“So wide a Gulph”: family letters across the seas in the early nineteenth century

Abstract

This article considers letters arising from the journeys of three brothers from Lincolnshire who travelled professionally in the early nineteenth century. Willingham Franklin became a judge and in 1822 was appointed to the Supreme Court of Madras. James joined the 1st Bengal Cavalry in 1805 and made his career in India as soldier and surveyor. John, the youngest, joined the navy at 14 and achieved fame as an arctic explorer. On the evidence of their correspondence it is argued that family letters in the early nineteenth century deserve further study as a genre; and that a “book history” approach to the materiality of communications could shed light on the mentalités of imperial careerists, especially in relation to anxiety and stress.

Keywords:

• family letters
• communications
• empire
• India
• anxiety
• John Franklin; Tasmania

Acknowledgements

This paper grew from a presentation entitled “Textual Traces: The Travel Writing of a Lincolnshire Family” given at the conference “Travel in the Marketplace: The Materiality of Travel in the Long 19th Century” (Bangor, 2014). We are grateful for the help of staff at several institutions holding Franklin letters: in particular the British Library; the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge; Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock; Lincolnshire Record Office; and the National Library of Scotland. We are especially indebted to the owner of an extensive private collection (who wishes to remain anonymous) for hospitable access to much Franklin material, especially relating to Willingham Franklin. Besides Studies in Travel Writing’s anonymous readers, we should like to thank Tom Lockwood for his sage advice; and George Parfitt, without whom this work would never have begun.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Thomas Adams Franklin, the eldest child (b. 1773), went into his father’s business with little success and after “improvident speculations” involving the family in debt and legal disputes, appears to have committed suicide in 1807 (Lincoln Record Office, Dixon 19/4/1/5, Willingham Franklin to his father, December 28, 1807).

2. James’s wife Margaret, for example, travelled between England and India, repeatedly visited France, spent time seeking to improve her health in the Pyrenees, in Bath and in Southend, and with her second husband travelled as part of John Franklin’s party to Tasmania. John’s second wife, Jane, was an independent and indefatigable traveller, both on her own account and later, after John’s disappearance, crossing continents to drum up support for expeditions to find him. See, for example, McGoogan (2007), Elce (2009), and Russell (1997, 2002, 2004).

3. The phrase “imperial careering” is introduced and defined by Lambert and Lester (2006, 21).

4. Lambert and Lester (2006, 31) note that research on peripatetic figures “may be hindered by the organization of archives along national lines”.

5. The British Library (BL), the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), Derbyshire Record Office (DRO), Lincolnshire Record Office (LRO) and the National Library of Scotland (NLS) are the principal UK public collections holding Franklin material; more can be found in Sydney and Tasmania.

6. For a definition of “structure of feeling”, a term developed throughout Raymond Williams’s work, see Williams (1977); “mentalités” were the focus of work by the French Annales School of historians (with which the origins of the history of the book – “l’histoire du livre” – had much in common); and “affect” seems to be the nearest equivalent term as used by imperial historians and historians of gender. For a useful discussion of the characteristics of the “new” imperial history see the Introduction to Lambert and Lester (2006).

7. Private collection, LA/2/16. Sir Willingham Franklin to the Rev. John Penrose, May 18, 1824.

8. Private collection, LA/2/14. Lady Catharine Franklin to Mary Burnside, January 21, 1824. The spelling of Catharine’s name varies, so we adopt the spelling she most often used herself and thus distinguish between her and her daughter Catherine.

9. The Franklins consulted with friends and family before making the decision. The suggestion that women arrived in India “not by choice” perpetuates the stereotypical view of a lack of women’s agency in relation to their husbands’ professional travels (Steirstorfer 2006). But the evidence of Catharine and Willingham in the 1820s, and later of John and Jane Franklin, would suggest otherwise.

10. Calculations as to the likely profits of Willingham’s appointment appear in his letters to family: he expects a salary of £6000 p.a. and a pension of £1500 p.a. on his return (LRO Dixon 19/4/2/1, Willingham Franklin to his sister Henrietta Wright, March 21, 1822). Ogborn (2008, 100) notes that in the previous century Sir William Jones, appointed to the Supreme Court of Bengal, reckoned that five or six years’ service would enable him to return to England with £30,000.

11. Catharine’s experiences of seasickness on the voyage out and of miscarriage are paralleled in the experiences of Minnie Blane three decades later, and must have been common (Rappaport 2004, 241).

12. LRO Dixon 19/4/2/41, Willingham Franklin to Mrs Burnside, October 25, 1823. The Ann & Amelia, built in Chittagong, was at this time privately owned; from 1826 it was chartered by the East India Company for local voyages. Willingham’s first letter was therefore presumably transferred to a second (and possibly faster) vessel for the voyage to England. Despite the overland journey to Tellicherry, however, the second letter could have had a faster journey if from Tellicherry it travelled via packet ship, packets being much smaller and faster than the 587-ton Ann & Amelia. (See www.eicships.info, accessed December 7, 2015.) For an account of the complex arrangements for mail between India and Britain, both before and after steam, see Robinson (1964).

