Thursday March 1st
At home--read & tatted.
Mar 1821
Friday March 2nd
At home--Wrote to Miss Nooth.
Saturday
Heard from Miss James & Miss Webb.
Sunday March 4th
Finished my letters to Miss James & Miss Nooth--heard through Mr. Talfourd that my play was in the hands of Mr. Macready.
Monday March 5th
Went to Reading with drum to the assizes-went with Mrs. Culpepper to the Town Hall--heard many cases tried before Mr. Justice Park--was much amused--dined & slept at Dr. Valpy's--a Mr. Buskhead & Mr. Predergrass [sic] there.
Tuesday March 6th
At Dr. Valpy's--went to the Town Hall--was much amused--delighted with Mr. Talfourd's speaking--Dined again at the Doctor's--Mr. Willan spent the evening there--a pleasant man--& Talfourd called.
Wednesday March 7th
Friday March 9th
At home--wrote out Weston Grove to send to Talfourd--wrote a sonnet to him, & a letter to him with all these things.
Saturday March 10th
At home--heard from Mr. Haydon & Miss James--went violetting--tried to write on wild flowers for the Magazine.
Sunday March 11th
Monday March 12th
At home--heard from Mr. Ogbourne--sent off my letter to Miss James, enclosed in one to Mr. Monck--Mr. Crowther called.
Tuesday March 13th
Wednesday March 14th
Thursday March 15th
Friday March 16th
At home--went violetting--got very few--came home & finished my article on Thomas May, & wrote to Mr. Talfourd.
Saturday March 17th
Sunday March 18th
At home--heard from Mr. Haydon & Eliza Webb--wrote to Mr. Haydon & Eliza Webb--worked at a dramatic sketch--went violetting.
Monday March 19th
At home--talked--& walked.
Tuesday March 20th
Thursday March 22nd
Friday March 23rd
Saturday March 24th
Sunday March 25th
Monday March 26th
Tuesday March 27th
Wednesday March 28th
At home--walked with Drum--worked at my Dramatic sketch.
This could be either Emily or Claudia’s Dream, both of which MRM mentions in her entries of late March 1821.
Thursday March 29th
At home--heard from Mr. Haydon--worked at my Sketch.
Friday March 30th
At home--rode with dear Drum to Silchester to see poor dear Luce--very pleasant morning--came home to dinner.
Saturday March 31st
At home--heard from Miss James & Mr. Talfourd--went violetting--had a long conversation with Mr. Dutton--worked at my sketch.
Gloss of Names Mentioned
Nature
violet
- genus: Viola
- species: Viola riviniana
- family: Violaceae
One of Mitford’s favorite flowers (as it was of many of her contemporaries). Native to Eurasia,
including the UK, it blooms from April to June in Berkshire. he terms viola and violet are used for small-flowered annuals or perennials, including the species. Mentioned
in the 1811 Poems as well as in Our Village. Mitford likely refers to wild forms of the Viola such as the common dog-violet. Field pansies
(Viola arvensis) are also native to the UK and are wild relatives of the multi-coloured,
large-flowered cultivars used as bedding plants. T
flower
Flowering plants, whether domesticated or wild.
Places
Publications
Weston Grove: A Descriptive Poem [1827 version]
- Author: #MRM
- Date:
Narrative poem
Emily, A Dramatic Sketch
- Author: #MRM
- Date:
Originally appeared in the London Magazine 3.17 (May 1821): 499-505. Later reprinted in Dramatic Scenes, Sonnets, and Other Poems (83-105).
- Author: No author listed.
- Date: No date listed.
Claudia’s Dream
- Author: #MRM
- Date:
September 30, 1822
One of Mitford’s dramatic sketches, appeared in Lady’s Magazine September 30, 1822 462-66 , retitled as The Siege in Dramatic Scenes
Persons, Personas, and Characters
Charlotte Nooth
- Nooth Charlotte
- Ireland
A friend of Dr. Richard Valpy, who resided at Kew, Surrey, but often visited Paris. She wrote a poem to Dr.
