Richard Ryland, No. 5, Great Tower Hill, London, to MGS, Salisbury, [Monday], 22 July 1805.

London 22 July 1805

Great Tower Hill No. 5

Madam,

   I doubt not you recollect my troubling you in April under the signature of OGS. The friends of the young ladies then referred to are not quite settled as to one of them, which leads me to enquire whether it would not suit you entirely to take that One, on the Terms then mentioned.

   I should wish to know whether you have any other Parlour Boarders – whether your general Course of Life is quite retired – and apart from what is generally called the World – and whether the Friends of the young Lady may depend entirely [on] your own personal Inspection of her Conduct.

   Some References to persons in London who are personally acquainted with yourself and Mr Saffery, would be very agreeable, either your own particular friends or those who have had Children under your Care or have been [boarded] at your School.

   Any farther particulars that occur to you, I will thank you to communicate to us in a few lines shortly, and am, Madam,

                     Your most hum. Servt

                                 R Ryland

Text: Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, p. 200 (annotated version); Saffery/Attwater Papers, acc. 142, II.D.5.a.(1.), Angus Library. Address: Mrs Saffery | Revd Mr Safferys | Castle Street | Salisbury | Wiltshire. Richard Ryland, Esq. (1747-1832), was a cornfactor in business with Joseph Stonard at 5 Great Tower Hill. His father, John Ryland, was a friend of Samuel Johnson and frequently met with the literary sage and their friends at Dilly’s bookshop in the Poultry. His wife, Harriet (b. 1760), was the daughter of Sir Archer Croft, Bart. The Rylands had thirteen children and at the time of the above letter were living in a spacious mansion at Champion Hill, near Ramsgate, Peckham, in south London. Three sons – John Croft (b. 21 December 1788), Richard Henry  (christened 29 June 1790), and Archer (christened 5 April 1792) – appear in later letters, as well as two daughters, who will figure prominently in these letters – Harriet-Frances (b. 21 March 1786) (the subject of the above letter) and Lucy (christened 29 July 1787). Mrs Ryland would continue to bear children until 1807, just two years before she became a grandmother. Archer Ryland married Jane Muggeridge in 1820; he would become a prominent London attorney and legal historian. His younger brother, Octavius (1800-86), married Archer’s sister-in-law, Mary Ann Muggeridge (an ancestor of the famous writer, Malcolm Muggeridge), but by 1850 had become a destitute widower. He was arrested that year for extortion against his former minister, W. B. Collyer, and deported to a penal colony in Australia. He would later be pardoned and become a teacher in Australia. For many years the Rylands were members of John Clayton’s Independent congregation at the Weigh House in London. They moved their membership to W.B. Collyer’s congregation at Peckham after a public dispute with Clayton (Benjamin Flower’s brother-in-law) in 1804-5 concerning how the Rylands were raising their children. The dispute led to a vicious pamphlet war between the Rylands and Clayton which involved several other London ministers and writers, continuing into 1809 and leading to some serious discussions of Nonconformity and certain aspects of contemporary culture, especially the theatre and dancing. One response was written by Harriet Ryland; in closing her pamphlet, she included two letters written to her daughter, who had had been reprimanded at school for demonstrating a haughty attitude.  In a letter brimming with dissenting piety, Harriet Ryland admonished her daughter to examine herself in light of spiritual values – values that, according to Rev. Clayton, Mrs. Ryland did not possess. The daughter of those letters is either Harriet Frances or Lucy. See Harriet Ryland, An Address to the Rev. John Clayton, in Answer to those Parts of the “Counter-Statement,” which relate to Mrs. Ryland.  To which is subjoined the whole of the suppressed correspondence to Mr. Clayton, from Mrs. Ryland (London: T. Conder, 1805); for a complete history of this controversy, see Appendix 4, ‘The Richard Ryland/John Clayton Pamphlet War, 1804-1805’, in Whelan, Politics, Religion, and Romance, pp. 352-56.