-Margaretta Burr was an English watercolor artist. Her husband, Daniel Higford Davall Burr, was a Member of Parliament and a justice of the peace. In this letter, Baker accepts Mrs. Burr’s invitation to visit their home, Aldermaston.

Letter from Samuel White Baker to Ann Margaretta Burr. 20 January [Undated].

In this letter Florence asks for a postponement of visiting Mrs. Montefiore’s garden, because her youngest daughter has measles.

Letter from Samuel White Baker to Mrs. Montefiore. Undated.

In another letter Florence accepts Mrs. Burr’s invitation to dinner. She mentions that they had met Mr. Burr at the geographical meeting.

Letter from Florence Baker to Ann Margaretta Burr. 27 February [Undated]. Page 1.

Letter from Florence Baker to Ann Margaretta Burr. 27 February [Undated]. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from Florence Baker to Ann Margaretta Burr. 27 February [Undated]. Page 4.

~~~~~

For the complete series of blog posts on the Victorian Collection:

Literary figures represented in the Victorian Collection are covered in the blog series: Beyond the Brownings