‘Lurgan, Northern Ireland, to Edinburgh, Scotland, 1838’
by
Eunice Shanahan
This letter was addressed to the Royal Bank of Scotland, St. Andrews Square, Edinburgh from W. J Hancock in Lurgan, Ireland and has three postal markings. First the LURGAN Circular date stamp in black FE 27 1838, on the back of the letter, then on the front address panel as illustrated, an Edinburgh PAID date stamp in red MAR 1 1838 and the manuscript in red ink of the postage charge “Pd. 2/6 ½½ ”. There is also a manuscript Post Paid,initialled by the writer W.J.H. There is a filing note on the outside : “1838 W.J Hancock, Lurgan 26 Feb, Ansd 3 & 13 Mar.” It is a letter concerning money being transferred. The writing is quite easy to read, except for the one name, which looks like ‘Whytosh’. However, I have been unable to trace that name at all around 1838. The letter is not of exceptional interest, being a commercial, rather than a personal one, but the amount of money involved is quite large.
Gentlemen, The interest for me came when I started to research the letter online. The first thing I looked for was where the letter was posted, Lurgan. I found it is in Northern Ireland S.W of Belfast near Lake Meagh, so this was across the water from Ireland to Scotland, which does not explain the postage charge of 2/6 ½d. The mail service at this time was developing and changing. Alan Robertson’s book describes the routes for the mail from Ireland to Scotland using the Donaghadee to Port Patrick packets, and the Paddle steamers introduced from 1825 alleviated the problems of poor weather delaying the sailing ships, but the coastal limitations meant that the ports had to be changed from Larne to Stranraer. As no postmarks were used at either port there is no record of how this letter was transported. As the likely route would seem to be from Northern Ireland straight across to Scotland, a sea distance of about 20 miles, the postal charge of 2/6 seemed very high. Fortunately, I was able to contact Michael Sanig, who kindly confirmed that it is correct. (Michael is one of the four collaborators who have been working on updating the information about the Scottish and Welsh Additional halfpenny mail taxes, and their new reference book/catalogue is due to be published in April 2017.)
This image cropped from one of the maps in Alan Robertson's book shows the route. Port Patrick to Donaghadee double letter rate = 8d
Add ½d = ½d. Therefore total cost = 1s10d + 8d +½d = 2s6½d The letter was prepaid by Mr Hancock in Lurgan, so he must have known that this was correct at the time.
Other results of the research showed that when this letter was written it was a turbulent time because of the fight for Catholic emancipation.
The next thing I checked was the first person mentioned, The Right Honourable Charles Brownlow. The result was very interesting, and there is a lot of information about him as he was a member of parliament. The entry in Wikipedia shows Charles Brownlow, 1st Baron Lurgan PC (17 April 1795 – 30 April 1847) was an Irish politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1818 to 1832 and was raised to the peerage in 1839. Brownlow was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Brownlow and his wife Caroline Ashe. In 1818 he was elected Member of Parliament for Armagh and held the seat until 1832. In 1829, the year of the Catholic Emancipation Act, Brownlow gave the Rev. W.O. O'Brien land for a church in the townland of Derry. In 1833 he had built Brownlow House designed by the Edinburgh architect William Henry Playfair in the Elizabethan style and constructed of Scottish sandstone. He was High Sheriff of Armagh in 1834 and was raised to the peerage by Queen Victoria, as Baron Lurgan, of Lurgan in the County of Armagh on 14 May 1839. Brownlow was keen to improve his estate and was actively concerned with the welfare of the people of Lurgan. During the Great Famine he was chairman of the Lurgan Board of Guardians and was constantly at his post. While alleviating distress and attending the wants of the Union, he contracted typhus fever which led to his death at the age of 52. When this letter was written, he was still the Right Honourable Charles Brownlow, MP, as he was not created a Baron until the year after.
I could find no information at all about Messrs Richard Whytosh & Co in 1838, but this is possibly because I may not have read the name correctly from this handwriting. The illustration shows that it is clear, and not smudged or faded, but illegible! The next reference was for Spooner Attwoods & Co, and the entry in Slater’s Directory of Lurgan of 1842 Page 2 has the following details. PROVINCIAL BANK OF IRELAND (Branch) Main street (draws on Spooner, Attwoods & Co. London) Mr Thomas Hall, manager. So that matches the sentence in the letter. The final line to follow was that of the writer of the letter, William John Hancock, whose entry in WikiTree is very informative. Born September 15, 1791 in Lambeg House, Lisburn, Ireland, Died August 29, 1848 in Ireland.
He was an Irish Poor Law Commissioner, Lord Lurgan’s land agent and later stipendiary magistrate. He made a strong impression on those who knew him. Two differing comments quoted on the site were :- “He was a man of fine person, and commanding presence. He struck me as possessing great practical energy and resolution, though without the speculative talent of his wife; and as feeling a lively sympathy with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed.”The events at Tandragee received a lot of media coverage and there is even a report in the Parliamentary Committee of the time. Richard Morrison’s own full and descriptive oath and deposition sworn before William John Hancock, J.P., Armagh and Down, (the man whose effigy was being burned), is online and can be read using this reference “76267 Tandragee”. As a matter of interest, the following from Slaters Directory, gives a really good idea of how busy the town of Lurgan must have been in 1842 only 4 years after this letter was written.
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