Mary Steele [Dunscombe], Broughton, to Anne Steele Tomkins, Malpas, Wales, [Thursday] 2 and 24 October 1805.

Octbr 2 1805

Oh my loved Sister while you distant roam

Far from your beautiful your happy home

My anxious thoughts attend you on the way

And the past Scene continually pourtray

Participates the tender sad adieu

Repeats again the last regretful view

But infant Innocence around you smiles

And its endearments every care beguiles

You bear your little World with you away

And Hope still guides you with her chearing ray

Octbr 24th

   Such my Dear Sister were my musings on the day you left Oakley but alas my Rhymes are now only like Shreds – A Couplet or two & it is over I can go no further – I thank you for your kind Letter it was indeed most welcome for I had been more than usually anxious to hear of your safe arrival but it was a long time troubling to me as you would have heard from me before now – it did not arrive till Tuesday sennight Octbr 15 tho it was dated the 9th – but I hope it was owing to the intervention of Sunday as there is no post from Sarum Saturday – but I doubt it will always be uncertain as it does not I see go thro London. I should have written immediately but was prevented by some Circumstances, as I imagined a little Chit Chat from home will be more acceptable than usual, now you are in such a state of seclusion – I am at present alone.  Mr D & his Sister set out for Devonshire on Monday last. Poor Miss D was very ill for a fortnight before she went with a return of her old Complaints, Fever, Cough, Oppression of Breath &c &c so hoarse that I could scarcely hear her whisper – she was very unfit to travel but we fear’d she would get worse & worse here, she is herself convinced this Situation will not do for her in Winter – they got well to Sarum & I hope tomorrow to hear of their arrival at Tiverton – Oh how glad should I be could I look in upon you in your bustle, you know I love a little of it sometimes, arranging & contriving is pleasant, it is putting to pieces &  removing is the painful task.

   Mr Kents going was a pleasant Circumstance. – The scene will I hope become brighter & brighter & Love & Peace render your small habitation as comfortable as your large one.

   The antiquarians have begun making researches around us.  Mr D received a very polite Billet from Mr Iremonger of Wherwell Vicarage, apologizing for opening some of the Barrows imagining they belonged to Mr Goodyear & soliciting permission to proceed. This you may be sure was willingly granted – Mr Wyndham of Sarum met Mr Iremonger there the next day, Mr D was with them & the following Afternoon took me thither. I was so fortunate as to arrive just as they opened one of the largest where they found a small pin quite perfect a great quantity of Amber & Jett Beads & a brass Pin, so they supposed it to be a female interred there – to me it was an interesting sight the length of time that had elapsed since they were raised gave an awful Solemnity to the Opening of them & when I look’d into the dark recess I seem’d to hear “The rush of Generations” – In all they have yet opened their appeared to have been only a single Interment & that the Bones were burnt so they have quite demolished the fabric of my poor old Story – they suppose it too of much greater antiquity & used by the antient Britons if so it must be almost 2 thousand years since these interments, at ye earliest period it must have been a thousand! A Society of Gentn about to publish the Antiques here of which led to these researches; amongst them is Coxe the Traveller & Mr Wyndham they are still proceeding on our Town but it is time to talk of something else besides what was done a thousand years ago – Lucy desires me to give her Love to all particularly to Martha & is much obliged to her for the things Mr D bought – I too my Dear Sister am much obliged to you for buying the muslin for me which I like very much – the thickness is no Objection to me I did not wish it very thin.

   Miss Coltman is still confined at Leicester with her niece I fear it is not probable she will ever be able to be removed – Lucy is tolerable but has her winter Cough. She sleeps here at present but means to have Ruth Fabians Daughter to sleep in the Garret which will be an ease to my mind.

   I have received a Letter from Mr D from Honiton – Miss D bore the Journey much better than was expected – My love to all the Dear children tell Mary I have found the picture of Cut Paper.

