Reverend Comyn in Henfield Sussex to the National Society for Promoting the Religious Education of the Poor 1820

 

 

There are no secular state schools in majority non-religious England and if you live in Henfield, Sussex (population about 5000) and have young children then they can only attend a local school if you are happy for them to attend St Peter’s Church of England Primary School which, as is standard practice, has the local vicar as a school governor. He writes on the school’s website that he is “delighted to be forging links with the teaching staff, parents and pupils of St Peter’s School, and am excited about sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ in assemblies and classroom discussions”. In many countries, such proselytizing  in publicly-funded schools would be very straightforwardly illegal.

Until 2024 St Peter’s had Voluntary Aided status – that is, status as a Church of England school receiving government funding – and is now an academy school within the Hurst Educational Trust which “partners” with the Diocese of Chichester. Plus ça change.

The school’s present character is the legacy of a voluntary endeavour dating back to 1812. It seems that an original National Society school in Henfield was for both boys and girls but became boys-only, necessitating the creation in 1819 of a school for girls and which – as the letter transcribed below indicates - promptly sought affiliation to the National Society, shorthand for its full title as the National Society for Promoting the Religious Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church.

The first signature on this letter is that of the Reverend Henry Comyn who designates himself a curate and is presumably curate of Henfield’s St Peter’s Church. Unfortunately, King’s College London (originally an Anglican establishment) has recently (October 2026) moth-balled its invaluable Church of England clergy database with the result that I cannot confirm that this Henry Comyn is the same as the one who has a very interesting history. As a curate in Hampshire (which neighbours West Sussex) he is credited with carrying out in 1817 the first recognisably modern census in the parishes of Boldre and Brockenhurst, listing in his notebooks all the dwellings, their inhabitants, their ages and occupations, and so on. These notebooks have been preserved and are in the Hampshire Records Office. The church living of St Peter’s Henfield was held for nearly seventy years by the Reverend George Guy who habitually employed curates to do his job; Henry Comyn could have been employed for a short period to cover a vacancy.

The “E.Borrer” who is the second signatory of the letter is most probably Elizabeth Borrer, wife of William Borrer who lived in Henfield and was a botanist, significant enough to have a fairly lengthy Wikipedia page.

The letter is addressed to The Reverend Tindall Thompson Walmsley who was the first secretary of the National Society and a significant figure in his own right.

Transcription

Addressed to: Dr T T Walmsley Secr  to the Central National School Society   Baldwin’s Gardens   London

Datelined: Henfield National School for Girls opened Octr 22^nd 1819

Docketing notes: Rev Comyn Henfield March 7^th 1820; Union of Girls Henfield  Sussex Chichester [Diocese]22 Oct 1819; Ans 9 Mar 1820

Postmarked STEYNING PENNY POST (undated); London receiver mark 7 MR 1820

It is the Wish of those who have the management of the School at Henfield – that the same should be united to the National Society.

In this School the national System of Teaching is adopted the Children are instructed in the Liturgy and Catechsim of the Established Church and do constantly attend Divine Service at their Prish Church or other placee of Worship under the Establishment as far as the same is practicable on the Lord’s Day unless such reason be assigned for their non-attendance as shall be satisfying to the persons having the direction of the School No Religious Tracts shall be used in the school but such as re or shall be contained in the Catalogue of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge.

Signed by the Parochial Minister and others of the Inhabitants and then transmitted to the Secretary of the National Society in London

Revd. Hy Comyn, Curate

E.Borrer

Catherine Heather

Ann Smith

Jane Becket

J M Grigson

A Wisden

 

References

https://stpetershenfield.org.uk/

Wikipedia: William Borrer

George Nayler Garter Principal King of Arms to Sir Henry Bedingfeld Bart 1830

 

Arms of Paston

(Wikimedia Commons)

Societies, like mine, which have never broken with a feudal past require publicly-funded bureaucracies (ideally quaint and in practice somewhat incompetent) to keep track of entitlements to names, titles, forms of address, coats of arms, and order of precedence. Much information on these subjects has been and still is published in large volumes - Burke’s and Debrett’s the best known - which could once be found in all aristocratic households and which were also indispensable to collectors of autographs, coats of arms, and letter seals. Wikipedia is heavily indebted to these traditional sources.

