The Mary Hamilton Papers : Letter from Mrs Maria Eliza Rundell (née Ketelby) to Mary Hamilton

Rundell (née Ketelby), Maria Eliza

The Mary Hamilton Papers

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from Maria Eliza Rundell to Mary Hamilton, containing news of family and friends. Rundell wishes to know when Hamilton will leave London for Taxal and that she herself will be travelling to London in June to visit her son and fetch Margareta Rundell from Miss Gregory’s school at Ballam Hill near Clapham. She would be glad to see Hamilton and her husband whilst in town and she is in hopes that Hamilton will visit Bath on her way back to Taxal which would make her husband and Myra happy. She notes that her ‘little friend’ [Myra] has improved and that she ‘has an excellent heart’. Rundell notes that Hamilton can ‘judge by what you feel for Louisa, what must be my sensations for eight children of such different ages, & various dispositions’. She writes of her husband and that a Lady who came to Bath to put herself in the care of her husband that before she did so she had made numerous enquiries and ‘yet could not hear of one patient that had died under his care’. She reports that her son Francis, is recovered from a fever and has spent four months in a village outside Bath and that she is thinking of keeping both him and Harriet their all summer under the care of their nurse. Whilst there, Francis has been working with the gardener which she believes has contributed to his return to health.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Rundell reports that Mrs Brownlow’s youngest child is ill and is not likely to recover and that she had her daughter inoculated [against smallpox] on Thursday and has no sign of infection as yet. Rundell ends her letter by enquiring on Louisa Dickenson.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at Bath.</p>