Collected file presumed to have been compiled by Marie Belloc Lowndes and / or her daughters, comprising miscellaneous Bessie Rayner Parkes letters etc [originally filed with items now catalogued at GCPP Parkes 15/71a/1-2].
File contains:
1. Typescript of a letter from [B R P] to ‘Dear old friend’, from 11 Great College Street 12 June 1883, concerning ‘the religious question’, clipped together with a typescript note [by Marie Belloc Lowndes or Hialire Belloc?] commenting on the relative qualities of the letters of ‘my mother’ [B R P] and Mary Merryweather ‘her closest friend for something like forty years’;
2. Illustrated Valentine, no date [possibly Victorian?];
3. Part of a letter from B R P from Paris to her mother, in which she talks of ‘Baby’ [Hilaire Belloc] ‘sitting on Louis’ knee’, circa 1870?;
4. Letter from Louise Swanton Belloc (in English) to ‘My dear Mrs Mew’, in which she is ‘uneasy about my dear daughter’s health’: it is a fortnight since she has heard from [Bessie Belloc, née Parkes] who has gone ‘to London with Hilary’ - 24 June but no year [circa 1880?] with, on same sheet, letter from Sarah Mew to ‘Madame’ [Bessie Belloc] informing her of L S B’s concern;
5. Rough copy of a family tree including John Parkes (1763-1851, paternal grandfather of B R P), Martha Twamley (1768-1801, first wife of John Parkes) and various Swainsons, including William Swainson, 1789-1855, naturalist;
6. Printed notes on a ‘Portrait of Mrs Barrett Browning’ of 1859, inscribed with a note in ink reading ‘In the possession of Madame Belloc’ and a pencil note reading ‘Grannie sold this for £100 I think to the Reginald Smiths’;
7. Printed sheet with music and words for ‘The World’s Delight’, a carol of a poem by Hermon Ould set to music by David Carver and dedicated to ‘H G D’ [1934?] (connection unknown, though the back of the leaflet is inscribed ‘With all good wishes from Hermon Ould’);
8. 2 page typescript of extracts of B R P’s letters relating to Sam Blackwell [‘the man to whom she then [1860] considered herself engaged’] [possibly connected with Margaret Crompton’s unpublished biography??].