Miniature with the three Upton sisters, their full names written on reverse and dated 1796 in their mother’s hand; Sophia on the right
I have to remind myself that in the past, and worldwide, the lives of most children were nasty, brutish, and short. They leave no record except at times and in places where written records of births and death were kept and from which population historians calculate mortality rates. Until very recently few children anywhere were literate and even as late as the early 19th century a surviving letter written by a child is a rarity in comparison to the boxloads of title deeds, indentures, and wills which crowd archive shelves.
The
Honourable Sophia Upton is twelve years old and in March 1793 writes from
Naples to her youngest brother Arthur (1777-1885) who is on his way to Berlin
to enrol at the Military Academy, a first step in his preparation for an army
career. He is sixteen. Sophia indicates that her letter will be carried by a Mr
Parker and so the address panel on this letter reads only “The Honble Arthur
Percy Upton”; the letter has been folded many times and is quite fragile. It
fills four sides of a double sheet, the final few sentences scrawled in
available blank spaces. Mr Parker may have been an official diplomatic or
military courier willing to carry private letters from people he knew.
Sophia
(1780-1853) is living with her mother, Lady Templetown (1746-1823), who was
widowed in 1785 having given birth to six children by her much older husband
Clotworthy Upton (1721-1785), first Baron Templetown in the peerage of Ireland.
The oldest son, John Henry, who has inherited the title appears in the letter
as “our dearest Temple”; the second son Fulke Greville (1773-1846) appears as
Greville. Sophia’s sister Caroline (1778- 1862) is in Naples as is Elizabeth
Albina (1775-1844) who is “Liza” but who will shortly travel to Rome with her
mother. The Lord Berwick (1770-1832) referred to in the letter later married
Sophia Dubochet, sister of Harriette Wilson and a fellow courtesan; in 1793 Berwick
was on an extended and very expensive Grand Tour.
Lady
Templetown lived a peripatetic existence following her husband’s death; that
she had remarkable talents is partly obscured by the fact that Josiah Wedgwood
spelt her name without the “w” and the Victoria and Albert follows suit in cataloguing designs she created for his jasperware. Wedgwood was delighted with her
work; some of Elizabeth’s designs were etched by Peltro William Tomkins,
drawing master to the daughters of George the Third, and published in book form
in 1790. They can now be had as Print on Demand.
Clotworthy
Upton left his widow a decent hand to play. The bulk of the wealth was in Irish
landed estates, yielding rents; a part was in slave plantations in Grenada. He
left that property, including its enslaved people, in trust to his wife for
life, with instructions that it should be sold on her death and the proceeds
divided among his children. Though Lady Templetown outlived the abolition of
slavery in 1833 there is no trace on the UCL database of a compensation claim
in her name or in the name of any related Upton. Yale University holds examples
of accounts addressed to her in London including one dated 1817; this shows a
great deal of accumulated interest suggesting that dividends were allowed to
accumulate. The Bank of England’s conversion calculator reckons the Grenada
properties in 1817 as worth about £350 000 in today’s money.
*
Transcription;
spellings preserved, punctuation modified but unusual attempts at using
apostrophes preserved
Addressed
to: The Honble Arthur Percy Upton
No postal
markings; datelined Friday the 21st of March which would be
1794 but could be 1793 if mis-dated by one day; the internal references to Holy
Week and the declaration of war fit much better with a 1793 date and I have
assumed that.
*
I
received a letter from you my dearest Arthur two or three day’s ago but as mama
is very soon going to Rome for the holy week (which I suppose you know is a
very grand thing) I thought she might take my letter so far with her. When you
wrote that letter you were still at nasty dirty Marbourg [Marburg]
– but how great is our delight mama having a letter from you this morning
saying that you were safe at Franckfort with our dearest Temple. You know my
dearest Arthur our anxiety about you, you may therefore conceive our great
happiness at hearing you are out of Mr Beauclair’s house.
Caroline
and I stay at Naples, Mama will be at Rome about a fortnight. How delightful it
is Templetown’s being so kind to you, what a comfort it is to mama, for what
could she have done at such a distance.
However I hope now every thing will soon be settled as we have changed
houses and have a very pleasant one, where there is a view of the sea, & it
is facing a beautiful walk where the whole world goes. I am very glad
that you like Madame de Ritz, she is a very good natured woman are you
acquainted with her Daughter and the fine little boy we
were not acquainted with them. I think the daughters look’s are not very
imposing but her interior may be good. [Madame de Ritz, countess of
Lichtenau, official mistress of the King of Prussia, and noted for her
assistance to French emigres in the 1790s].
I never spent my time so very pleasantly as
since I have been at Naples, we have a great number of Ball’s. Lord Berwick gives
more Balls and pleasanter ones than any Body here, if mama was not going to
Rome we should have had one. My my dearest dear Arthur write to
me very often. You may go on directing at Naples till I write you word to
direct any where else. I believe mama intends going to an Island called Ischia
in the summer it is very near Naples I believe one can go in half a day.
Mount
Vesuvius is in a little eruption now it look’s beautiful at night we have been
up it half way on asses. I never was so well in my life as I am now the climate
is quite heavenly, mama intends spending the summer here indeed we could not
spend it is a pleasanter place but all the English are now going to Rome for
the holy week and I am afraid that not many of them will come back here again.
Eliza and Caroline desire their best and kindest greetings – the latter to
wish you joy of being out of Mr Beauclair’s house. [Probably
Jean Pierre de Rouville gen. de Beauclair then on the faculty of the University
of Marburg as a professor of languages including English].
I have
got a charming music master here both for singing and playing. I think him much
better than the one we had at Rome. They say that the French have declared war
against Naples & that The Grand Duke
of Tuscany has given a passage for (I believe) a hundred thousand men
to go to Rome some people think it time but you need not be afraid for us as in
case of danger there are plenty of little villages where we might be in very great safety
and as these savage monsters have enough on their hands at present
without undertaking anything else.
I am at
last at the end of a long and stupid letter and have no more nonsense to say
but to assure my dearest Arthur how sincerely he is loved by his ever affectionate
sister Sophia Upton
If you
see Mr Parker that is the gentleman who brings you this letter be very civil
and kind to him as he was our very intimate friend he is very fond of us all
and has been longing to see you he is not sure of seeing you as you may be at
Berlin not Franckfort.
Pray pray
write to me I long to hear from you, give our kind love to our honest
Templeton we received his letter at the same time we did yours
Excuse this
miserable minute [?] illegible writing but I am in a hurry
Eliza
intends writing to you when she is at Rome by Mr Parker, at least she says she
intends, it but with [rest illegible].
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