Clarissa Parry to John Freeman Milward Dovaston London 1806

 

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 Setting this letter in its context was assisted by the fact that the recipient’s surname, Dovaston, is not common and that the Dovaston junior in question has his own Wikipedia page as John Freeman Milward Dovaston. It creates only a little confusion that the maiden name of Clarissa Dalloway in Virginia Woolf's novel is Clarissa Parry and I did wonder if Mrs Woolf in Tavistock Square had once heard of a Clarissa Parry who over a century before lived in Tavistock Place and wrote this letter.Open sources allow me to establish that the sender is writing from Number Thirty Tavistock Place though the letter only gives “Tavistock Place” and that the “C Parry” is Clarissa Parry and her father Frederick Parry who is some kind of dispensing chemist and a governor of the “Northern Dispensary”. The “Betty” she goes to watch perform in Orestes is the child actor Master Betty whose life story can be called up at will.  Mr Foulkes of Hart Street in Bloomsbury is an Attorney; Captain Thomas Gabriel Bayliff set sail for Bombay on 10 March 1806 so before this letter was written which implies that there was either another Bayliff destined for Bombay or that what is being proposed in the letter could not have happened without a long delay: Bayliff did not return until 6 October 1807.

I simply guess that “Enfield” in Middlesex is where a nurseryman supplying plants and seeds is located. And because I can’t read just one word it remains unclear what was causing concern in the conduct of the Cousin Parry now being lined up for a life on board ship. It was probably a woman or a gambling den but there is no evidence for either supposition. The Dovastons and the Parrys were related by marriage and a “Parry Dovaston” was born in 1784 which makes Clarissa’s reference to “Cousin Parry” ambiguous between that twenty-two year old man and a cousin whose surname is Parry. I lean towards the former because Parry Dovaston is two years younger than John Milward, who as both a family member and two years older could have been giving him advice. But there is not a single online genealogy which knows anything more about Parry Dovaston than his date of birth.

Clarissa appears lively and even flirtatious, suggesting that “I have it in contemplation to make you my head gardener”. But Dovaston (1782 -1854) never married though very much of marriageable age in 1806. He studied Law at Christ Church, Oxford where he was nicknamed “Crazy Jack” but gave up the Law in favour of poetry, gardening and ornithology. The one online poem I read seemed pretty awful but the ornithology is reckoned innovative: he sought to develop notations for recording bird calls, pioneered the ringing of birds to determine whether they returned to a previous habitat, and researched the territoriality of robins. He corresponded with the naturalist and woodblock engraver Thomas Bewick.

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Transcription

Addressed to:  John Dovaston Esq^r Jun^r  The Nursery    near Oswestry Salop

Datelined from: Tavistock Place March 27 1806

I think I hear you say what another letter why surely the Girl is mad what can she mean by tormenting me in this manner; seriously D. I should not have troubled you with this; but you seem to have taken my saying so little about your Cousin Parry in so serious a light that I think it right that you should be undeceived. I did not at the time of writing recollect what had passed at our house between you and I mentioned him as a matter of course. I have the satisfaction of telling you that I believe he has profited by your advice for I do not think he has visited …. [looks like initials or a house number] since; he has dined with us every Sunday he has had to himself the last excepted when he was at Mr Foulkes of Hart Street and came to us in the evening. He seems to have a great desire of going to sea & papa thinks him very steady and fit for business he believes he has it now in his power to send him out with a particular friend of his Capt. Bayliff to be in the line of a purser if his father consents. Parry has written on this subject and papa writes today; I hope he will give his consent and I think it will be a good thing for him.

I thought D when you left town it was to study the law and not the art of gardening however I am glad to find that you practice so much that I have it in contemplation to make you my head gardener. We shall expect you early in April and I sincerely hope you will not be troubled with any of your melancholy fits while here

We have been very quiet since my last having only been to the Play once to see Betty in Orestes and to the opera. Papa has not yet been to Enfield and I dare say you will be quite in time to accompany him for he like many others of my friends takes a long time to consider of a thing before they undertake it. All in the House of Tavistock desire their best regards among whom Madam subscribes herself

Your sincere friend       C Parry

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References

[Thomas] Bewick to Dovaston Letters 1824-1828, edited by Gordon Williams (1968)

Wikipedia: John Freeman Milward Dovaston (30 December 1782 -8 August 1854) was a British poet and naturalist.