The letters

Among the archives preserved by the Williamson family there have survived several hundred letters dating from the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century. These, with other documents relating to the family and estates, came into my hands in 1941, and were deposited by me in the County Record Office at Bedford. The letters are mainly addressed to Edmond (Mun) Williamson, rector of Millbrook; to his second wife, Mary; and to their son Edmond, rector of Campton and Shefford.

It is from the first group that those published in this volume are taken. Out of about 300 letters written between 1748 and 1765, 182 are printed here; nearly half of them in full; the remainder shortened to a lesser or greater degree. The object has been to give the reader a representative view of this eighteenth-century rector’s surviving correspondence. Thus, so far as possible, examples have been included of all topics covered; but, where the effect seemed to be largely repetitive, instances have not been continued indefinitely. Among the items omitted or curtailed are family messages, details of ill-health, and routine estate business. Spelling and punctuation and the use of capitals have been modernised. As the main interest of the letters is as a picture of social history, it has not been thought necessary to provide extensive footnotes to persons occasionally and incidentally mentioned.

The family

Some account of the family has already appeared. The Williamsons were connected with Bedfordshire for over 200 years, mainly with the parishes of Husborne Crawley, Millbrook, Campton and Kempston. Edmond Williamson, father of the Edmond previously mentioned, bought the manor of Husborne Crawley before 1722. A sad little document preserved among the Williamson papers tells of his family life. His surviving children, Talbot, Edmond and Christian, are the main personages of this volume. As Edmond and Christian are frequent names in the family, the letter-writers are designated in this volume by the names they used for each other : Mun and Tidy (Talbot was sometimes, but apparently not always, called Taw).

Talbot writes most of the letters. He was educated at Westminster and Christ Church.