William Steele, Bristol, to Mary Steele, Broughton, [Tuesday] 9 September 1777.

Bristol Sep. 9th 1777

My Dear Daughter,

   I rec’d your Letter of the 3d Inst. on our Arrival here Saturday night last & that of the 30th past before we left Pershore, we did not come from thence as propos’d Friday being prevented by Mr Goddard not coming till Thursday, we left him his Son & Daughter at Pershore.

   We have the pleasure to find Mr & Mrs Evans & the Children in good health, they press us to stay longer than our settled time but we cannot comply & I have wrote to Mr Head that we intend to be at Bradford next Saturday, so that W Morrant may come as before mention’d to Bratton Monday next & to Bradford Tuesday Morning; as the Smallpox is so hot at Sarum he may come by the way of Newton Tony & Amesbury & we can return the same way & see Stonehenge. Miss Ash is with us but is not to stay at Broughton more than Six or Seven Weeks.

   I wonder you should be uneasy about buying a Gown or that you shou’d think I would censure it, tis of too little consequence for either & if you are pleas’d with it I am sure I shall.

   Since our Arrival here I have heard News that I had not the least idea of tho’ I find it is generally talked of, “That Mr Rawlings is about to leave Broton & return to Trowbridge,” the place he so much execrated, O tempora O mores! – but he is to join in the Clothing trade with his or rather her Relations & preach to the people as usual.  I presume you have heard nothing of it at Broton if you had you would have mention’d it to me, I would not have you mention it to any one but your Aunt lest it should not be true, One thing I know, that is, if it be so I shall not ask him to stay nor any way endeavour to prevent his going. – I had wrote so far & have since seen Mr Evans Senr who tells me Mr Wills is just come from Trowbridge who says the people there have sent an invitation to Mr Rawlings but have not yet rec’d his answer, so I suppose it is a Scheme concerted when they were at Trowbridge.

   We dined Yesterday at Mr Mullets[vi] & drank Tea at Mr Norton’s when we met Mr & Mrs Bedome. He preach’d at Broad Mead Sunday Morning, to day we dine with Mr Evans Senr & drink Tea at Mr Wrexalls, to morrow we go to Fishponds, Thursday Dr Stonehouse & Lady are to drink Tea with us & I suppose Friday we must wait on them so that our time is not like to lie heavy on us.  But now my worst intelligence is to come last which is your Mos Leg is again sore in another place & we are forc’d to couch it about, she has complained about five or six days & ’tis painful & I fear shall be forc’d to apply again to Mr Pearce on our return home, which time as it draws near will give me pleasing expectations.

   Hen: Kent is become so great a Beau that I hardly knew him, in second mourning White Silk Stockings black Silk Waistcoat Velvet Breeches large old fashion’d Sil. Buckles, in short Mr E. says he is the finest figure that comes to their Meetings. He is grown fat & looks well but I fear is much of a Cox – but Mr Mullet speaks well of him & gives him a good Character. He is gone to Board at another place.  I shall expect to find a Letter from you at Bradford, wch will inform me whither I am to expect W Morrant or no.  Our united best Wishes attend every One dear to us &

                                 I am My Dr Marias affectionate Far

                                             Wm Steele

Mrs Evans desires her Compts to yr Aunt & You

Tell Will to give our Compts to Mr & Mrs Whitaker & tell ’em we intend to trouble them with our Company Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning

On the postage page is the following note:

My dear Sylvia

   I am this [day] arrived at Mr Evans’s with Miss Patty More I long’d to introduce them to your Father & Mother. Unluckily the Poetess is from home & more unlucky still Mr & Mrs Steeles time is so much engaged that I fear they will not be able to call in Park street I shall be exceedingly sorry if they cant find a spare Moment I heard part of a Sermon from Mr Evans Sunday & I am quite charm’d with him.

         Write soon & direct in Park street

                                 ever yr Amanda

Text: Timothy Whelan, ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840, 8 vols.  (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 3, pp. 282-84 (annotated version); STE 4/5/lviii, Steele Collection, Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford. Postmark: Bristol. Address: Miss Steele / Broughton near / Stockbridge / Hants.  

