Letters of Jane Attwater Blatch, from the Reeves Collection, Bodleian[1]

1.     Marianna Attwater Head, Bradford, to Jane Attwater, Bodenham, c. late March-early April 1773.[2]

2.     Jane Attwater, Bodenham, to Caroline Attwater, Bratton, [Saturday], 4 December 1773.[3]

3.     Jane Attwater, Bodenham, to Caroline Whitaker, Bratton, [Tuesday], 15 October 1776.[4]

4.     Jane Attwater to the young people of the Particular Baptist Church in Brown Street, Salisbury, [Monday], 20 July 1777.[5]  

5.     Jane Attwater, Bodenham, to Thomas and Caroline Whitaker, Bratton, [Wednesday], 29 March 1780.[6]

6.     Jane Attwater, Bodenham, to [Mrs Philips], Salisbury, [c 1782-83].[7]

7.     Jane Attwater, Bodenham, to Caroline Whitaker, Bratton, [Friday], 27 May [1785].[8]

8.     Jane Attwater, Bodenham, to Philip Whitaker, Bratton, [Friday], 5 May 1786.[9]

9.     Caroline Whitaker, Bratton, to Jane Attwater, Nunton, [Friday], 28 December 1787.[10]

10.   Mrs. P. Philips, Salisbury, to Jane Attwater, Nunton Farm, [Monday], 17 August 1789.[11]

11.   Jane Attwater, Nunton, to Elizabeth Saffery, Portsmouth, [Thursday], 12 November [1789].[12]

12.   Jane Attwater, Radfin, to Mary Whitaker, Bratton, [c. late 1792].[13]

13.   Caroline Attwater, Bratton, to Jane Attwater Blatch and Gay Thomas Attwater, Nunton [c. 1792].[14]

14.   Anna Roach, Fordingbridge, to Jane Attwater Blatch, [Bratton], [Saturday], 26 October 1799.[15]

15.   Jane Blatch, [Nunton[, to Nancy Overbury, [Tetbury], c. early 1801.[16]

16.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bodenham, to Caroline Whitaker, Bratton, [Thursday], July 1801.[17]

17.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Annajane Blatch, Bratton, [Thursday], 2 February 1804.[18]

18.   Jane Blatch, Bratton, to a nephew of Joseph Blatch, undated.[19]

19.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Joseph Blatch, Taunton, [Monday], 15 October 1804.[20]

20.   Jane Blatch to an unknown recipient, undated.[21]

21.   Annajane Blatch, Bratton, to Miss Cross, attached to a letter by Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Maria Saffery, Salisbury, c. 1804.[22]

22.   Jane Blatch, Bratton, to Annajane Blatch, Bratton, [Saturday], 13 July 1805.[23]

23.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to the scholars in the Bratton Sunday School, c.  October 1806.[24]

24.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Annajane Blatch, Bratton, [c. 1807].[25]

25.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Mary Steele Dunscombe, Broughton, c. August 1807.[26]

26.   Joseph Blatch, Bratton, to an unidentified recipient, [c. June 1809].[27]

27.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Caroline Whitaker, Bratton, undated.[28]

28.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Anna Jane Whitaker, Bradford, Thursday morning, [undated].[29]

29.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Marianna Attwater Head, Bradford, [Friday-Sunday], 19-21 September  [1817].[30]

30.   Marianna Attwater Head, Bodenham, to Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, [Monday], 22 June, through [Wednesday], 1 July 1818.[31]

31.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Philemon and Eliza Attwater, Nunton, 7 November, undated (c. 1824).[32]

32.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Anna Jane Whitaker, Bradford, [Monday], 31 January 1825.[33]

33.   Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, to Mary Attwater, Nunton, [Monday], 15 April 1833.[34]

34.   Marianna Jane Head, Bradford, to Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, [c. 1840].[35]

35.  Rev. Robert Edminson, Cambridge, to Jane Attwater Blatch, Bratton, [Thursday], 4 June 1840.[36]. 

Timothy Whelan

Notes

[1]Complete transcriptions of these letters can be found in Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 8, pp. 139-202.

[2]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, I.A.2.  This brief autograph note was placed between the pages of Jane Attwater’s diary between 28 March and 9 April 1773. 