This 1830 letter is signed off by an interesting and energetic character, Sir George Nayler (1764 – 1831), who started life as the fifth son of a provincial surgeon, became a painter of miniatures, married the illegitimate daughter of a baronet, and  bought his way into the genealogical bureaucracies (among other titles he purchased those of Blanc Coursier Herald  and Bluemantle Poursuivant), rising to become Garter Principal King of Arms in 1822. He was knighted in 1813.

A year on from the date of this letter, the recipient Sir Henry Bedingfeld Bart was indeed licensed to use the name and arms of Paston-Bedingfeld.  His life was undistinguished except for the fact that the passage of the Catholic Relief Act in 1829 no doubt made it easier for him to become a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk in 1831. His eldest son Henry, born in 1830, succeeded to the title; he was sent to the Jesuit boarding school which still has the appropriate name of Stonyhurst – on this site you can find an 1843 letter written by the young Henry to his mother recording his misery:

https://www.otherpeoplesletters.com/2026/07/henry-bedingfeld-very-unhappy-pupil-of.html

 

Transcription

Addressed to: Sir Henry Richard Bedingfeld Bart &c &c &c Oxburgh Hall Stoke Ferry Norfolk

Datelined: 17 Hanover Square London 24 Feby 1830

Faded London postmarks, one indicating pre-payment of the letter

Sir

A Petition signed by Lady Bedingfeld and yourself praying the Royal Licence to be allowed to take the name and Arms of Paston having been in the usual course referred by the Right Honble Mr Secretary Peel for my Report thereon, I trust that after the Correspondence I had the honour to have with you, and Lady Bedingfeld, your Mother, on the same subject during your Residence at Ghent, and your subsequently calling upon me with your Brother-in-law Mr Molyneux-Seel relative to the same, you will excuse my expressing my surprize at now finding the business placed n the hands of another Member of the Heralds College. It occurred to me that there must have been some mistake, and that the application was intended to have been made to me, and this idea is confirmed by a Letter from my Friend Mr Molyneux-Seel in which he says “If measures have been taken respecting the Licence I feel satisfied that there must have been some mistake in that application not having been made through you”

Under these circumstances I have presumed to trouble you with this Letter, in the hope that you will do me the favour to inform me, whether application was intended to have been made to me, upon this occasion, or whether any Circumstances have arisen to induce you to place this business in other hands, after I had so long since been consulted on the subject, and had prepared and transmitted to you a Petition to His Majesty praying for the same object.

I feel assured that Your Goodness will pardon the trouble I am thus giving you, and I have the Honour to remain, Sir,

Your most Obedient and most faithful Servant

Geo. Nayler, Garter

[The letter has been written by or dictated to a clerk and Nayler has appended his signature using a different pen]

References

Wikipedia: Sir Henry Paston-Bedingfeld, 6^th Baronet

Wikipedia: George Nayler

Wikipedia: Garter Principal King of Arms

The Cornish MP Edward Wynne Pendarves to the Swansea industrialist and later MP John Henry Vivian 1831

 

The thriving commercial and industrial town of Swansea obtained parliamentary representation in the Reform Act of 1832; its first M.P. was elected unopposed as a reform-minded Whig and held his seat unopposed until his death in 1855. He was John Henry Vivian (1785-1855), the recipient of this letter, a Cornishman who made his fortune in Wales from copper mining and smelting. Both energetic in business and civic-minded he also became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has a statue in Swansea; his children were painted by John Hayter RA, a fact I discovered from a fragment of a letter to Mrs Vivian which includes a pencil drawing done to amuse them. That I have two items addressed to the Vivian family in Swansea suggests that there are more circulating in the public domain.

The March 1831 letter transcribed below is written by a fellow Cornishman, Edward Wynne-Pendarves (1775-1853), who is in London and optimistic about the passage of the Reform Bill. Writing in March 1831 he does not foresee the die in the ditch opposition mounted in the House of Lords which delayed passage of the Bill until June 1832 and whose obstruction incited widespread and violent disorder, twice, in October 1831 and May 1832. As a moderate reform-minded Whig Pendarves had been M.P. from Cornwall from 1826 alongside the |Tory Sir Richard Vyvan and thus has Free Frank privilege to send this letter and was subsequently elected as the first M.P. for the new constituency of West Cornwall where he held the seat until his death in 1853.