The Steeles were visiting the family of Caleb Evans and his second wife, the former Sarah Hazle (d. 1817) of Bristol, having been friends since the 1760s. Nathaniel Rawlings, who had been the Baptist minister at Broughton, returned to Trowbridge and remained there until his death in 1809. Another close friend of William Steele IV was Thomas Mullett (1745-1814). Originally from Taunton, he became and a prosperous paper-maker and stationer in Bristol at 18 Bristol-back. He joined the Baptist congregation at Broadmead in 1769 and married Mary Evans (1743?-1800), the daughter of Hugh Evans (and Sarah Browne) and Caleb Evans's sister. About 1780, Mullett removed to London, where he became a partner in a firm conducting business primarily in America. By the late 1780s, he had formed his own business firm, employing Joseph Jeffries Evans (1768-1812), the son of Caleb Evans and thus Mullett’s nephew. J. J. Evans would later marry one of Mullett’s daughters and become his business partner. At the time of Mullett’s death in 1814, he was residing in Clapham; he was buried at Bunhill Fields, with his pastor, John Evans, minister at the General Baptist congregation in Worship Street, London, delivering his funeral sermon. During his time in London, Mullett and J. J. Evans became close friends with Henry Crabb Robinson and appear frequently in the early volumes of Robinson’s diary. Mullett was also close friends with the Steele family. He and other members of his family appear in several of Mary Steele’s letters; Mullett would even serve as one of the executors of Steele’s will. Robert Norton was Thomas Mullett’s brother-in-law and the husband of Hannah Evans (1746-1807), another daughter of Hugh Evans and sister to Caleb Evans. Like Mullett, Norton would eventually leave Bristol and the Broadmead church for Nailsworth, where he became a successful clothier and tobacconist. For more on the Mullett and Evans families, see Jane Mullett Evans, Family Chronicle of the Descendants of Thomas Evans, of Brecon, from 1678 to 1857 (Bristol, privately printed, c.1871). Benjamin Beddome (1717-95) was the Baptist minister at Bourton-on-the-Water.

James Stonhouse (1716-95) spent twenty years as a physician at Coventry and Northampton, at which time he was generally a critic of Christianity. He was converted and soon became friends with the Independent minister, Philip Doddridge, the evangelical clergyman, James Hervey, and the famous evangelist, George Whitefield. He eventually took orders and moved to Bristol in 1763, where he became Lecturer of All Saints Church. He was also appointed by Lord Radnor of Salisbury as rector of Little Cheverell, near Devizes, Wiltshire. He published numerous tracts in the 1770s. He became Sir James Stonhouse in 1792.  In his early years in Bristol, Stonhouse lived next door to Hannah More and her sisters in Park Street. He was an accomplished man of letters, and soon became Hannah More’s literary advisor, assisting in some of her early publications and introducing her to many literary figures in London. Hannah More’s three elder sisters, Mary (1738-1813), Elizabeth (1740-1816), and Sarah (1743-1819), opened a school for young ladies in Bristol in 1758. By the early 1760s, Hannah (1745-1833) and the youngest sister, Patty (1747-1819), had joined their older sisters at the school.  In 1767 the Mores moved their school to Park Street, where it remained until 1789.  At the time of the above letter, Hannah More was at the height of her London literary success, based primarily upon her poetry and plays.  In the 1780s she would experience an evangelical awakening that would move her away from the London Bluestockings and into William Wilberforce’s Clapham Sect. Her writings thereafter, as well as her philathropic activities, reflect her evangelical fervor. More had just published her Essays on Various Subjects, Principally Designed for Young Ladies (London, 1777). Though the Steeles, including Mary, were taken with her literary genius and success, More was not given to encouraging young ladies to pursue the arts, noting that women ‘may cultivate the roles of imagination, and the valuable fruits of morals and criticism; but the steeps of Parnassus few, comparatively, have attempted to scale with success’ (p. 6). The Steele women were far more adventurous.

Mary (‘Amanda’) Froude, one of the Froude  children from Knoyle, was now teaching at the Mores's school in Park Street. Froude would maintain her friendship with Hannah More for many years. In a letter to William Wilberforce, 2 September 1823, More writes about Joseph Cottle’s recent attack against the Revd Robert Hawker, vicar of Charles Church, Plymouth, and mentions Miss Froude:

I must desire you to get from Cadells a new pamphlet called ‘the Plymouth Antinomians’ The Object is most important, and this growing pernicious heresy is powerfully exposed ...  you would not expect to hear that my old friend Cottle is the Author He is a better Divine than Poet   Hawker and his Crew are doing incalculable mischief, and it is spreading far and wide.  My friend Miss Froud who spent a year with the Exmouths of Plymouth saw and heard him often, and confirms all that Cottle has said.  She heard him say that the Bishop of Gloucester was ‘an enemy to the Cross of Christ’, and another deeply serious minister, was a ‘work monger’. He has one of the largest Congregations in the Kingdom.

Mary Froude, who never married, was visiting her sister, Susan, wife of Edward Pellew (1757-1833), 1st Viscount Exmouth, at Plymouth; her nephew, John Brickenden Froude, also served at times as Chaplain to the Viscount. See More to Wilberforce, 2 September 1823, Wilberforce Papers, Duke University.