Benjamin Flower correspondence,
- NLW MS 13587F.
- Ffeil
- 1794-1808 (mainly 1799-1800).
A collection of a hundred and twenty-one letters and thirteen fragments of letters to and from Benjamin Flower (1775-1829), political writer and Unitarian (DNB, vol. 19, p. 339). The letters span the period 1794 to 1808, the great majority dated 1799 and 1800, and are between Flower and Eliza Gould, whom he married in January 1800. The collection is fullest for the period August to October, 1799 - the period of Flower's imprisonment at Newgate for an alleged libel against Bishop Watson of Llandaff, whose political conduct he had censured in the Cambridge Intelligencer - when almost daily exchanges took place between himself and Miss Gould. For the years following their marriage in 1800, the correspondence is predictably less complete and consists mainly of domestic trivia and concern for one another's health and welfare. In two lengthy letters, 1799, Flower provides a detailed account of his 'past life, ... present situation and ... future prospects'. There are regular references to the difficulties faced by Flower in writing 'paragraphs' for the Cambridge Intelligencer, and, after 1805, to the problems of running a printing business at Harlow. Accounts of contemporary political and literary life are interspersed with personal details, and there is some discussion of the war against France. The later letters also contain many references to their two daughters, Eliza, born 1803, and Sarah, born 1805. English. Formerly George Eyre Evans Bequest MS 375. A catalogue of the individual letters is available as 'NLW, Schedule of the Benjamin Flower correspondence', 1980. A transcript of NLW MS 13587F is available in NLW ex 2225.
Flower, Benjamin, 1755-1829