Transcription

Addressed to: J H Vivian Esqr   Singleton   Swansea

Datelined: London March 15 [1831]

Parliamentary Free Frank postmark 16 MR 1831

My Dear John

I am delighted to hear that you are going on so well in your canvass – Guest told me he thought Dilwyn would stand, but I hope he is mistaken. [Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778–1855) was elected to Parliament in 1832 as a Whig member for Glamorgan]

Ministers appear to have very little doubt about carrying their [Reform] bill, & certainly they will not let it sleep – if the debate on the 2d [second] reading is not long, they will go into the Committee [stage] before Easter it is there that the fight will be but after the almost unanimous expression of feeling throughout the country I think many members who are against the bill will be shy of voting on it. It is even doubted by some whether there will be a division on the 2d reading.

The acct. from Hussey [could be Sir Hussey Vivian, also an MP at this period] today is rather better.

With best Regards to Mrs V

I am very truly yrs. EdwwPendarves

John Hayter RA "a sketch for Miss & Master Vivian"

References

Wikipedia: Edward Wynne-Pendarves

Wikipedia: John Henry Vivian

The Chartist James Whittle to the Radical MP for Oldham John Fielden 1836

The Chartist  National Convention 1839

Both the writer and recipient of this letter are reasonably well-known to students of British politics in the 1830s and 1840s and best known to those interested in Radical and Chartist politics of the period. I give relevant References at the end.

The recipient John Fielden (1784-1849) was a wealthy millowner in Yorkshire whose Radical politics was partly inspired by his religion – his background was as a Quaker and his destinations Methodist and Unitarian - and partly by his experience of being sent to work in his father’s mill at the age of ten. The mills which he and his brothers inherited eventually employed about 2500 workers. From his childhood experience he knew at first-hand what it was like to work on the shop-floor of a cotton-spinning mill and in adult life campaigned persistently - and with eventual success in 1847 - to limit to ten the number of hours which could be worked daily by women and children. The Reform Act of 1832 had made possible his election to Parliament as one of the two MPs for Oldham; the other Radical elected was William Cobbett author of Rural Rides and editor and publishers of The Political Register.  Cobbett died in June 1835 and in the subsequent by-election his son John Cobbett failed to secure enough votes to replace him, partly because his Anglicanism was unpopular in non-conformist Oldham. Fielden lost his Oldham seat in the election of 1847 and died in 1849.

The writer of the letter James Whittle, born in Ireland, abandoned political activism in the early 1840s for a managerial career with Guiness Brewery. He died in the Isle of Man in 1874. Before 1840 his Radical activism aligned him closely with both William Cobbett and John Fielden - someone who he consistently admired - and sometime after this letter was written Whittle became editor of The Champion, later The Champion and Weekly Herald, a contribution to which is the subject of the letter transcribed below. He was a prominent figure in organising the Chartist National Convention of the Labouring Classes early in 1839. It was responsible for gathering over a million signatures for a Petition to Parliament with six demands  of which  the first was for universal manhood suffrage for those aged 21 and over; the petition was presented to Parliament by Thomas Atwood MP but the House of Commons declined to debate it.

Transcription

Addressed to: John Fielden Esq. M.P.     Todmorden     Halifax

Datelined: Westport [Ireland] 15 Decr 1836

Postmarked WESTPORT 18 DE 1836 not pre-paid but allowed FREE frank privilege 19 DE 1836

Dear Sir

I enclose you a squib for the Champion which I will thank you, if you have a frank to spare[that is, the free frank postal privilege which MPs enjoyed], to forward for the next publication. It is greatly to be regretted that you have not one of the champions beside you in parliament. If King Dan [Daniel O’Connell, Irish nationalist MP] had had either sense or honest intentions, he might have returned half a dozen such men as the Cobbetts and Eagle [William Eagle and Francis King Eagle, unsuccessful Radical candidates in 1830s General Elections] for Irish counties and boroughs instead of the straws and rubbish that he draws along in his wake. I hope if the expected opportunity come that the Oldham men will correct their former blunder with respect to John Cobbett. I send the squib open that you may look it over if you please. It is a character of a reformed parliament.

