Eliza Flower, Cambridge, to William Hollick, Whittlesford, near Cambridge, Thursday, 16 October 1801.

Sir,

   After the very satisfactory conversation which I had with you respecting Mr Lowell’s preaching for the Benevolent Society, I was both surprised and hurt, at receiving a letter from Mr Aldn Ind informing me that on your “communicating to your friends the conversation which had passed, they were unanimously of opinion that the matter had better be declined for the present.” Who those Gentlemen are who think thus, and thus dictate to Mr Lowell, Mr Gardner, and the Committee of the Society  I do not enquire, tho I will take the liberty of adding, that in this affair I am not under the necessity of consulting any Gentleman belonging to Mr Hall’s church and congregation except the Deacons.

   As Secretary to the Benevolent Society I feel it my duty to comply with the wishes of the Committee, who at their last meeting resolved, “that Mr Lowell be requested to preach a sermon for the benefit of the Institution.”  Mr Gardner also desired me to signify his wishes on the subject, & Mr Ray has expressed his perfect approbation and is surprised that any objection should have been stated on the occasion.

   Although Mr Aldn Ind has been made the channel to convey the decisions of certain persons (to me unknown) who are denominated your friends, yet they have not condescended to give me one reason for their thus obtruding their advice to the injury of a truly benevolent Institution.  They will doubtless have the prayers of the sick, and the aged poor, many of whom having outlived their friends and their faculties, are to my knowledge now pining in Hovels, and Garrets, on the miserable pittance of parish allowance on 1s/6p or at the most 4s pr week.

   Let those Gentlemen who would hinder the current of Benevolence, take to themselves all the comfort derivable from these Words “Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these my Brethren you did it not unto me.”  Neither you nor I Sir can possibly envy them their feelings.

                                 I remain

                                       Sir

                                         Most respectfully yours

                                 (sign’d)         Eliza Flower

Octr 16 Friday evening

P.S. 

   I should have replied immediately, had I not gone out to communicate to my friends, & to the friends of the Institution, the pleasure I had derived in finding that you had no objection to Mr Lowell’s following his benevolent intention of preaching at Mr Gardner’s on the sabbath evening.  Judge you of my surprise and disappointment, on my return, to find my hopes, and the hopes of many other friends to the Institution, blasted!

Text: Flower Correspondence, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth; for an annotated edition of this letter and the complete correspondence of Eliza Gould and Benjamin Flower, see Timothy Whelan, ed., Politics, Religion, and Romance: The Letters of Benjamin Flower and Eliza Gould, 1794-1808 (Aberystywth: National Library of Wales, 2008), pp. 246-48.  The above letter is a copy, not in Eliza’s hand.

William Hollick (1752-1817) was a prominent leader and deacon (1790-1817) in the Baptist church in St. Andrew’s Street, Cambridge, during the ministries of Robert Robinson, Robert Hall, and F. A. Cox. Originally a grocer, he moved to the manor house at Hinxton, near Whittlesford, just outside of Cambridge, in 1792. Wedd William Nash, the son of another deacon at St. Andrew's Street, William Nash (a Unitarian by the 1790s), married Hollick’s daughter, Anne, in 1798. Hollick’s father and uncle were subscribers to the Bristol Education Society throughout the 1770s and ’80s. His cousin, Ebenezer Hollick, Jr. (1751-1828), inherited the Manor of Whittlesford in 1792 and, like William, was also a leader in the church at St. Andrew’s Street and a strong supporter of political reform in the 1790s. For more on the Hollicks, see A. P. M. Wright, ed., A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 223, 226, 229; Church Book: St. Andrew’s Street Baptist Church, Cambridge 1720-1832 (London: Baptist Historical Society, 1991), 132, 136-37; An Account of the Bristol Education Society Anno 1770 (Bristol: M. Ward, 1776), 20, 27; Douglas C. Sparkes, “Baptisms at Whittlesford, Cambs, 1760,” Baptist Quarterly 19 (1961-62), 131-32; Cambridge Intelligencer, 27 August 1796, 29 April 1797.

Samuel Lowell (1759-1823) was the pastor of the Independent meeting at Bridge Street, Bristol.  He had formerly pastored in Suffolk, at which time he became friends with Flower, both of whom shared similar views on political and religious dissent.  Flower even published several sermons by Lowell. 

