Eliza Gregory, Romsey, to Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, [Saturday], 6 December 1828.

Romsey December 6th 1828

My dear Madam,

   Your eldest daughter I believe told you when she wrote last that I was just on the point of leaving Yarmouth and should after a week’s sojourn at Romsey be happy [to] accept your kind invitation to Salisbury.  I arrived here on Wednesday morning last, and purpose, if nothing unforeseen prevents, to travel from hence to Salisbury next Wednesday. My kind relatives here wish me to remain longer but that cannot be; I have already been very long absent from home, and should have returned much sooner, but for the slow and leisurely proceedings of the workmen employed in repairing our tottering house; for indeed it was in a very miserable condition, although it has not been built so much as thirty years. I anticipate much pleasure in spending a few days with you my dear Madam, in seeing your kind and amiable daughter Jane again and in being introduced to Miss Salter. I have heard a great deal of this lady from Marianne. I thought it very kind of you Ma’am to remember me in your letters, especially as you have seen so little of me. It is so near Christmas that I had better fix the time and mode of my journey to London, immediately on my arrival at Salisbury, write to Mamma, and give her time to reply to my letter as probably she may think it necessary.  

   I was sorry to hear there had been so much illness in your family, but trust the invalids are in a fair way to recovery. The typhus fever has been in my Uncle’s family. Miss Herriot, the governess, was in danger for 3 weeks, had her head shaved, and kept her bed for a month. Both Miss H– and Fanny Beddome, (who also had the fever,) are now mercifully recovered and as well as ever.

   You will, I am sure, excuse my writing more, as I have just finished a long letter to dear Jane Alexander, and while writing, I am no company to my friends. With kind love to your daughter Jane,

         conclude,

                     and subscribe myself,

                                 Your affectionate grateful

                                             young friend,

                                                         Eliza Gregory

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, II.A.4.(a.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Address: Mrs Saffery | Castle Street | Salisbury.  Postmark: Romsey.  For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 405-06. Eliza Gregory was the daughter of Olinthus Gregory, mathematics professor at the Royal Military College, Woolwich, and prominent Baptist layman at that time. Gregory has previously become acquainted with Marianne Saffery, Maria Saffery's daughter who was working at the time of the above letter in a school in Weymouth, Dorset. She had recently been visited by Gregory.

The reference to Fanny Beddome creates an interesting connection between Maria Saffery and Mary Steele. In 1776 William Wilkins of Cirencester sought to marry Steele. Wilkins had studied for the ministry at Bristol Academy and would soon begin a lengthy service (1777-1795) as assistant to Benjamin Beddome (1717-95), Baptist minister at Bourton-on-the-Water, 1743-95, who himself had once been a suitor of Anne Steele, Mary Steele’s aunt.  Both Steeles would reject their suitors.  Wilkins had three sisters, two of whom married Boswell and Samuel Beddome, sons of Benjamin Beddome; the third sister married the business partner of Samuel Beddome, Hewitt Fysh. All had settled in London by 1797, worshiping at the Baptist church in Maze Pond. Most likely, the Fanny Beddome mentioned above is the daughter of either Boswell or Samuel Beddome. For Anne Steele’s rejection of Benjamin Beddome, see STE 3/13, Angus Library; for Mary Steele’s rejection of Wilkins, see Whelan, Nonconformist Women Writers, vol. 3, pp. 273-74.

Jane Alexander was either a former student or assistant at Maria Saffery's school; most likely she was the daughter of Daniel Alexander of Swanage, Dorset. Sixteen letters by him to Maria Saffery can be found in the Saffery/Attwater Papers, acc. 142, II.D.2, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.