I am, dear Sir, Yours truly     James Whittle

References

Wikipedia: John Fielden

Lowell L. Blaisdell “James Whittle, Chartist Editor” in The Journal of Rutgers University Libraries, volume 41, number 2, 1979, pages 104-117

Wikipedia: Chartism

Manchester's John Rylands Library houses business papers of the Fielden brothers and political correspondence of John Fielden MP:

https://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/rylands/special-collections/a-to-z/detail/?mms_id=992983876613601631

 

 

 

 

Captain Kelly hero of the Battle of Waterloo writes from Ireland to his wife Maria 1821

 

Edward Kelly (1771-1828) was an Irishman of modest origins who got into contemporary prints and narratives for personal bravery at the Battle of Waterloo spiced up with some bravado – as a battlefield Captain in the Life Guards he ran through and toppled a French cuirassier from his horse and then dismounted and used his sword to cut off, as a souvenir, the dead (or dying?) officer’s epaulettes. He was later wounded but consoled himself with hopes for promotion and in a letter to his wife (not in my possession but recorded by other researchers) he notes that the “Marquis of Anglesea sent me word that he had already mentioned my name to the Duke of Wellington and that he would also mention me to the Prince [the Prince Regent] and the Duke of York, so that I think there will be a race between me and Whale for the Lt. Colonelcy, and God knows I won it fairly in the Field, but I think there is no chance of my getting it.” He had to wait for promotion, but for his battlefield exploits was awarded the Russian Order and Cross of St. Anne. 

This August 1821 letter shows him in Ireland (where he becameAide de Camp to Major-General Egerton) in the month of George the Fourth's visit to Dublin; he was subsequently posted to India as Aide de Camp to Stapleton Cotton, later Viscount Combermere, and already the Commander in Chief in India. He was joined in India by his son Edward and both were present at the significant capture of Bharatpur in 1826. But in 1828 first the son and then the father died of locally-contracted illnesses. 

Other letters written by Kelly are already known to researchers (see References) and I have other items of Kelly family correspondence from this period including one written from General Egerton to Kelly; that suggests to me that there are likely to be  more letters still in circulation between dealers and collectors but not yet identified by researchers.

 

Transcription

Addressed: To Mrs Kelly   Sutton   Surry   England

Datelined: Armagh 16^th Augt 1821

Only legible postmarked is the London transit mark of 21 Au 1821

 

My ever dearest Maria

It is with the greatest pleasure I haste to inform you that Genl. and Mrs Egerton and myself set off from hence on Saturday next for Dublin for the purpose of attending a Levee  and a Drawing room on Monday and Tuesday next and very soon after that I proceed to Sutton on leave for two months. I think about the second week in Septemr you will see me and eat some partridges of my killing and some trout also.

I am not to return to Armagh having obtained the Generals permission to set off direct from Dublin, my anxiety is so great to be with you all that I have declined the trip to Scotland which under any other circumstances I should have been delighted to avail myself of. Mrs Egerton has been very ill with measles and I think she runs a great risk in going out so soon after them.

Nothing can equal the Kings reception in Ireland, the people are absolutely mad with joy – after I have been presented I will write to you again but I dare say His Majesty will not recollect me in the change of uniform from the Life Gds to the Staff. Lord Anglesea will be there also and perhaps His Lordship will not recollect me either. I hope however that I will never forget that I am a man and therefore am superior to dwelling or fretting for such things as these, had I not done my duty in the Field [of battle] all the rewards His Majesty could bestow on me could not make me happy [ possibly happyer].

I hope you got my letter and presents for the Children  ….pray kiss them all for me and assure them of my unalterable affection. Get Mr Sancho [his horse] in exercise for me, I dare say he is so fat that he will not be able to Hunt.

I hope to bring over some music and a something in the dress way for the Girls or ….. of the Kings visit to Ireland.