13. BL Add MS 40666 f. 29. John Franklin to Willingham Franklin, February 8, 1808.

14. See, for example, Sophia Plowden’s letter from Calcutta, April 4, 1783: “I wrote to you a very long letter by the Worcester packet, but as the Surprize is new taken up for Europe I have an opportunity of adding more” (Steirstorfer 2006, Vol. 4, 3).

15. Tasmanian Archives NS1004/15, Sophia Cracroft to Mary Price, November 4, 1854.

16. The Dead Letter Office was established in London in 1784 to deal with dead and mis-sent letters. In 1813 a Returned Letter Office was organised to return undelivered letters to writers and collect the postage due (http://postalheritage.org.uk/ accessed August 3, 2014).

17. Tasmanian Archives NS1004/16, Sophia Cracroft to Mary Price, covering letter February 20, 1856.

18. BL Add MS 47769A, ff.53–79v; DRO D3311/11/6.

19. OED online defines “cadet” (2a) as “A gentleman who entered the army without a commission, to learn the military profession and find a career for himself”; and (2b) “A junior in the East India Company’s service”.

20. BL Add MS 47769A f.69v, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, September 4, 1811.

21. BL Add MS 47769A ff. 79, 79v–78v [interlined], James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, December 10, 1816.

22. SPRI MS 248/394/7. Willingham to John Franklin, February 10, 1822. Unfortunately the experience of this little girl (Mary Franklin) in travelling from her home in Bengal to the wilds of the English East Coast at Ingoldmells is not recorded.

23. BL Add MS 47769A f.57, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, ?1806; f.64, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, ?1807.

24. BL Add MS 47769A f.61, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, February 14, 1807. In his pursuit of languages and surveying, James was developing interests prized by the Company: Ogborn (2008, 97) notes the “increasingly institutionalised interest in the languages, botany, history, archaeology and geology of India […] clearest in the new desire for accurate maps of the territory”.

25. BL Add MS 47769A f.71v, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, January 3, 1812.

26. For a detailed description of the instruments required see BL Add MS 47769A ff.76–77, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, August 20, 1814; for payment see BL Add MS 47769A, f. 79, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, December 10, 1816.

27. BL Add MS 40666 f. 11: “He will find much pleasure in taking views & sketches of the country – but there is but little encouragement given to an artist”, John Franklin to their sister Ann, July 3, 1805.

28. Ordered in October 1813 to survey the south frontier of Bundelkhand, for example, he was unable to begin until the following January because he was on military service “before the fort of Alwar”. He continued surveying in Bundelkhand until 1819, but the work was several times interrupted, by the Nepal War in 1815, the Pindari War in 1815–1816 and the Maratha War in 1817–1818. He was mentioned in despatches for his part in the capture of Jawad in 1818.

29. “In 1820 his health becoming delicate from constant service, he proceeded to Calcutta, where he was employed […] collecting and arranging geographical and other documents relating to the late campaign” (Phillimore 1954, 449).

30. His map is in the National Archives Singapore, Survey Department: GM000015(a) Plan of the British Settlement of Singapore by Captain Franklin and Lieut. Jackson.

31. BL Add MS 47769A f.79v, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, December 10, 1816.

32. Considered a pioneer of bird collecting in India, James Franklin collected 156 species on tour from Calcutta to Saugar via Benaras in 1826. The specimens went later to the Zoological Society in London.

33. BL Add MS 47769A f.69f, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, September 4, 1811.

34. BL Add MS 47769A f.60v, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, ?1806.

35. BL Add MS 47769A f.67, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, April 30, 1811.

36. BL Add MS 40666 f. 11, John Franklin to Ann Peacock, July 3, 1805.

37. Read May 21, 1825 and published the following year (Franklin 1826).

38. His report, “Observations on Several Iron Mines, in the Central Part of India, with an account of the Indian Mode of Manufacturing Iron and Plans of the Machinery and Implements” (India Office Library MS EUR D 154) is noted as “Received from Secretary May 19, 1835”. The whole of this document along with the seven plates (but excluding the map) is published as “The Mode of Manufacturing Iron in Central India” in Dharampal, Collected Writings, Vol. I: Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century (Delhi: Implex India, 1971), 213–241.

39. Private collection LA/2/13, Willingham Franklin to John [Burnside], ?1824.

40. Despite the publication of much biographical material (from Traill 1898 to Owen 1978) and a research focus on specific expeditions, there is no adequate scholarly biography. Some of his correspondence has been published (Davis 1995, 1998).

41. With arctic exploration halted by the Admiralty, after he left the Rainbow Franklin was in effect a naval captain with no ship and consequently on half pay.

