Nat Gould

Pilsbury Grange Letter 8

Letter 8 of the Letters from Pilsbury Grange is dated 5 January 1844, and was written by Margaret Gould to her son Richard Goodwin Gould.

[[The address on the cover is:-]

Mr R G Gould
Mr Batchelors
113 New Bond Street
London

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Janry 5th/44
My dear Richard

I am glad you received the Hamper for safe & I hope the contents were approved but we did not get your letter till the Saturday & I was in some apprehension about it, you have indeed been gay at Cousins & suprice you have such kind friends, but you must not too much oversake on that good nature, your Cousin Susan is knitting a handkerchief for Mrs William which will be sent to you for delivery, & pray give my kind regards to William and his Wife, I do feel very much obliged to them for their kindness to you Boys, also my love to Mollie [[?] & Frank [[?] I hope they are both stout, tell them they knew what Air will do them good when they require a change I think it was this day

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last year you arrived in London you will know by the time this reaches you Mr Batchelors businesses[[?], whatever they are pray be certain for you have a nice situation in many [[?] much by virtue there - I had Trully[[?] hear with a small bill of yours the other day £1 – 13 - I paid it & he told me you often [?] our he [?] [?] Surgeon who left Bakewell if this is correct, I should say he was by no means a desirable Acquaintance, & I am sure you stand in no need of any but your Cousins & Brothers Company William Mason[[?] brought his Sisters to take tea with us & a nice youth he seems but as you say much altered from a youth, thanks for your share of the present he brought us, you received

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for [[insertion illegible] by him, he knows you got it safe & there is an end of it, I have had a long Letter from dear Miss Cooper lately, & Bess from Miss Caroline since I do hope you will have the pleasure of seeing Miss Cooper in the spring if nothing unforeseen prevents it, she will be delighted to see her young friends from the Banks of the Dove for thire own sakes, & [[?] I have had rather a dull Xmas I missed my dear Boy very much, we had a Cow ill & short of a servant made us very busy we have only parted with our dairy maid, & got another, is all the changes we have, George & James Taylor are expected at the other House soon Mrs Gould makes many enquiries after you, she is not very well for I am sorry to say her sons are not so steady as could be wished, prays on her spirits & nerves & sorry I am for her

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I have almost filled my paper without expressing how heartily I desire Health Happiness Prosperity for my dear Boy during the present year, & that its close may find him increased in every de-

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-sirable quallity & wisdom & Grace for after this world & its shortened Pleasures we shall rest in an eternity of joys or sorrows, according to our desserts & pilgrimage through this probationary Hall[[?]

[[cross written on cover]

& that he may arrive at that blessed place is the fervent prayer of

your affectionate Mother
Marg Gould

The front of the letter, which is sealed on two sheets of paper, in the old-fashioned way, was posted in Ashbourne on 7 January 1844, two days after it was written. It bears the postmark of “Ashbourn” dated that day with a Maltese cross cancellation of the imperforate penny red stamp, which was miscut from the sheet and the upper right hand corner severed. It has a backstamp of arrival in London 8 January 1844.

Of the people mentioned in the letter, Cousin Susan does not seem to have been a Gould or Peake first cousin. Miss Cooper was presumably Catherine Cooper (see Letter 2). She and Caroline seem to have been among the "Freinds at Donisthorpe". Bess was the writer's daughter, Elizabeth Ann Gould 1827-1868. The identities of the others mentioned are unknown.

Margaret Gould was in her last year. She died ten months later on 8 November 1844. Perhaps she was already unwell, which would explain and excuse the small mistakes and slight confusions in her letter. She was anxious about her son’s character, and more than conventionally religious. Perhaps that irked her sons, and fuelled their wayward streak.

She seems to have used a new-fangled steel nibbed pen, and was not yet used to it. The writing fades before she dips her pen into the ink again.

A lovely letter from a devoted mother. Her sons Richard and Nathaniel were away in distant London, unable to return home for Christmas, and she had sent a hamper. It had been a dreary Christmas at Pilsbury Grange on “the Banks of the Dove”, her last one. And so a touching letter too.