Valpy and published volumes of poetry in 1815 & 1816, including a verse tragedy, as well as a novel, Eglantine, published by A.J. Valpy
Elizabeth James
- Elizabeth Mary James
- Miss James
- Bath, Somerset, England
- 3 Pembroke Villas, Richmond, Surrey, England
Close friend and correspondent of Mary Russell Mitford. She was the eldest daughter of Thomas Webb and Susanna Haycock. Her father
died in 1818 and her mother in 1835. After her parents’ deaths, she lived with
her two younger sisters, Emily and Susan, in Green Park Buildings, Bath,
Walcot, Somerset; High Street, Mortlake, Surrey; and 3 Pembroke Villas,
Richmond, Surrey. According to Coles,
referring to Mitford’s diary, letters were also addressed to her at Bellevue,
Lower Road, Richmond (Coles 26). She was buried at St. Mary Magdalene, Richmond,
Surrey. In the 1841 census, she is listed as living on independent means; in the 1851
census, as landholder; in the 1861 census, she as railway
shareholder.
Eliza Webb
- Webb Elizabeth Eliza
- Wokingham, Berkshire, England
- Sandgate, Kent, England
Elizabeth Webb, called Eliza, was a neighbor and friend of Mary Russell Mitford. Eliza Webb was the youngest daughter of James Webb and Jane Elizabeth
Ogbourn. She was baptized privately on March 3, 1797, and publicly on June 8, 1797 in
Wokingham, Berkshire. She is the sister of Mary Elizabeth and Jane Eleanor
Webb. In 1837 she married Henry Walters, Esq., in Wokingham, Berkshire. In
Needham’s papers, he
notes from the Berkshire Directorythat she lived on
Broad street, presumably in Wokingham. Source: See
Needham’s letter to Roberts on November
27, 1953
.
Thomas Noon Talfourd
- Talfourd Thomas Noon
- Reading, Berkshire, England
- Stafford, Staffordshire, England
Close friend, literary mentor, and frequent correspondent of Mary Russell Mitford. A native of Reading, Talfourd was educated at the Reading’s newly-established Mill Hill school, a
dissenting academy, from 1808 to 1810. He attended Dr. Richard Valpy’s Reading School from 1810 to 1812. His career in law began with a legal apprenticeship with Joseph
Christy, special pleader, in
1817. He was called to the bar in London in 1821 and ultimately earned a
D.C.L. (Doctor of Civil Laws) from Oxford on June 20, 1844. While
establishing his practice as a barrister and special pleader, he worked as
legal correspondent for The
Times, reporting on the Oxford
Circuit, and also continued his literary interests. After 1833,
he was appointed Serjeant at Law, as well as a King’s and Queen’s Counsel.
He was elected and served as Member of Parliament for
Reading
from 1835 to 1841 and from 1847 to 1849
; he served with Charles Fyshe
Palmer, Charles Russell, and
Francis Piggott. Highlights of his political and
legal career included introducing the first copyright bill
into Parliament in 1837 (for which action Charles
Dickens dedicated Pickwick Papers
to him) and defending Edward
Moxon’s publication of Percy Shelley’s
Queen Mab in 1841
. He was appointed Queen’s Serjeant in 1846
and Judge of Common Pleas in 1849
, at which post he served until his death in 1854. He
was knighted in 1850
.
Talfourd’s literary works include his plays
Ion (1835),
The Athenian Captive (1837) and
Glencoe, or the Fate of the
MacDonalds(1839).
William Macready
- Macready William Charles
- London, England
- Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England
English actor, one of the most prominent tragedians of his era. He appeared at Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres in London and also toured the United States. He appeared in Sheridan Knowles's William Tell, Byron's Sardanapolus, and Bulwer-Lytton's Money (1840), as well as in many Shakespearean
roles. He also managed both Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres. In his role as actor-manager, Macready was a correspondent and collaborator with Mary Russell Mitford. The first play on which they worked was Mitford's Julian. Mitford dedicated to Macready the print edition of Julian: To William Charles Macready, Esq., with high esteem for those endowments which have
cast new lustre on his art; with warm admiration for those powers which have inspired,
and that taste which has fostered the tragic dramatists of his age; with heartfelt
gratitude for the zeal with which he befriended the production of a stranger, for
the judicious alterations which he suggested, and for the energy, the pathos, and
the skill with which he more than emhodied its principal character; this tragedy is
most respectfully dedicated by the author.
Macready retired from the stage in 1851.
