Mary Epps loves her son James, so much that if only she could ensure herself of an income of forty pounds per year she could go to live with him and impose no burden. Meanwhile, she goes shares with her sister on the cost of lottery tickets.
Mary Epps, a
fifty-two-year- old widow, lives in the large Kentish village of Charing with
its windmills and watermills and a ruined Archbishop’s Palace; her unmarried
son, aged twenty-eight, lodges a long way away at 26 Frith Street in London’s
Soho, an address from which Mr and Mrs Hunter carry on a tailoring and
stay-making business. Stay-making was a skilled trade and most of the makers
men, the stays intended to shape female bodies into the form of an hourglass.
It’s possible that James was working for the Hunters. But there is another
possibility arising from connections to a family headed by a person known to
the history books as Thomas Rodd the Elder.
Mary Epps is
wearied by a lodger who is boarding with her, Miss Clementine Rodd, aged
nineteen and a very late addition in 1782 to the family of Charles Rodd and his
wife Charlotte; Charlotte appears to have been forty-three when Clementine was
born. Clementine’s much older brother Thomas (1763-1822) was highly educated
(Charterhouse and then in France at St Quentin), worked for his father’s
trading business in Alicante, and eventually had a successful life as a writer,
translator from Spanish, and notable bookseller. But in 1798 he established a
business selling artificial jewellery from premises in Gerrard Street, just a
few minutes’ walk from James Epps’s base in Frith Street. James could have been
an employee; Miss Rodd knows him well enough to send her compliments. Her father was dead and her mother probably
living in Alicante. In England, Thomas her brother would have been responsible
for her and the Mrs Rodd who is recorded as writing to her is her brother’s wife.
The jewellery
business failed and in 1801 - the year this letter was written – Thomas Rodd
spent time in Warwick Gaol as a declared bankrupt. That might well explain how
his sister Clementine came to be lodged with Mrs Epps, who notes that the girl
has no money. She adds the observation that Clementine will not come into money
until she is twenty-five which implies that at nineteen she is in no position
to buy a brother out of a debtors’ prison. Whatever the situation of the Rodd
family, it is one which affects James Epps; his mother wants to know “how things is
Settled with them”.
There is
another thread to Mary Epps’s letter which indicates that James has
had a recent conflict of some kind with a man who could also have been an
employer. She writes, “I think I shall Never Like the Jues No more I Cold Not a
thoat Mr Nathen Cold a used you so shamfull”, wording which suggests that there
was a time when she did like the Jews. There were London Nathans trading in
jewellery and other Nathans involved in tailoring. James could have worked in
either kind of business, one of which would qualify him to work for Mr Rodd and
the other for Mr and Mrs Hunter.
That’s as far as
I can get with the forensics. It’s easier to establish that Mary Epps never
realised her plan to join her son but instead re-married in 1805 to a
shopkeeper, stayed in Charing, and died there in 1812 bequeathing a mahogany
bureau to James, now married with two daughters who also received bequests: the
remaining furniture from above the shop and her six silver teaspoons.
Almost all the
writers whose letters I have read treat
punctuation as a matter of personal taste; but spellings are standardised. Only
a very few mobilise spellings which are phonetically inspired as in this
letter. Such letters are of great value to linguists trying to reconstruct past
accents and dialects. And, despite everything, there is some charm to Mary Epps' letter.
*
Transcription
(spellings preserved)
Addressed to: Mr
Epps Mr Hunters No. 26 Frith Street Soho London
Datelined: Charing May 29
1801
My Dear Son
Now all my famley
is goan to bed I am sete Down to Rite to you for I reley can never geat by my
Self no other time for to tell you the truth Miss Rodd makes me a grate Dale of
work I think I am all ways to be a Slave to someboday or other you wish me to Rite
ofen and tell you how Charing pepel went on – so most tell you I think Mr M
will be Lick his Cosen Rodd if he Don’t alter I think he have no thoats but
folesh ones his mother have been very bad no body thoat she cold Live but She
Now is better –
Mrs Rodd sent
Clemintine a Letter and wish her to come to town but I hard her say she has no
money to come Neither Cold she afford it and if she had a come to Mrs Rodd wate
use Cold it a been as She have Nothing in her own power tell She is 25 years
old and Now she is but 19 years old and I think She is a very simple Gairl as
ever I see I am sorry for It but Don’t tell Mrs Rodd wate I see for very Lickly
she will tell her a gain and I hope to have no words wile she is with me as I
Don’t think it will be Long for She Says Charing is a Dole plase I think her
Coming to bord with me is very Straing and I think thay be very mad famly as
for Rodd and his wife I don’t petty thim a tall I am sorry for the Children I always
New how it most be with them pray tell me in your Nex Letter how things is
Settled with them
if you rember I
bag you wold send me word wether the ticket No 26 mo 18 was Drown a prise or a
Blanck be so Kind as to inquier and tel me in your Nex Letter and at the Same
time I wish you wold aske my Sisteer wate No tickets She have Bought wich will
be Drown in July Nex I think I shold Now the No of the tickets as I go Shers in
them
Your Sister
Diserd her Love to you and says if you shold Leve of a old Cote She wish you
wold save it for her to brich Edward this sommer I am in hopes thay will bring
things a boute in time Robbrd Cheesman is married to his own Garil at hotfeld I
have hard thar is a Nother Child Comen – I wish to God London was Not so far
off I should ofen Com to see you that God Nows is a grat plesuer to me I hope to God you be more happy
in your mind then you was it always on my mind tho I never say aney thing
aboute it if you be fond of Coffee I
will send you a pound before Long. I have been very porely my Self with the
Romatcks a bote me but better Now thank God for it I to hare from you sone shore it Cant be
very trobsom to you to Rite Now and then to me as you No it gave me plesuer and
all I wish from you if Mrs hunter Shold meat with a Carpet for me Gave me a
Line and I will tell you whar to send it to and what she may have the money for
it Directly Mr Guy best respecks to you – I never Lett nobody see yore Letters
you may Depend on that I think I shall Never Like the Jues No more I Cold Not a
thoat Mr Nathen Cold a used you so shamfull but Don’t mind it you will be
Better of some Day I Don’t fear yeat I am not afraid but wate you wold hare of
something to sute you before a grat will
I think sometimes
if I Cold bring aboat 40 pounds year with me I Cold spend the Rest of my Life
with you I have often thoat if you Live will how happy I Shold be with you But
pray Don’t think of me to be aney trubell to you I wish see you if you Cold Come
this Summer and spend a wick or too I cant say more at present
From your turly
Loven Mother Mary Epps
Miss Rodd
Complements
Docketing note:
M 29 May 1801
*
1801 Mary Epps
Liz Peters researched the archives to put flesh on
the characters who appear in this letter.
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