Anne Whitaker, Bratton, to Maria Grace Saffery, Salisbury, [Thursday], 11 June 1829.

Bratton June 11th 1829

My dear Maria

   Tho information conveyed in dear Janes letters to Anne that a few lines from Bratton at this period would not be unacceptable induces me to write without further delay – You will easily conceive with what pleasure I should hail any plan which promised an increase of your comfort and a diminution of your cares and anxieties.  I am not prepared to say that the one Dr Cox kindly requested may not be likely to promote these ends but I think the only means of knowing this would be to compare the present concern with the one in prospect by a rigid calculation of the probable income of each with the probable expenditure – At the first view it it strikes me there are very serious deductions to it made from the terms of the school at Hackney. 150£ per annum additional rent and taxes 50£ additional expense in the care of the house pleasure grounds &c whatever that &c may contain and 5£ per Annum upon each separate child arising from the deficient prices of provisions particularly butter, bread and vegetables – these deductions alone would reduce the terms of the pupils supposing the number to be only 25 to 2£ pr year if thirty should be obtained they would then be thirty or nearly so – therefore it appears that the only actual difference will consist in the probably increased number of pupils and more agreeable circumstances of residence and connexion to your self.  It is perfectly evident that this establishment will not bear any increase of expenditure besides that which is unavoidable from the situation nor do I know that it might require it.  After what I have said I can only desire and pray that you may be directed to chuse that which will be most conducive to your happiness and the welfare of your family.

   We are all tolerably well at present – except that my troublesome stomach plays me sad tricks still – Anne is not strong, but is better than she was some time since  She is likely to retain the name of Whitaker some time longer – Are we to see you or Marianne during her stay with you I suspect this journey to Wales will swallow up all her time – pray let us see some or all if you can do it without a sacrifice of your own convenience – Let me hear by Edwin if you have any plan for visiting Bratton during the holidays, it will be necessary to apprize me as our own arrangements  are very uncertain.  While speaking of Edwin, I shall be much obliged by your informing him as early as may be after you receive this, that it is not convenient to us for him to return on Saturday but that we will send to meet him at the Coach on Monday at Warminster – tell him to inquire for the gig at the Lion as it will perhaps be left there for him to drive himself home.

   I shall be very happy to hear from you on the Subject to which the first part of mine refers – I could only judge from the brief sketch contained in Miss Hall’s letter – I know not whether you will be able to make any sense of this scrawl I have < > interrupted while writing it that I fear it will be scarcely intelligible – what you < > at all events understand the tender solicitude with which

                                 I am my dear Maria

                                             Affectionately yours

                                                         Anne Whitaker

Love to Philip I was much obliged by his letter and gratified by the particulars of Mrs Sloper accompanying it.

Text: Saffery/Whitaker Papers, acc. 180, A.2.(d.), Angus Library, Regent's Park College, Oxford.  Address:  Mrs Saffery | Castle Street | Salisbury.  No postmark. For an annotated version of this letter, see Timothy Whelan, gen. ed., Nonconformist Women Writers, 1720-1840 (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2011), vol. 6, pp. 410-11.

Francis Augustus Cox (1783-1853) studied at Bristol Baptist Academy and Edinburgh University (M.A.) before commencing his pastoral career in the Baptist church at Clipston, Northamptonshire (1804-1806) and St. Andrew’s Street, Cambridge (1806-1808). His final pastorate was at Mare Street, Hackney, where he remained for more than forty years. He was actively involved in Baptist affairs throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, working on the BMS committee, supporting the Baptist Home Missionary Society, serving as a part-time tutor at Stepney College from 1813 to 1822, and assisting in the founding of the University of London. He is best known for his History of the Baptist Missionary Society, from 1792 to 1842 (2 vols; 1842). In January 1827, Cox opened a boarding school for teenage boys in Hackney, based upon the following advertisement:

The Revd F. A. Cox LL.D. proposes to take 3 or 4 young gentlemen into his house, for the purpose of extending their education beyond the general plan & period of Boarding-School instruction. The object will be to occupy advantageously the interval, or any portion of the interval between 14 or 15 & 20 years of age; not merely by accumulating knowledge, but by discovering & directing the bias & attitude of the mind, & forming the intellectual habits.

   In addition to the Roman & Greek languages & literature, Mathematics & Science, Dr Cox intends to pay particular attention to English Composition  & to general reading, so as to form the taste, & point out the best methods of cultivating the mind in future. With this end in view courses in reading will be prescribed, & the merits & demerits of authors explained in connexion with the great subjects of History, Civil & Ecclesiastical, Moral Philosophy & Theology. Hebrew & Biblical Criticism will be incorporated into the system of instruction whenever it may appear practicable or desirable to the student.

   Dr Cox proposes commencing with this plan on Tuesday July 24th 1827. The terms, including every requisite accommodation & supply, excepting only Washing & Class Books will be 100 Guineas per annum. The gentlemen will have the use of a good library.

   Further details may be the subject of conversation & correspondence.

Hackney Jany 1827

A move to Hackney by Saffery, however, would have come with a steep price tag; as a result, she declined the offer and remained in Salisbury. For Cox’s advertisement, see click here; see also Whelan, Baptist Autographs, 206. The above letter should be read in conjunction with another letter, Eliza Gregory to Maria Saffery, 29 Mary 1829 (click here to read this letter). 

Anne Whitaker's daughter, Anne, would marry Robert Ashman Green in September 1829 at Bratton; they settled in Holcombe, Devon, on the English Channel just south of Dawlish. The Miss Hall mentioned above is possibly the daughter of the Baptist minister Robert Hall, now ministering at Broadmead in Bristol (1826-31). Mrs Sloper might be the widow of Charles Sloper (d. 1824), the former minister of the Old Meeting (Independent) at Westbury, the neighbouring village to Bratton.  The Slopers left Westbury in 1809 for Wilton, Wiltshire, followed by a short stint at Ebbesbourne Wake, Wiltshire, before settling at Hitchin, where he died. The Mrs Sloper of this letter might also be the wife of a son of the Rev. Sloper who remained at Westbury, but given the date, it is more likely the original Mrs Sloper, now having returned to Westbury after the death of her husband and nearing death herself.  The Slopers were a prominent nonconformist family from Devizes, with several Slopers being ministers in the West Country during the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth centuries, both Baptist and Independent.