Letter from Bingham - Christmas 1791

Box 18/307 is a letter written on 28 December 1791 by Thomas Beaumont to his sister Frances (Fanny), Mrs W.E. Stanford.

Thomas writes from Bingham - no doubt the Rectory.

He is in relaxed mood. He says he has hardly stirred beyond the gate, and he must mean for just the last few days, as Christmas is a busy time for clergymen, and I would suppose he was at East Bridgford then, having quite recently been appointed Curate there. Perhaps he is living at Bingham and "commuting" to Bridgford.

This letter is addressed to Castlegate. I will do another piece after this, about the house Frances lived in there, which is still standing, one of the finest houses in Nottingham.

The Bingham party includes:-
Uncle and Aunt (John Walter, Bingham's Rector, and his wife Susannah, nee Beaumont),
Mother (Betty, widow of Rev George Beaumont),
Wife / Sister [-in-law] (Thomas' wife Charlotte, nee Huthwaite),
Fan (Frances Huthwaite, Charlotte's sister),
Brother (presumably Abel Beaumont, the youngest), and
little Dolly (unidentified).

Tom and John are also unidentified.
The friends at Prestwold are thought to be the Packe family.
Will must presumably mean Fanny's husband William Elliott Stanford.
The reference to His Grace of Ormond is a mystery.
.............................................
Here is the full text:

Bingham 28 December 1791

Dear Fanny

As I’ve nought to do

I take my pen to write to you

For since His Grace of Ormond took

My verses with Will’s pocket-book

I thought it hard that you should lose

Th’ effusions of the shortlived Muse

And therefore have resumed my pen

To make your losses up again

The news from Nottingham I see

What’s doing here you ask from me

Alas! I’ve little to relate

I’ve scarcely stirred beyond the gate

Confined by snows and stormy weather

Here we are croudling all together

Regardless what the world’s about

So we can keep the cold without

Happy we sit around the fire

Nor greater luxury require

Than e’en a jug of nut brown ale

To hear & tell some Christmas tale

While Yule* block of nice dry wood 

Keeps up our Christmas fire good

[on the original] *Yule – Saxon

Next page

But whether th’ morning’s wet or fair

Uncle who likes the outward air

Seldom sits still for long together

But will be peeping at the weather

Making excuse for running out

To see what Tom or John’s about

Now dabbling over shoes in snow

Then running in to warm his toe

And while he makes some funny speech

Turns up his coat and warms his breech

(line lost in the fold) 

Just before dinner as we’ve time

We call for those said books sublime

Called Cards and down we sit and play

And thus we pass an hour away

For Aunt ne’er lets the time slip by

That can be spent so pleasantly

E’en little Dolly must a fist 

To make a party up at whist

So every evening after tea

To it we go; but as for me

My pocket’s in a deep decline

For what between this Aunt of mine

And wife and Fan and all the three

It suffers most confoundedly

Next page

Thanks for your soles so sweet and good

We thought them very pretty food

And voted them so nice a dish

That when you’ve any more such fish

With shrimps and lobsters to attend’em

You know at once which way to send’em

And tho’ the man who’d chance to stray

Out of his road a little way

And get t’wards Bridgeford on the Hill

Let him go on – he can’t do ill

The curate there will take him in

Kind soul – you think it any sin

At once to ease him of his load

And shew him home the nearest road

On Friday next the weather fair

Our Prestwould friends expect us there

We are not much inclined to go 

But since the Fates will have it so

We must submit; - tho; to speak fair

We all have been so happy here

That we don’t wish to quit this place

But hold – I must reserve a space

Just to inform you that your mother,

Uncle, Aunt, Sister, Fan and Brother

All join in love; so now d’ye see

I’m yours affectionately

T.B.
.............. It seems a bit odd that a letter sent by someone should be found amongst that person's own papers. But the Elliotts and Beaumonts knew one another for years, and there has for long been something of a tradition of giving things back!

A family called Packe lived at Prestwold Hall. The next item in this archive (Box 18/308) is another letter in verse (or part of one, or a copy or draft) from Thomas Beaumont to a certain Fanny Packe, who (I just speculate) may have been his god-daughter.

23 June 2018