42. For the standard line on Murray and Barrow’s promotion of arctic narratives see, for example, MacLaren (1994). Recent work by Cavell (2008, 2013) is much more sensitive to materiality such as format, cost and accessibility. Keighren, Withers, and Bell (2015) are the first to marry historical geography and the history of the book for a thorough investigation of the construction of Murray’s travel narratives.

43. Cavell (2010) is a welcome rare exception, though limited to Franklin’s religious reading.

44. Davis (1997) makes the case for a study of Franklin’s family letters to illuminate both the details of the 1819–1822 arctic expedition and Franklin’s personality.

45. SPRI MS248/302/1, John to his sister Elizabeth Franklin, from HMS Investigator, 18th [month illegible] 1802.

46. BL Add MS 40666 f. 21, John Franklin to Ann Peacock, January 10, 1807.

47. BL Add MS 40666 f.7, John Franklin to Ann Peacock, April 12, 1805, emphases in the original.

48. BL Add MS 40666 f.7, John Franklin to Ann Peacock, April 12, 1805.

49. SPRI MS. 248/394/9. Willingham to John Franklin. July 10, 1822.

50. SPRI MS. 248/394/8. Willingham to John Franklin. May 24, 1822.

51. SPRI MS. 248/394/9. Willingham to John Franklin. Written from “Lat. 8Dg N. Long. 220–152 W”, July 10, 1822.

52. W. H. Tinney, according to Cavell (2013).

53. SPRI MS. 248/394/9. Willingham to John Franklin. Written from “Lat. 8Dg N. Long. 220–152 W”, July 10, 1822.

54. NLS Murray Ledger B, Ms.42725, 57.

55. NLS Murray Ledger B, Ms.42725, 228. A composite edition of both narratives was published (John Franklin 1829) in 16°. The print run – which had been 1,500 for each of the previous editions – was increased to 5,000; but this made less profit for Murray (£696 4s. 1d.). NLS Murray Ledger C, Ms.42727, 4.

56. SPRI MS. 248/394/7. Willingham to John Franklin. February 10, 1822.

57. Some newspapers did print letters received from those involved. During his second expedition, for example, a “Letter from Dr Richardson to a friend” appeared in the Royal Cornwall Gazette, Falmouth Packet & Plymouth Journal, Sat Oct 21, 1826.

58. “family circle” was a phrase much used by John Franklin in his letters. The circulation of letters amongst them all was often remarked on.

59. Private collection, LA-2-29b, John Franklin to Catherine and Willingham Franklin, May 13, 1830. Willingham was six years old.

60. LRO MISC DON 756/1/1/2, John Franklin to Tom Cracroft April 19, 1834.

61. See note 2 above.

62. While in Tasmania Mary met and married the notorious John Price, who became civil commandant of Norfolk Island; after his murder by convicts she remained in Australia and brought up her children there.

63. Letters published by their authors during their lifetimes, often quoted by historians, tend to have been written and arranged, sometimes as narrative or diary, with an eye to publication. Consequently they are generically different from essentially private ones and not included in this discussion.

64. Early Modern Letters Online, Cultures of Knowledge, http://emlo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk (accessed December 7, 2015). The Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/ (accessed December 7, 2015) provides a focus for archival research into letters from 1500 to 1800.

65. Transnational history in particular is alive to “movements, flows and circulation”: see Deacon, Russell, and Woollacott (2010, 4, quoting Bayly).

66. See Chap. 1 for his summary of approaches developed in the field of book history. Given the nature of his focus on the Company, however, there is no discussion of family letters, though “personal letter writing” is noted in passing in the context of Indian society (19).

67. Darnton’s model of a “communication circuit” (Darnton 1982) is a key and influential text in book history, though it has since been much debated and alternatives have been proposed (see, for example, Adams and Barker 1993 and McDonald 1997). A recurring complaint is the totalising nature of the circuit, making a thorough study of every aspect a project of encyclopedic proportions. Darnton (1982, 67) himself acknowledged the potential of history of the book for “interdisciplinarity run riot”.

68. See in particular Dierks (2009) Chapter 4 on “Letter writing and consumer revolution” for discussion of the familiar letter.

69. Dierks recognises the importance of these aspects of writing technology, and of the acquisition of skills, paying welcome attention to such matters as the making of ink and quills and paper, the geographical origins of their constituents, manufacture and supply, and the publication of letter-writing manuals.

70. BL Add MS 47769A f. 57, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, ?1806.

71. BL Add MS 47769A, f. 58v, James Franklin to Willingham Franklin, ?1806. This is added above the address.

72. Dierks on early America is the welcome exception.

73. Burton and Ballantyne go on to remark that “everywhere one turns, it seems, students of the past and present are critically engaged in creating accounts of why and how the political economies of emotion, intimacy, and friendship shape state formations, political movements, and the materialities of culture” (2008, 335).

74. We are grateful to Charles Forsdick for alerting us to Schivelbusch’s work, which comes closest to doing the kind of analysis we have in mind.