Hi all,
In our collection we have a very long letter, closely written and crossed on three of the pages and on the 'wings'. As Eunice started transcribing, it told a marvelous travel story, and the writer was obviously a very good correspondent. However, it becomes obvious that Miss Janet McGilleveray had written it over a period of time, so it is hard to know which section follows which. But in the third page she had this sentence
"My next will contain a further account of my journey" , so I think that sentence is the key to the letter, to explain the outline of the different sections. Some of the words have proved impossible to decipher for one reason or another, and in that case I have put either a suggestion or a query in brackets.
Miss Janet McGilleveray has left Plymouth to take up a post teaching the children of Mr Wyatt who is a lawyer, living in Lichfield, Stafford,and who is the political agent for Lord Lichfield. She wants the Colonel's wife to know every bit of news about her journey and how her new life has begun.
For her to have reached Lichfield from Plymouth involved three different mail coaches, and included a sidetrack, which she thought would be an economical idea, but which turned out to be a big mistake. It begins :-
At Harvey Wyatt's Esquire Acton Hill, near Stafford.
My very dear Mrs Macpherson is I know expecting a letter from me which she ought to have had before this.
Soon after we left Exeter we took up a lady who I found a very agreeable companion as far as we traveled together. She has had lodgings in the house held by Bampfylde Carew the King of the Beggars.
At 12 oclock two of the outside passengers became my companions for 3 hours, one a half tipsy man who was going to Birmingham. He was so troublesome, repeatedly offering me a drink from his Brandy bottle.
He was my tormentor to Birmingham. I was so surly to him. We arrived at Bristol at ˝ past 6 Thursday morning, started for Birmingham at 7. Breakfast at Newport, 17 miles from Bristol, arrived at Birmingham at ˝ past 6 evening. You never saw a more deplorable creature than I was when I arrived at Barton on Friday morning. I had not had a good wash since I left Plymouth – every feature was swollen and my lips were such a sight washing is very much more expensive than at Plymouth.
This is just the start of a very interesting and amusing letter which makes us appreciate our modern modes of transport and the roads we travel on. Another snippet shows that the mailcoachman went above and beyond his call of duty
quote
A very tipsy man on one side of me was rolling off the Coach. The Coachman turned around to save him, the horses going at full speed, turned a corner rather too quickly we were within an ace of being upset, and if so, more than one life would in all probability have been lost as we should have been dashed against a very high Brick wall. The traces broke. The Guard and Coachman got down and were some time before they could recover the horses to enable us to proceed &emdash; so that we did not reach Barton town till after midnight. Only fancy not an Inn near where I could sleep.
unquote
You can read the whole account and see the images on our non-commercial, advert free website, along with well over a hundred other old letters, many with fascinating content.
The site also covers lots of other stamp related material, with much G.B. and Australia.
For the letter mentioned above, go to
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and for our home page
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regards to all
Ron and Eunice
Posted 08/11/2017 09:12 am
