CHOOSING A SCHOOL DURY (Revd. Theodore, 1788-1850, Rector of Keighley, W. Yorkshire, 1825-1840, and of Westmill, Hertfordshire from 1840)

Engaging Autograph Letter Signed to "My dear Fred[eri]c", saying that "Barnard is a man of experience in training applemunching urchins, and his testimony in favour of Mr Trimmer's establishment, to use the fashionable term by which schools are advertised in and about London, is very strong ... young Barnard ... seems the very mirror of schoolboyhood for he can read Hebrew & construe Hecuba & yet has not reached his twelfth year", but asks if that "will teach him todiscern between the wool of a Ewe, a Lamb or a Hog ?", the name "reminds one of well trained schools & good little books ... Anne [Dury's wife] says I must write a stiff business like letter, which all the ... Sugdens from Walker up to William, including Martha in bed, may read", he talks amusingly of the recent change of Government, of the cold, "the thermometer nearly paid the debt of nature for it fell to 1½ above zero -- at Hoddesdon to zero according to Caro[line], who returned today from a visit to the Barnards", and of the plans "prepared by Mr Gill" for a new church at Keighley, for which he may have to borrow money, he gives detailed instructions for Frederic and Edwin [the writer's son] to unlock Anne's cabinet where they are stored, "Man wants but little here below", as Wellesley Pole said when courting Miss Long with 50000 a year, "upon which someone added, but wants that little Long", in a P.S. he asks "about your flittings ? Have you agreed with the Lord of Cliffe ? or the Lady of St Ives", 4 sides 4to, Westmill, 8th January

'Barnard' is Mordaunt Barnard, rector of Great Amwell, near Hoddesdon. It seems that while Mr Dury was now at Westmill, much of the family's belongings were still up in Keighley, where their neighbour, mill owner William Sugden of Eastwood House (now part of Victoria Park), was looking for a school for his son. Cliffe Hall (now Castle) and St Ives are not far from Keighley.
Dury was chaplain to the Duke of Devonshire who was Lord of the Manor of Keighley and patron of the rectory. Mrs Sarah Trimmer, 1741-1810, famous for school books full of illustrations and stories employing animals and birds rather than fairies, had been governess at Devonshire House.

Item Date:  1841

Stock No:  52687      £275

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