How to Create the Perfect Wife (57 page)

222
   
Edgeworth wrote in an uncharacteristic fury:
RLE to Margaret Ruxton, November 28, 1780, Edgeworth Papers, MS 10166/36.

222
   
Edgeworth and Elizabeth headed for London:
Note, Harriot Edgeworth’s hand, Edgeworth Papers, MS 10166/38.

222
   
He had finally been called to the bar in 1779:
Day was called to the bar on May 14, 1779. MT archives, Barristers Ledger, MT3/BAL/2. Day’s letters to Walter Pollard, a lawyer friend, describe his tenancy at 10 Furnival Inn: BL Add. MS 35655. Pollard was the son of a physician who had a large practice in Barbados until it was destroyed by a tornado. With his access to fellow Americans, he played a key role in providing Day with information on the American campaign.

222
   
Day became a leading figure in the reform movement:
Day also helped found the Society for Constitutional Information, which began publishing and distributing subversive propaganda, including Day’s speeches, in support of sweeping constitutional reforms. For background on this and the reform movement in general see Christie, Ian R.,
Wilkes, Wyvill and Reform: the parliamentary reform movement in British politics, 1760–1785
(London, New York, 1962), pp. 68–115; Butterfield, Herbert,
George III, Lord North and the People, 1779–80
(London, 1949), pp. 256, 284–88, 295 and 350–51; TD,
Two Speeches of Thomas Day, Esq, at the General Meetings of the Counties of Cambridge and Essex
(London, 1780). The speeches were published by the Society for Constitutional Information. Day was encouraged to stand for Parliament by the physician Dr. John Jebb and Erasmus Darwin, but Day insisted he was not one of the “bought and buying tribe.” Keir, pp. 121–23.

223
   
Ever since Day had pledged support for American independence:
The letters between Day and Laurens are all from Laurens as follows: TD to HL, September 1, 1782, in vol. 15, p. 604; HL to TD, December 23, 1782; TD to HL, January 5, 1783; and TD to HL, June 29, 1783, in vol. 16, pp. 94–97, 116–123 and 221–223. TD briefly considered emigrating to the new United States but told Laurens that he would “rather be buried in the ruins of this my native country, than transplant my fortunes to another.” For general information on Day’s friendship with Henry Laurens see Stockdale (2005).

224
   
Anningsley Park near Chertsey in Surrey:
Kippis. Anningsley Park is described in Blackman, pp. 100–101; and WCB and TJR,
Handbook of Chertsey and the Neighbourhood
(Chertsey, 1870), pp. 76–79.

224
   
“I have never expected any thing romantic”:
TD to RLE, 1788, and RLE to TD, 1788, in Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, pp. 87–91.

224
   
“Mr. Day’s austere simplicity of life”:
Edgeworth, FA, pp. 11–12.

224
   
“a tall man, with a grave and precise face”:
Bulwer, pp. 20–21.

225
   
He would eventually settle in America:
Dick settled on the border of North Carolina and South Carolina and married Elizabeth Knight in 1788. They had three sons, Nathanial Lovell, Achilles Sneyd and Richard Lovell. Dick’s many descendants are scattered across America. See Edgar E. MacDonald (ed.),
The Education of the Heart: the correspondence of Rachel Mordecai Lazarus and Maria Edgeworth
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1977), p. 320.

225
   
Dick would provide Jane Austen with the model:
Austen, Jane,
Persuasion
(Harmondsworth, UK, 1965, first published 1818), pp. 76–77; Douthwaite, pp. 136–38. Douthwaite provides a fascinating portrait of Dick’s education as well as discussing Day’s efforts to educate Sabrina and Manon Roland’s attempt to educate her daughter Eudora according to Roussueau’s ideas.

225
   
“He would sit quietly while a child”:
ME fondly describes her father’s methods of educating his children and their work together writing their educational manual in Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, pp. 180–84. Their commonsense approach is described in their enduringly valuable book, RLE and ME,
Practical Education
(2 vols., London, 1798). See also Douthwaite, Julia, “Experimental Child-rearing After Rousseau,” in
Irish Journal of Feminist Studies, 2,
no. 2 (1997), pp. 35–56; and Uglow, pp. 315–16. ME and RLE developed a loving and fruitful partnership. In letters to Maria, RLE would describe himself as “Your critic, partner, father, friend.” See RLE to ME, August 4, 1804, in Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, p. 353.

226
   
As part of his lifelong interest in education:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, pp. 334–36; Josiah Wedgwood to ED, 1779, cited in Schofield, p. 132.

226
   The History of Sandford and Merton: TD (1783, 1786, 1789). I am indebted to Peter Rowland for his work in tracing references by various writers to Day’s book. Rowland, preface, pp. ix–x, 207–48 and 351. Thomas Beddoes describes Day being mobbed by young fans in Beddoes to Davies Giddy, November 21, 1791, cited in Stock, John Edmonds,
Memoirs of T. Beddoes, MD, with an analytical account of his writings
(London, Bristol, 1811), p. 38. For general information on Day as a children’s writer and his book see Doyle, Brian,
The Who’s Who of Children’s Literature
(London, 1969), pp. 70–72; and Immel, Andrea, “Thomas Day” in Zipes, Jack, ed.,
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature
(4 vols., Oxford, 2006), vol. 1, p. 390. Barker-Benfield discusses how
Sandford and Merton
reflects contemporary ideas of sensibility: Barker-Benfield, pp. 150–53.

