ALFRED BINYON WRITES TO HIS MOTHER ABOUT HIS HOLIDAY IN KENDAL

Many thanks for thy promptitude in complying with my request. Thy kind letter has just come to hand and in reply I sincerely feel grateful for your kind indulgence in allowing me to enjoy the pure air of this delightful spot. I remained all 7^th day at Parkside[1] basking in the sun and reading a delightful tale called "Claudine"[2] which I have bought for one of the children. Robert Dockray[3], Wilson Lloyd[4] and several of the young Braithwaites[5] came to spend the afternoon with us and I enjoyed playing several games at marbles with them. It revived recollections of my own schoolboy days.

Sam Marshall's[6] 2 female assistants dined with us. They are young women whom the smallpox[7] has made sad havock but I doubt fill up their appointed station with great advantage to society.

Yesterday I dined at William Wilson's whose wife is still delicate from her late confinement.

I have transcribed into a small book for thy inspection the names of the families of various Friends here with whom you are acquainted, and should they live, they will be a thriving colony and many of them very handsome, both boys and girls. Cousin Dorothy has two of the finest children[8] I ever beheld. Many of them I am sorry to say are just now troubled with an influenza[9] which is very prevalent here.

On 5^th day last William D. junior[10] and I took a delightful ride of 10 miles which I enjoyed much. The scenery in the distance was in the neighbourhood of the lakes. He promises to treat me in this way often which I will gladly accede to as he is a gentlemen in every sense of the word. All the branches of this family are truly kind to me. Rachael[11] is in a very delicate state of health and cousin Robert says is a queer girl but be that as it may she is handsome and is very complaisant to me. Sarah[12] often rides out with her father is an excellent horsewoman and a fine girl. I do not much admire Mary Wakefield, she has a quizical physiog and I am told can be very severe. It is fixed that I go with cousin Robert[13] and Dorothy to dine at Sedgwick[14] on fourth day next. The book meeting is at Isaac Wilson[15] 3^rd day evening which I propose attending. Nicholas Martindale was at Parkside to breakfast this morning and proceeds this afternoon by way of Cumberland into Ireland[16].

This little town of Kendal astonishes me what a concentration of wealth, respectability and orthodoxy such I conceive as not easily to be found elsewhere. Cousin Robert has I assume a very deep pocket. Parkside is to all appearance an expensive but not a showy place. Cousin Dorothy has 3 female domestics and a young man (half a Quaker) who drives the carriage, gardens, etc; there is also a farming man living in the adjoining cottage whose wife washes all the linen for the family - this I am told is a great luxury which Cousin Robert insisted upon his spouse indulging in. What a charming woman she is I need not tell thee.

I will attend to thy advice about calling on Dorothy Fergusson[17] - she has kindly invited me to take a meal with her.

Suppose I was to stay here until the latter end of the present week, then take coach to Leeds[18] and from thence into Lincolnshire and return with Samuel Sims (?). Tell me how this plan would suit your ideas. I hope to hear by return of post as it proves a great consolation to me.

I am sorry to hear we are so slack at the works; I want to lend a helping hand there and get to taking stock as soon as may be. Tell D.Dockray[19] his son continues mending. W.Dillworth has been here to say his son will ride with me to Bowness 10 miles from here at the foot of Windermere Lake.

[1] The home of Alfred's relatives Robert and Dorothy Benson, situated one mile from the centre of Kendal.

[2] "Claudine, or Humility, the basis of all the virtues. A Swiss tale… by the author of "Always happy"". First published 1822, and in its 7^th edition in 1835.

[3] Possibly Robert Benson Dockray (b.1813), son of David Dockray and his wife Abigail, first cousin of Robert Benson of Parkside. Robert Benson Dockray became resident engineer of the London & Birmingham Railway, living in Dalton Square, Lancaster. His daughter Mary married Alfred Binyon's son Frederick at Lancaster Parish Church in 1866.

[4] A member of the banking family?

[5] Dorothy Benson was the daughter of George and Deborah (nee Wilson) Braithwaite.

[6] Samuel Marshall had succeeded Jonathan Dalton at the Friends' School in Kendal in 1815 and continued at the school until 1855. The school had been built in 1698, and a boarding house was opened in 1728. Jonathan and his more famous brother John Dalton took over the school in 1785. John left Kendal in 1793 to go to the Literary and Philosophical Society in Manchester, and there demonstrated his atomic theory.

[7] Smallpox did not begin to be contained until after the first (permissive) vaccination act of 1840. During the epidemic of the preceding three years, almost 42,000 people died of the affliction.

[8] Robert and Dorothy Benson had three sons and seven daughters; three of the latter died young.

[9] Influenza was endemic throughout the nineteenth century, and was accepted with resignation; it did not begin to arouse the concern of public officials until the next century.

[10] William Dilworth of Lancaster?

[11] Rachel Benson, born 1815, married Robert Crewdson of Manchester.

[12] Sarah Benson, born 1819, married James Harrison.

[13] Robert Benson was a wholesale grocer and tea dealer in Stricklandgate, Kendal. His mother was Deborah Wakefield, half-sister of Alfred Binyon's grandmother Ruth Wakefield.

[14] The Wakefield family residence was at Sedgwick.

[15] Isaac Wilson, woollen manufacturers, Stramongate, Kendal.

[16] The "St Andrew" sailed from Whitehaven to Dublin every Friday.

[17] Dorothy Ferguson was a confectioner/fruiterer in Finkle Street, Kendal.

[18] A daily service form Kendal to Leeds had been established by 1810; the "Union" coach left the King's Arms, Kendal at 5 o'clock and arrived at the Hotel and Tavern, Leeds about 8 o'clock in the evening. At Leeds there were regular coaches to all parts of the South.

[19] David Dockray, father of Robert Benson Dockray (see 3 above), was a woollen cord manufacturer in Manchester.