Anne Whitaker, Bratton, to Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, [c. early January 1825].

My dear Maria

   The wound in John’s head notwithstanding medical attention does not heal as was at first expected, nor do we feel satisfied to send him to school till it is at least in a more hopeful state – We will therefore thank you to inform Mr Wyatt of the cause of the delay that he may not be under any uncertainty – I hope he may be able to come the beginning of next week but this is doubtful.

   We have just heard in a circuitous manner that our dear Brother was indisposed on Sunday so as to refrain from preaching on one part of the day, this is all we know, and therefore must beg you or one of the dear girls to write and let us know how he is, as well as how you are – we shall depend on hearing from you on Saturday.

   Things here continue much as when dear Jane left us except that I have for a few days been somewhat more indisposed partly I suspect from the excessive mildness of the weather which is seldom favorable to me at this season  poor Mrs Edmonson yet lingers on and may perhaps continue to do so a little longer – My George has left me for Frome and my little boy has commenced day boarder for the winter quarter at Mr E’s  Anne is about to leave me for a short time on a visit to her brother – So that you see I am likely to be solitary.

   I must get you to spare Marianne to me but am yet unable to propose any time – I think in the course of a week or ten days I shall probably go to Frome myself and after my return I shall be better able to decide this point – O what a world of changes do we inhabit – how unstable does every thing appear  mutability and uncertainty characterize every object every design & every arrangement.  Well – there is One who changeth not – and there is a state where no changes will be experienced except the blissful transition from a lesser to a higher degree of holiness and happiness. – To this blessed world [shall] we and all we love attain –

   Mr Whitaker and our young people would unite in affectionate regards to you and yours, our dear Brother especially with my dear Maria

         Yours very tenderly

                     Anne Whitaker

Bratton farm

Wednesday Evening

Miss E Head appears once more in a convalescent state

My Father is again tolerably well

Text: Reeves Collection, Box 20.2.(i.), Bodleian Library, Oxford. Address: Mrs Saffery | Castle Street | Salisbury. Postmark: Frome. For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 397-98. This letter was composed shortly before the death of John Saffery.

John Whitaker (1810-64) was one of Anne Whitaker’s sons. The school he is being sent to in Salisbury was operated by W. B. Wyatt, who first appears in the Brown Street [Baptist] Subscription Book in 1821, either operating (or teaching in) a school for boys in Salisbury, most likely a school associated with Maria Saffery's, which explains the connection between all the individuals in the above letter. In the 1790s a firm of Wyatt and Whitmarsh operated as grocers in Salisbury, so most likely the Mr. Wyatt mentioned above was a member of that same family. ‘Mrs Edmonson’ was the wife of the Baptist minister at Bratton, Robert Edminson, at whose school Anne Whitaker’s youngest son, Edwin, was attending as a day boarder. George Whitaker was being sent as a boarder to the Frome Grammar School, and Anne Whitaker junior was off to visit one of her brothers, either Alfred, Philip, or Edward.