I have not time to say more at this moment but I will write more fully from Dublin and I trust be able to name the time to a day that you may expect to see me.

adieu my ever dearest Love & Believe me

Your unalterably affecte EK [?]

 

References

https://insidecroydon.com/2023/05/14/kellys-heroics-and-the-tale-of-a-soldiers-hard-life-and-death/

https://chrisb2701.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/waterloo-kelly-and-the-dissolute-earl/

https://collection.nam.ac.uk/detail.php?acc=1974-05-69-52-1

https://lornapeel.com/2024/06/30/king-george-iv/

https://ageofrevolution.waterlooassociation.org.uk/200-object/4250/

 

 

The Fourth Duke of Newcastle to his son William Pelham Clinton at Christ Church Oxford 1835

The Fourth Duke of Newcastle (1785-1851) had already fathered thirteen children by his wife Georgiana between 1807 and 1822 when she died giving birth to twins, one stillborn and one dying within a fortnight. He did not re-marry and appears to have been an affectionate but possibly unavailable father, as the letter transcribed below suggests. He was also a political reactionary in a period when reactionary forces were powerful; he was very active against causes which eventually succeeded: the removal of most civil disabilities applied to Roman Catholics (1829) and electoral reform (1832). His reactionary stance and an associated rudeness eventually (1839) caused his removal from his post as Lord Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. In this letter his support for Sir Robert Peel's government is clearly conditional. 

The recipient  is his son William who graduated from Oxford in 1836. Shortly after, and following an affair which became public knowledge, he was despatched on a Grand Tour of Europe along with his younger twin brothers  Charles and Thomas who appear in this letter and who were painted in 1818 aged five by William Collins RA.

Curiously, William’s father had been trapped at Tours in France on his own Grand Tour (but accompanied by father and stepmother) between 1803 and 1806. I suspect that his reactionary views may have been encouraged by this unwonted stay in revolutionary France.

Lord William Pelham-Clinton died in 1850 and never married, which helps explain the fact that this letter has been circulating, possibly for a very long time, in the marketplace of paper collectibles.

 

Transcription

Addressed to: The Lord William P. Clinton   Christ Church   Oxford

Datelined: London Mar 6 1835

Free Frank privilege claimed, dated frank of 6 MR 1835 on outer wrapper; letter written on black-edged mourning notepaper.

My dear William

Your letter now enclosed [but not now present] has been 3 days on my table already & I have not had the kindness to write a few lines to you in enclosing it. My dear William forgive me – you know my inexactitude which is quite culpable & when the time has arrived I have been too late for the post.

I mean to return to Clumber [Clumber Park, his residence in Nottinghamshire] on Monday after which time write to me there.

If I can I will send you the amount of your bills before I leave London but I much fear that my payments will necessarily be so close that I must postpone it until after the beginning of April. Nothing but wind & disagreeable weather – politics improve & far as I can see Sr R. Peel is doing well – if he can restrain himself from reforming all will be right & we shall pull through & we shall deserve success without such conduct we shall neither have nor deserve success.

I had a letter from Edwd. [probably naval Lieutenant Lord Edward Pelham-Clinton 1816-1842] today dated Valparaiso Novr 28 – he was quite well.

I must write no more or I shall be late for everything else. Susan is better certainly & Henrietta [? uncertain transcription] is pretty well again. Charles & Thomas returned to Windsor at 6 this morning [Windsor means Eton; Lord Charles and Lord Thomas Charles Pelham-Clinton were twins born in 1813 ]

Ever your most truly affecte. Father     Newcastle

References

Wikipedia: Henry Pelham-Clinton, 4^th Duke of Newcastle

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/learning/biographies/lordwilliampelham-clinton(1815-1850).aspx

 

Lord Charles and  Lord Thomas Pelham-Clinton aged five

David Balfour writes to his wife Fanny sketching his initial plans for what became Balfour Castle on the island of Shapinsay 1846 or 1847

David Balfour inherited his father’s properties on the Orkney Island of Shapinsay in 1846; he was the second son of Captain William Balfour R.N. but his elder brother died in 1838.  He promptly set about re-modelling the family house at Cliffdale on Shapinsay and eventually built what is still known as Balfour Castle. This letter to his wife Fanny Edmeston who he had married a couple of years previously sets out his initial thinking on what to do and how to go about it. That he is writing from Monaghan in Ireland may be explained by family connections.