George Mitford
- George Mitford Esq.
- George Midford
- Hexham, Northumberland, England
- Three Mile Cross, Shinfield, Berkshire, England
Father of Mary Rusell Mitford, George Mitford was the son of Francis Midford, surgeon, and Jane Graham. The family name is sometimes recorded as Midford. Immediate family called him by nicknames including Drum, Tod, and Dodo. He was a member of a minor branch of the Mitfords of Mitford Castle in Northumberland.
Although later sources would suggest that he was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh
medical school, there is no evidence that he obtained a medical degree and he did
not generally refer to himself as Dr. Mitford, preferring to style himself Esq.. In 1784, he is listed in a Hampshire directory as surgeon (medicine) of Alresford. His father and grandfather worked as apothecary-surgeons and it seems likely that
he served a medical apprenticeship with family members.
He married Mary Russell on October 17, 1785 at New Alresford, Hampshire. On the marriage allegation papers, both gave their addresses as Old Alresford; they later came to live
at Broad Street in New Alresford. Their only child to live to adulthood,
Mary Russell Mitford, was born two years
later on December 16, 1787 at New
Alresford, Hampshire. He assisted Mitford's literary career by representing her interests in London and elsewhere with theater
owners and publishers. He was active in Whig politics and later served as a local
magistrate. He coursed greyhounds with his friend James Webb.
Martha Carteretta Cornelia Valpy Straker Culpeper
- Valpy Straker Culpeper Martha Carteretta Cornelia
- Mrs. Culpepper
- St. Mary's, Suffolk, England
Dr. Valpy's eldest daughter by his first wife, Martha Cornelia de Cartaret. She was married twice; first to Thomas James Straker, esq. of Barbados on May 3, 1804 at St. Lawrence, Reading, Berkshire, England
, and second to William Alleyn Culpeper of Barbados (second of that name) at St. Martin in the Fields, Westminster on November 21, 1815
. Mitford spells her married name as Culpepper in her journal and letters. Burke's Family Records erroneously lists her name as Carteretta Cornelia. Her date of death is unknown; more research needed.
Dr. Richard Valpy
- Valpy Richard Doctor of Divinity
- Dr. Valpy
- St. John’s, Jersey, Channel Islands
- Reading, Berkshire, England
Richard Valpy (the fourth of that name) was the eldest son of Richard Valpy
[III] and Catherine Chevalier. He was a friend and literary mentor to
Mary Russell Mitford. He matriculated at
Pembroke College, Oxford University on April 1, 1773, aged eighteen, as a
Morley scholar. He received from Oxford a B.A. (1776), M.A. (1784), B.D.
& D.D. (1792). He took orders in the Church of England in 1777. Richard
Valpy served as Second Master at Bury School, Bury, Huntindonshire from 1771
to 1781, and was also collated to the rectory of Stradishall, Suffolk, in
1787. He became the Headmaster at Reading School, Reading, Berkshire, in
1781 and served until 1830, at which time he turned the Headmastership over
to his youngest son Francis E. J. Valpy and continued in semi-retirement
until his death in 1836. During his tenure as Headmaster of Reading Grammar School for boys over
the course of fifty years, he expanded the boarding school and added new
buildings. He is the author of numerous published works, including Greek and
Latin textbooks, sermons, volumes of poetry, and adaptations of plays such
as Shakespeare’s King John and Sheridan’s The Critic. His Elements of
Greek Grammar, Elements of Latin Grammar,,Greek
Delectus and Latin Delectus, printed and published by
his son A. J. Valpy, were all much
used as school texts throughout the nineteenth century. Valpy’s students
performed his own adaptations of Greek, Latin, and English plays for the
triennial visitations and the play receipts went to charitable
organizations. Valpy enlisted Mitford to write reviews of the productions
for the Reading Mercury. In 1803, his
adaptation of Shakespeare’s King John was performed at Covent Garden
Theatre.
Richard Valpy was married twice and had twelve children, eleven of whom
lived to adulthood. His first wife was Martha
Cornelia de Cartaret; Richard and Martha were married about
1778 and they had one daughter, Martha Cartaretta Cornelia.
His first wife Martha died about 1780 and he
married Mary Benwell of Caversham, Oxfordshire on May 30, 1782. Together they had six sons and
five daughters and ten of their eleven children survived to adulthood.