The Cambridge Benevolent Society was founded by Eliza Flower, in conjunction with Alderman Ind, in September 1801; she served as its first secretary. As one contemporary writer noted, “by her persevering efforts, [Eliza Flower] so greatly extended its usefulness, as to obtain for it the support of all parties, Churchmen and Dissenters.  Its funds consists of donations and subscriptions, and the collection at a sermon annually preached for it; sometimes in a church, and at others in a meeting-house” (“Statistical View of Dissenters in England and Wales,” The London Christian Instructor, or Congregational Magazine, 2 [1819], 373).  Robert Aspland believed charitable work to be Eliza’s primary occupation after her marriage to Benjamin.  She was “indefatigable” in her work as secretary and primary visitor for the Benevolent Society, demonstrating “how much an individual may accomplish by method and perseverance, and how accessible are the hearts of the poor to descreet and affectionate liberality.” “Many are the poor and needy,” he wrote, “who bless her memory, in the recollection of the timely charities and virtuous and pious counsels which constantly and equally made her visits welcome.” As long as the Cambridge Benevolent Society exists, Aspland boasts, it will “serve as a memorial of her virtues” (“Mrs. Flower,” Monthly Repository 3 [1810], 204, 205).

Edward Ind (1764-1821?) was an Alderman for Cambridge, a brewer, a member of the evangelical Charles Simeon’s congregation at Holy Trinity Church, and first treasurer of both the Cambridge Female Benevolent Society and its replacement, the Cambridge Benevolent Society. Like Flower, he too was an active political reformer during the 1790s.  Though an Anglican, he developed close friendships with many who worshiped at St. Andrew’s Street, including Flower and Robert Hall. 

Robert Hall and the congregation at St. Andrew’s Street were active supporters of the Benevolent Society.  Hall’s sermon, Reflections on War, was first preached at St. Andrew’s Street on Tuesday, 1 June 1802, for the benefit of the Benevolent Society.  Hall notes in his “Preface” that “the good which has already arisen from the exertions of that society is more than equal to its most sanguine expectations; and should this publication contribute in the smallest degree to the formation of similar ones in other parts, the author will think himself abundantly compensated for the little trouble it has cost him” (Olinthus Gregory, ed., The works of Robert Hall, A. M.  6 vols.  [London:  Henry G. Bohn, 1853], 1.84). To Hall, one of wisest practices of the Benevolent Society was that “no relief is administered without first personally visiting the objects in their own abode” (1.113), ensuring that all imposters would be detected.  He also noted that since its inception, more than three-fourths of the cases brought to the attention of the Benevolent Society concerned destitute women.  “The situation of females without fortune in this country is indeed deeply affecting,” Hall writes.  Expressing sentiments that Eliza, despite her husband’s dislike of his former friend, would nevertheless have heartily welcomed, Hall argues: “Excluded from all the active employments in which they might engage with the utmost propriety, by men, who to the injury of one sex, add the disgrace of making the other effeminate and ridiculous, an indigent female, the object probably of love and tenderness in her youth, at a more advanced age a withered flower! has nothing to do but to retire and die.  Thus it comes to pass, that the most amiable part of our species, by a detestable combination in those who ought to be their protectors, are pushed off the stage, as though they were no longer worthy to live, when they ceased to be the objects of passion.  How strongly on this account this society is entitled to your attention (as words would fail) I leave to the pensive reflection of your own bosoms” (Gregory, Works, 1.116-17).  His closing image is a fitting description of Eliza Flower’s life.  Benevolent persons, Hall writes, know “that the imitation of Christ is the only wisdom.”  They are “convinced it is better to be endeared to the cottage, than admired in the palace,” to wipe “away the tears of the afflicted, and [inherit] the prayers of the widow and the fatherless” than to receive “the favour of princes” (Gregory, Works, 1.121). Flower commented on Hall’s sermon in the Intelligencer on 5 June 1802: “The preacher described in his happiest strain of eloquence, the horrors of war, the blessings of peace, the duties in general incumbent on us on such an occasion, and the duty of benevolence in particular: towards the close of his discourse, he pleaded in language he most impressive, the cause of the Benevolent Society, recently established for the relief of the sick and aged poor of this town.  Such a discourse could scarcely fail of producing suitable effects.  The collection amounted to Thirty Six Pounds.” To that point, the Society had addressed the needs of 210 cases (Cambridge Intelligencer, 29 January 1803).

Lucas Ray[e] was a Cambridge plumber and glazier who became a deacon at St. Andrew’s Street in December 1790, a position he maintained until his death in 1816.  His father, John Ray of Royston, was also a member of the church.   In July 1796, one of Lucas Ray’s servants, a Miss Ann Jones, was tried at the Crown Bar for theft of a five Guinea note found in her possession belonging to Robert Hall.  She was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison.  Apparently, Hall, who was not married at the time, may have been renting rooms in Ray’s home, or living in a house owned by Ray.  See Cambridge Intelligencer, 12 July 1794, 19 July 1796; Church Book: St. Andrew’s Street Baptist Church, Cambridge 1720-1832 (London: Baptist Historical Society, 1991), 76, 89.