   Thank you for the pleasure of reading Hayleys Triumph of Music – it is certainly deficient in Animation but the Sonnets are beautiful & touching evidently the effusions of his own heart – my kind regards to Mr T. & Martha – Adieu My Dear Sister write as soon as you conveniently can to your ever affect:

                                 M Dunscombe      

Oct 25th

I forgot to tell Mary that Banks came the day after you left us to tune the Harpsichord 

I do not know if I direct right

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 366-68 (annotated version); Steele Collection, STE 5/11/v, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Postmark: Stockbridge.  Address: To / Mrs Tomkins / Malpass, near Newport / Monmouthshire / Wales.  By this time Mr. Tomkins’s business had required the removal of his family to a modest home in Wales. References above to Thomas Dunscombe and his daughter, and to William Coxe (1747-1828), English historian, who was the author of A Historical Tour in Monmouthshire (London, 1801).

The Revd Richard Iremonger (1779-1819), vicar of Wherwell. Wherwell is a small village situated about three miles south-southeast of Andover. A Benedictine nunnery was established there by Elfrida, wife of Edgar; at the dissolution of the Catholic Church, the property went to Lord Delawarr, and later to the Iremonger family. Revd Iremonger was a lay archeologist who worked in the shadow of the more famous Hampshire archeologist of his day, William Cunnington (1754-1810).  Iremonger’s only documented excavation was at Old Winchester Hill, Hampshire, in 1807. A few of his letters to Cunnington have survived in an archive at Devizes. In one in particular, dated 9 September 1805, from Wherwell, Iremonger writes about what is most likely the discovery mentioned in Mary Steele’s letter above (Broughton is situated between Wherwell and Winchester):

Absence from home has obliged me to confine my researches to single barrows in this neighbourhood & unfortunately none of them proved of any importance, but I can not allow myself in the smallest degree intimidated by this failure & trust when the harvest is conducted, to resume it with redoubled vigour...

... by the bye, on the downs between Wherwell & Winchester I have discovered the site of several British villages adjacent to small groups of tumuli. My men are all impatience to commence our autumn campaign in the fields...

My thanks to Paul Everill, Department of Archaeology, University of Winchester, for providing the Iremonger letter; also to Alys Blakeway, Hampshire Record Office.

Elizabeth Coltman’s eldest sister, Anne (1753-88), married Edward Cooper and they had five children prior to her death. All five died of consumption. In 1804 the eldest daughter, Mary Anne (b.1779), died after a twelve-month battle that required constant attention through the night. Miss Coltman no doubt took her turn as a night-nurse. No sooner had the one niece been interred than another niece, Elizabeth (b. 1785), was stricken. For some time Coltman had been living in a house in the Spa, at Humberstone Gate, not the family home in the Newarke.  Upon the illness of her second niece, Coltman moved to a house in London Road, taking her niece with her so she could be her nurse. Unfortunately, her niece died not long after the above letter was written. During the illness Elizabeth Cooper became deaf, which caused some distress to Coltman and others who attended the young girl because the difficulty in communication affected their ability to ascertain the young lady’s ‘state of grace’. Apparently, she had come under the influence of a sceptical teacher and Coltman was concerned about her spiritual state. Coltman, devoutly evangelical at this time, was still attending the Great Meeting in Leicester; she would soon begin attending the Baptist congregation in Harvey Lane after the arrival of Robert Hall in 1807.  According to Florence Skillington, Coltman suffered much anxiety after the death of her niece until in a dream she heard a voice tell her that her niece ‘is safe – not so happy as some are, but saved’. ‘So far as Elizabeth Coltman was concerned’, Skillington observed, ‘this manifestation, which she emphatically regarded as an external reality, settled the vexed question once and for all’.  See Florence E. Skillington, “The Coltmans of the Newarke at Leicester.” Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society 18 (1934–35), 12-13.

William Hayley (1745-1820) was the author of The Triumph of Music (Chichester, 1804). A friend and correspondent of Anna Seward, he had long been popular with the Steeles. Included in one of the bound volumes of poetic works collected by the Steeles is Hayley’s The Triumphs of Temper (London, 1782).