Richard Valpy and Mary Benwell’s sons were Richard Valpy (the
fifth of that name), Abraham John
Valpy, called John; Gabriel Valpy,
Anthony Blagrove Valpy; and Francis Edward
Jackson Valpy. His daughters were Mary Ann Catherine Valpy; Sarah
Frances Valpy, called Frances or Fanny; Catherine Elizabeth Blanch Valpy;
Penelope Arabella Valpy; and
Elizabeth Charlotte Valpy, who died as an
infant.
Richard Valpy died on March 28,
1836 in Reading,
Berkshire, and is buried in All Souls cemetery, Kensal
Green, London. Dr. Valpy’s students placed a marble bust of him
in St. Lawrence’s church, Reading, Berkshire, after his
death. John Opie painted Dr. Valpy’s portrait. See .William Hazlitt
- Hazlitt William
- Maidstone, Kent, England
- Soho, London, England
Essayist and critic, acquaintance of Mary Russell Mitford. Author of
Table Talk (1821)
and
The Spirit of the Age (1825). Also authored collections of critical essays such
as
Characters of Shakespeare (1817),
A View of the English Stage (1818), and
English Comic Writers (1819). In a letter of 2 October 1820
, Mary Russell Mitford writes of Hazlitt
to their mutual friend Haydon, He is
the most delightful critic in the [world]-- puts all his taste, his wit, his
deep thinking, his matchless acuteness into his subject, but he does not put
his whole heart & soul into it [. . . ] What charms me most in Mr. Haslitt is the beautiful candour which
he bursts forth sometimes from his own prejudices [ . . . ] I admire him so
ardently that when I begin to talk of him I never know how to stop. I could
talk on for an hour in a see saw of praise and blame as he himself does of
Beaumont & Fletcher & some of his old
[favourites].
Haydon Benjamin Robert
- Plymouth, England
- London
Benjamin Robert Haydon was a painter educated at the
Royal Academy, who was famous for contemporary,
historical, classical, biblical, and mythological scenes, though tormented by
financial difficulties and incarceration. He painted William Wordsworth's portrait in 1842 and
painted a cameo of Keats in his epic canvas
Christ's Entry into Jerusalem(1814-20). MRM was introduced to him at his London studio in the spring of
1817, and Sir William Elford was a
mutual friend, and Haydon’s own acquaintances included several prominent
British Romantic literary figures. He completed
The Raising of Lazarus in
1823
. He wrote a diary and an autobiography, both of
which were published only posthumously, and he committed suicide in 1846.
George Paston's
Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth
Century (1893) contends that Mitford was
asked to edit Haydon's memoir, but
declined.
James Webb
- Webb James
- Wokingham, Berkshire, England
- Wokingham, Berkshire, England
Prominent manufacturer in the
Wokinghambrewing industry, and community leader in
Wokingham and the county of Berkshire. Father of Eliza, Jane, and Mary Webb. Francis Needham
suggested that he was the original of the gentleman in the
Our Villagesketch Aunt Martha. Sources:
Francis Needham, Letter to
William Roberts, 16 June 1953
.
Needham Papers, Reading Central Library
.
J. B. Monck
- John Berkeley Monck
Member of Parliament for Reading area
1820-1830, who frequently franked Mary Russell Mitford’s letters. Mitford’s letter to Sir William
Elford of 20 March 1820 about the
election of Monck describes him in context with a politically active
Patriot shoemaker, Mr.
Warry, who brought him from France. Monck was the author of
General Reflections on the System of the Poor Laws
(1807), in which he argued for a gradual approach
to abolishing the Poor Laws, and for the reform of workhouses. Francis Needham claims that it is he who
is referred to in Violeting, when the narrator thinks she sees Mr. and Mrs.
M. and dear B.. (Dear B. would be their son,
Bligh.) Dr. Webb’s research suggests that celebrated
shoemaker is Mr. Warry, possibly Joseph
Source:
Francis Needham, Letter to
William Roberts, 26 March 1954. Needham Papers, Reading Central
Library.
Mr. Crowther
- Crowther Mr.
The dandy
Mitford pokes fun at in her letters of
9 and 10 January, 1819
. Possibly husband to Isabelle Crowther. According to Coles, his forename may be Phillip; Coles is not completely confident that the dandy Mr.