[3]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.B.3.(a.), Angus Library.  Address: Mrs Whitaker | Bratton | Wilts. | ‘Pr favour of Florio’.  No postmark.  Caroline Attwater, Jane’s elder sister, was also known as ‘Dorinda’; Jane was ‘Myrtilla’, and Marianna, their other sister, ‘Maria’. 

[4]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.B.3.(b.).  Address: Mrs Caroline Whitaker | Bratton Farm | Near Westbury | Wilts.  Postmark: Salisbury, no date.

[5]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, I.A.7; the letter was placed at the end of her diary for 1777, but dated from her entry on 27 July.

[6]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.B.2.(j.), Angus Library. The above letter is attached to a letter by Gay Thomas Attwater, Bodenham, to his cousin, Thomas Whitaker, Bratton, 29 March 1780. Address:  Mr | Thomas Whitaker | Bratton | near Westbury Wilts | (pr favour of Mr George Head).

[7]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.11.(a.). No address page. 

[8]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.B.3.(c.), Angus Library.  Address: Mrs Whitaker | Bratton Farm. No postmark. 

[9]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.8, Angus Library.  Address: Mr Philip Whitaker | Bratton | Wilts.  

[10]Reeves Collection, Box 24/1, Bodleian.

[11]Reeves Collection, Box 22/2, Bodleian. 

[12]Saffery/Whitaker Papers, Acc. 142, I.A.1, Angus Library.  Address: Mrs Saffery | Portsmouth. No postmark. 

[13]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.19, Angus Library.  Address: Miss Whitaker | Bratton. No postmark. 

[14]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/g, Bodleian.  

[15]Reeves Collection, Box 24/3, Bodleian; letter is a copy.  

[16]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/a, Bodleian. The Overbury’s of Tetbury were close friends of the Whitaker family of Bratton; see Reeves Collection, Box 22/5, Bodleian, for fourteen letters, mostly from the 1790s, by Nancy Overbury to Mary Whitaker. 

[17]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.B.3.(d.).  Address: Mrs Caroline Whitaker | Bratton. No postmark.

[18]This note was placed inside JAB’s diary for February 1804; see Attwater Papers, acc. 76, I.A.24.

[19]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/d, Bodleian.

[20]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, I.A.24; the letter is a fair copy (on a loose folium) by JAB, inserted into the diary for 1804. 

[21]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/e, Bodleian; the recipient, one of ‘my dear partners near relations’, as JAB puts it, is one of Joseph Blatches brothers or sisters, most of whom lived near Amesbury, Wiltshire. 

[22]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/i, Bodleian.  

[23]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, I.A.22.

[24]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/f, Bodleian. 

[25]Attwater Papers, acc. 76. I.A.25.

[26]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, I.A.26. 

[27]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/j, Bodleian; Annajane Blatch was in the final stages of consumption at the time of this letter, and died on 28 July 1809. See Mary Steele’s poetic tribute to Annajane in NWW, volume 3, poem 134; also volume 6, letters 214 and 217.

[28]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/b, Bodleian.

[29]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.10.(a.), Angus Library. Address:  Miss Whitaker | at Miss Heads | Bradford | fav’d by Mr John Whitaker.  No postmark.

[30]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.9, Angus Library. No address page or postmark. 

[31]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.20, Angus Library.  Address: Mrs Blatch | Bratton | near Westbury.  No postmark.

[32]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.10.(d.), Angus Library.  Address: Mrs Attwaters | Nunton | Wilts | May 7th | Obliged by | Mrs Whitaker.  No postmark. 

[33]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.10.(b.), Angus Library. Address: To | Miss Whitaker. No postmark.  

[34]Attwater Papers, acc. 76, II.A.10.(c.), Angus Library.  Address:  Mrs Attwaters | Nunton | oblig’d by | Miss Eliza Attwater. No postmark.  

[35]Reeves Collection, Box 19/2/o, Bodleian. 

[36]Reeves Collection, Box 19/3/c/ii, Bodleian.  Address: Mrs Blatch | Bratton | Wilts. | Obliged by Mr Whitaker.  No postmark.