Sent from Ipswich. Replying to Edward Rose’s letter requesting information about the Rose family for a biography. Telling Edward he could send a copy of the memoir just published about his grandfather [Caleb Burrell Rose] but he didn’t know much about the Roses or how long they had been settled at Eye [Suffolk] except that: his father was apprenticed to his uncle, a surgeon in Eye and who died in Eye; the surgeon had a son (Caleb Burrell Rose’s cousin) who succeeded him in practice and who also died there leaving no issue; the surgeon also had a daughter (Caleb Burrell Rose’s cousin) who was a remarkable woman, a precursor of the woman doctors of the present day, she was very fond of doctoring and learned to bleed (a very common mode of treatment in those days), she learned to bandage and to do up fractures, she attended cases of sickness and was a very useful assistant to her father and her cousin (Caleb Burrell Rose), she never married, and died when young of fever (probably typhoid) caught in the practice of her profession; and his father had a brother (Caleb Rose’s uncle) who was a favourite pupil of Sir Astley Cooper but died of a dissection wound when a hospital student.

He also writes that he thinks Gilbert and Sullivan have scored a success; he thinks that ‘The Rose Reader’ (Children’s Reading Book) will be a success too as the method is not irksome for children; that Edward and Lizzie would miss the Jacksons, and he hopes his [Mr Jackson’s] health improves; Munna’s [his wife’s] cold was better and she found her lost spectacles.