The internet will not give me any 19th century prints or photographs of the castle, only more recent ones.

Transcription

Addressed to: Mrs Balfour  Cliffdale [their present home on Shapinsay] care of James Traill Esqr  Thurso Caithness

Datelined: Monaghan [Ireland] 12^th March [1846 or 1847?]

Postmarked faded “MONAGHAN”. Routed “By Donaghadee”, a small port on the north east coast of Ireland with a boat service across to Scotland; Scottish transit mark of Glasgow or Edinburgh “MR [March] 20” charged on delivery

 

My dear Fanny

This day I am still a little better and barring unforeseen changes, which we leave I hope with confidence & resignation in the hands of God, I trust in a fair way of gaining strength daily. Indeed I have more to gain than strength for there is literally nothing left on my bones. They blistered my head again and again and left me without hair and they so blistered me all over that I have a new skin geting [?] and to get to my bare bones. But all this will be soon refitted if I continue to get strength. I send this to Mr Traill’s care supposing from what you write that you may be there by the time this can reach you. It shall therefore relate solely to Caithness matters of which you’ll perhaps think that I have written enough already. But as to the intended house, don’t you think that as you consider my cottage plans as too small, it would answer well to build a wing of a large house which wing would afford us temporary accommodation till our funds were ready for completing the plan. I have formed an idea of the whole & can lay out the wing (which is afterwards to be kitchen & women servants appartments) so that we have two decent rooms without beds, 5 decent bed chambers, kitchen cellar pantry, one bed chr [chamber] for men & one for women servants, a study a storeroom & a lumber room. The public rooms will be each 18 or 19 feet long by 16. The expense of this will fall short of £400. I  think the rooms being furnished plainly but better than would be necessary when converted to the purposes for which it is latterly intended. But I intreat you to please yourself and I assure you that in so doing you most effectually gratify me – I only propose for your election – if I am able I shall draw a plan of the whole intended house, body & wings & send you. If more out houses are requisite by building the shell of the other wing which may cost about 100 £ abundance of room will be at command. I am supposing the roof to be of Easdale slates but there will be a considerable saving as well as a considerable addition to efficiency if slates are easily got in the neighbourhood & of a good quality, which I am assured they may be – there is to be sure an inferiority of appearance. It is to be attended to so that a large house of considerable height must stand in a sheltered situation, rather low than high. Perhaps a sport may be found dry enough or that may be easily made so, where you have the command of water to bring in even at the top of the house by a pipe, where you have  the view of running water where you see the few old trees & sheltered sufficiently to give assurance of being able to raise young ones, where a reasonable size of lawn can be made in front, & where rising grounds around break the force of the blast. The front should be towards the south unless there [are] strong reasons to the contrary. Not to the westward unless well sheltered from that point.

14^th The above is the greater part of two days work. .But I expect soon to be able to give you folio sheets in a day. When you get to Caithness there is another place beside Calder (in the [?] neighbourhood) which you [and] I lately purchased. I know the greater part of it is a ragged poor looking place as can be, but like the other parts of it I never saw. Mr Traill can point out if there is occasion for any thing being done altered respecting it and I rely[?] for information from you or Mr Bremner on every point. Remember me with affection to Mr Traill to whom my obligations are infinite; and offer my best respects to Lady Janet & Lady Isabella to Mrs Traill & Miss Traill I owe both gratitude & affection – they were always partial to me.

You speak my dear wife of the increase of our property as requiring a larger house than any of those of which I sent plans. Do you consider that tho we have more land we have less money & more debt? I would wish to live with the first in my neighbourhood nearly on an equal footing. But I would not now wish to be the mark of envy. We have suffered by that.

I heard from Willm. today – he is well & writes well. I wish I could say as much for his elder brother. I am sorry to learn from him that our Brother John has some complaint which he thinks dangerous. I know not what it is. I trust nothing very serious.  God bless thee so my affectionate friend F.B. [It seems he signs off with his wife’s initials not his own]

15^th March