227
   
Day’s children’s novel would be reprinted 140 times by 1870:
Uglow, p. 322. The latest edition, with a new introduction and notes on the text, is TD,
The History of Sandford and Merton,
ed. Bending, Stephen and Bygrave, Stephen (Peterborough, ON, 2009).

228
   
“the subject of his own pleasantry”:
Keir, p. 27.

228
   
thinking of adopting a peasant boy:
TD to RLE, two letters, n.d., in Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, pp. 95–100.

CHAPTER 10: VIRGINIA, BELINDA AND MARY

229
   
she obtained work as a lady’s companion:
Seward, p. 36; Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, p. 109. The subsequent quote by Seward is from here.

229
   
Day had felt the need to write a will:
Will of Thomas Day, May 26, 1780, probate 11/1188.

230
   
“We are unable to fix the time till Sabrina comes”:
John Saville to Henry White, August 16, 1780, SJBM, 2001.71.30. Baptism register, Lichfield, St. Mary’s, August 25, 1780, LRO. Eliza had married Thomas Smith in Lichfield Cathedral on November 25, 1777, with her father’s consent. Marriage register, The Close, Lichfield, November 25, 1777, LRO.

230
   
Sabrina received a marriage proposal from an eligible young suitor:
TD to Sabrina Sidney (n.d.), acrostic and draft letter, ERO, D/DBa C13. The letter must have been sent before 1783. There is no trace of Wardley’s acrostic, only Day’s draft reply. Wardley’s details are from the apprentice register, Newport, Shrop-shirejanuary 3, 1771. The letter from Darwin is ED to Mr [Jarvis] Wardley, November 28, 1786, in King-Hele (2007), pp. 263–64.

231
   
Sabrina grew close to a young woman:
Schimmelpenninck, p. 10; Jean-André de Luc, sometimes spelled Deluc, visited Soho in 1782 when he was shown around by Watt. The following year he performed some experiments with Watt. Schofield, pp. 240–41. Fanny arrived from Switzerland in 1783. De Luc told a friend he was going to visit his daughter in Birmingham in February 1783. De Luc to Gen Haldimand Courlet, February 16, 1783, BL Add. MS 21731 f 29. My thanks to Lorna Clark for mutual detective work to track down Fanny.

232
   
The expanding city that she could see from the windows:
Background on eighteenth-century Birmingham is from Skipp, Victor,
A History of Greater Birmingham: down to 1830
(Birmingham, 1980); Hutton, William,
An History of Birmingham
(2nd edn., Birmingham, 1783); Langford, John Alfred,
A Century of Birmingham Life
(Birmingham, 1870); Hutton, William,
The Life of William Hutton,
ed. Chinn, Carl (Studley, 1998).

233
   
“man of shining talents”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, pp. 110–13; Seward (1804), pp. 37–38.

233
   
At one point he won a “considerable fortune”:
Burney, French Exercise Book (Berg).

233
   
Day suggested his stock remedies of fresh air:
TD to JB, n.d., cited in
European Magazine, 2
(1795), pp. 21–22.

233
   
Bicknell had taken scant interest in Sabrina:
The story of Bicknell’s proposal to Sabrina is told in Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, pp. 110–13 and Seward (1804), pp. 37–38.

234
   
Bicknell was “the man of her dreams”:
Burney, French Exercise Book (Berg).

235
   
Day’s reply, on May 4, 1783:
TD to SS, May 4, 1783, ERO, D/DBa C13. This letter was probably a draft as it contains various crossings-out and amendments.

237
   
Sabrina walked up the aisle of St. Philip’s Church:
Marriage register, St Philip’s Church, Birmingham, April 16, 1784, Birmingham record office. Bicknell’s application for a marriage license, which enabled the couple to marry without the usual church bans being read, was cosigned by William Withering, the physician who later discovered digitalis in foxgloves, who had recently joined the Lunar Society. John Bicknell, marriage license application, April 16, 1784, Lichfield RO. Bond between JB and TD, April 16, 1784, ERO, D/DBa L86.

238
   
Sabrina gave birth to two sons:
The exact date and place of birth of John Laurens Bicknell is unknown. He later stated that he was born in Middlesex. JLB was said to have been “almost one year old” and HEB was “only just born” in March 1787. Henry Edgeworth Bicknell was baptized on April 2, 1787, when his name was misspelled as Henry Edgeworth Bricknell and his date of birth given as December 18, 1786, in St. Paneras Church. St. Paneras baptism register 1783–93, X102/074, LMA. He may have been named Henry after Henry Laurens, the father of John Laurens. Curiously, Henry was baptized on the same day that his father was buried but in a different church on the northern edge of London. The timing may have been due to differences with the Bicknell family or to Sabrina’s own illness.

238
   
“with all the delight of the most happy husband and father”:
Edgeworth, RL and M, vol. 2, p. 113.

238
   
“could hardly have been happier with the man of her dreams”:
Burney, French Exercise Book (Berg).

238
   
When Boswell visited the King’s Bench in 1786:
Boswell, James,
Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle,
ed. Scott, G. and Pottle, Frederick A. (18 vols., New York, 1928–34), vol. 17, p. 11.

238
   
subscribers to the first collection of poems:
List of subscribers in Williams, Helen Maria,
Poems
(2 vols., London, 1786).