Danny Martin

Letters from the Past

Eunice Shanahan

To Danny Martin of Loose, Kent
from H Briggs of Holt in Wiltshire, 1723

address of letter

This is a very old and fragile letter, which is disintegrating along the folds. The ink is fading, but is still legible at this stage. It has just the two postal markings: first the Bishop Mark of a bisected circle with the date above the month 20 SE in black ink; (in use in the General Post Inland Office from 1713-1787). Then the charge mark of 4, which has been scored through and replaced with the manuscript charge mark of “7 in all”.

The catalogue listing shows that this mark was applied by the General Post office in London to show that the total amount has been charged. This is made up of the 4d from Holt in Wiltshire to London, (more than 80 miles, and Holt is listed as 119 miles) and then the London to Loose charge of 3d for less than 80 miles from London. Loose is a small village in the Maidstone area and is about 38 or 40 miles from London.

This image is an old postcard of Loose Village,in the 20th century, but much of it has not changed. This is one of four of this little village. They are in a book “Villages around old Maidstone” by Irene Hales. Which we bought as we have links with this area.

The paper is very thin and has a watermark we have never seen before. It appears to be an image of a person holding a sceptre or wand, and the words PRO PATRIA to the left of the face, and includes what could be a fence of some kind marking an enclosure. There is an image on the internet of such a watermark which shows more clearly than our actual copy.

So now to a transcription of the contents of the letter. It is addressed :-

For Mr Danny Martin
at Loose near Maidstone
In
Kent

Dear Br
I was last week att Mr Birney, and now
believe it will not be long before you
will hear of our Estates being Sold, when
that time comes, I will acquaint you wth
the Conditions, in order to your Sending me A
Commission.
We are heartily Sorry to hear of
Mrs Mitchelbourns misfortune. Pray give
our Service to her, and to the rest of
your Family, wth all Friends
I am yours affect
H Briggs
Holt Sept 18 1723

There is a note on the inside of the letter in a different writing

H Briggs to D Martin Sep 18 1723.

It seem possible that this is a letter between members of the Society of Friends (known as Quakers) which had been established in England in the 17th century, and they called one another ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ and ‘Friend’.

Like a lot of our old letters, it shows how the language, spelling and punctuation, and the use of abbreviations has changed over the years. The use in this letter of ‘wth’ instead of ‘with’ seems odd nowadays, as what did they save by not putting in the letter ‘i’. Yet they add an extra letter ‘t’ to the word ‘at’.

Holt.

Just as a matter of interest, Holt is a small village near Trowbridge in Wiltshire. The nucleus of the village lies on the Bradford-on-Avon to Melksham road, the B3107, which bisects the village roughly south-west to north-east. This road was turnpiked in 1762 as the coach road connecting Bradford on Avon, via Melksham, to the village of Lacock where it met the coach road from London to Bath. This is how the letters would have reached London from Wiltshire, and then on to Kent. Loose is also a small village now a suburb of Maidstone Kent, and this letter of 1723 is evidence that both villages have a long history of more than 300 years of being small communities with people who could obviously read and write.

We were very kindly given this letter, by a fellow collector, as an exchange, as it has more relevance to us than to him.

References : Willcocks & Jay British County Catalogue of Postal History 3. London

Great Britain Post Roads Post Towns and Postal Rates 1635-1849 by Alan W Robertson.

backto Old Letters

Return To our Home Page