Maria Grace Saffery, Waltham Abbey, to Jane Saffery Whitaker, [Thursday], Bratton, 30 July [1846].

Waltham Abbey July 30th

         Sweetly refreshing to your Mother’s heart, my Jane, was even the first glance at your hand writing on the past day; and when from the well known characters in the address without, I passed on to the tender salutations revealed within, I was indeed much comforted; and thought of my Bratton home with the grateful feelings it so justly, and so largely, claims.

         The Brothers have supplied you with all due notice of my arrival here, and the immediate circumstances of the household, when I came. Philip left us this morning and purposes to be engaged for a month, during this season in the North, after which he is expected to return and rest, if rest it can be called, for a very short period, that he may resume his labours by making a long and arduous visitation through Scotland, on behalf of the Missionary cause. I have had little enjoyment of his company since I came hither, on account of his pressing engagement at Moorgate; and during the two or three last days, indisposition, occasioned partly I imagine, by ye intense heat of the weather, & undue excitement, made medical attendance, & the retirement of the Chamber an essential prelude to the journey.

Friday 31st

         Interruptions that I may not stay to enumerate forbade the progress of my epistle yesterday; and brevity must be the order of the day on the present occasion. I must not advert to my rambles now. – I have not seen dear John & Jane since we parted, at the Station; but I am still hoping for a sight of them, before I leave Waltham Abbey for Oakington, from whence I expect to return hither some time before Philip leaves [for] the North. I shall be writing therefore to dear George or Charlotte very soon to ascertain the precise time for my visit to the Vicarage.

         I must not enlarge; for I am anxious that you should have this before you leave for Holcombe, from which dear Abode I shall be longing to hear from you very soon. When shall I have Annie’s “shilling” letter? – My love to her the precious Brothers and the little name sake Sister.  Greet Joshua for me with a Mother’s Love.  I am pleased to bear that name in my Salutations to him while I remember by what tender and what sacred ties I am thus authorized. Adieu my Jane, even to you I almost blush to send this blotted paper, from

                                             Your Friend and Mother

                                                         Maria Grace Saffery

Speak for me in terms of affectionate interest in ye village where you know it to be felt, especially at the Farm

Anne & her Children would be most kindly remembered also

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, I.B.5.b.(8.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Address: Mrs Joshua Whitaker | Bratton | near Westbury | Wiltshire.  Postmark: Westbury, 1 August 1846. For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 449-50. 

Maria Grace Saffery was visiting her son, Philip. J. Saffery, living at that time at Waltham Abbey (see his letter to his mother, 20 July 1846, about meeting his mother at Paddington Station in London and then taking her to Waltham Abbey [Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 142, II.B.11.(a.), Angus Library]. P. J. Saffery was working as a field agent for the BMS at this time; the Society's headquarters were in Moorgate Street, London, at that time. He would soon leave their employ and begin a similar position with the Religiou Tract Society. At this time of the above letter, George Whitaker, Maria Saffery's nephew, and his wife, Catherine, were living in the vicarage at Oakington, Cambridgeshire, where he was serving as the local vicar. Maria Saffery would stay with them for a time on this visit (see the following letter).