Crowther and Mr. Phillip Crowther are the same person. The second Mr. Crowther is
a correspondent of Mitford's, whom she writes to at Whitley cottage, near Reading. He may also have resided at Westbury on Trim near Bristol. William Coles is uncertain of whether Crowtheris the same Phillip Crowthermentioned in Mitford's Journal. Source: William Coles, Letter to Needham, 10 November 1957, NeedhamPapers, Reading Central Library.
Mitford Russell Mary
- Mrs. Mitford
- Ashe, Hampshire, England
- Three Mile Cross, parish of Shinfield, Berkshire, England
Mary Russell was the youngest child of
the Rev. Dr. Richard Russell and
his second wife, Mary Dicker; she was born about 1750 in Ashe, Hampshire. (Her
birth date is as yet unverified; period sources indicate that she was ten years
older than her husband George, born in 1760.) Through the Russells, she was a
distant relation of the Dukes of Bedford (sixth creation, 1694). She had two
siblings, Charles William and Frances; both predeceased her and their parents,
which resulted in Mary Russell inheriting
her family’s entire estate upon her mother’s death in 1785. Her father’s rectory in Ashe was only a
short distance from Steventon, and so she was acquainted
with the young Jane Austen. She married
George Mitford or Midford on October 17, 1785 at New Alresford,
Hampshire. On the marriage allegation papers, both gave their
addresses as Old Alresford. Their only daughter,
Mary Russell Mitford, was born two years
later on December 16, 1787 at New
Alresford, Hampshire. Mary
Russell died on January 2, 1830 at
Three Mile Cross in the parish of Shinfield,
Berkshire. Her obituary in the 1830
New
Monthly Magazine gives New Year’s day as the date of her death.
Sir William Elford
- Elford William Sir baronet Recorder for Plymouth Recorder for Totnes Member of Parliament
- Kingsbridge, Devon, England
- Totnes, Devon, England
According to L’Estrange, Sir William was first a friend of
Mitford’s father, and
Mitford met him for the first time in the
spring of 1810 when he was a widower nearing the
age of 64. They carried on a lively correspondence until his death
in 1837.
Elford worked as a banker at Plymouth Bank (Elford, Tingcombe and Purchase)
in Plymouth, Devon, from its
founding in 1782. He was elected a member of
Parliament for Plymouth as a
supporter of the government and Tory William
Pitt, and served from 1796 to 1806. After his election defeat
in Plymouth in 1806, he was elected member of Parliament for Rye and served
from July 1807 until his resignation in July 1808. For his service in
Parliament as a supporter of Pitt, he was made a baronet in 1800. After his
son Jonathan came of age, he tried to
secure a stable government post for him but never succeeded. Mayor of
Plymouth in 1796 and Recorder for Plymouth from 1797 to 1833, he was also
Recorder for Totnes from 1832 to 1834. Sir William served as an officer in
the South Devon militia from 1788, eventually attaining the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel; the unit saw active service in Ireland during the Peninsular Wars. Sir
William was a talented amateur painter in oils and watercolors
who exhibited at the Royal Society from 1774 to 1837; he
exhibited still lifes and portraits but preferred landscapes. He was elected
to the Royal Society Academy in 1790. He was also a
talented amateur naturalist and was elected to the Royal Linnaean
Society in 1790; late in life, he published his findings on an
alternative to yeast.
He
married his first wife, Mary Davies
of Plympton, on January 20, 1776 and they had
one son, Jonathan, and two daughters,
Grace Chard and Elizabeth. After the death of his
first wife, he married Elizabeth Hall
Walrond, widow of Lieutenant-Colonel Maine Swete
Walrond of the Coldstream Guards.
His
only son Jonathan died in 1823, leaving him without an heir.
Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
- Benger Elizabeth Ogilvy
- West Camel, Somerset, England
- London, London, England
Mitford read her Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton.
Lucy Sweetser Hill
- Hill Sweatser Lucy
- Stratfield Saye, Berkshire, England
Beloved servant for twelve years in the Mitford
household who, on 7 August 1820 married
Charles Hill. She is the basis for
the title character in the Our Village story. Source:
Needham Papers,
Reading Central Library.