Supporting Documents

SD1003.  William Knibb to William Wemyss Anderson

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 4, 351 (in part).

As a matter of duty I write to you respecting the present state of Mr Barretts properties especially Cambridge. The good old head man George Prince of Wales has been dismissed and ordered with his family off the property. One under church censure has been appointed in his stead, and quarrelling and sin are rampant. Those that are worth any thing will soon leave the property and Mr B. will have to thank himself in the partial ruin of his property for listening to tale bearers and so unceremoniously dismissing Mr Farquharson.

As far as I am concerned I care very little about the issue. At the request of Mr F. I got the people to accede to his terms. I altered not one, and as far as higher wages were offered on the next Estate, I had hard work to keep the people to the agreement, some of them telling me to my face that I had made a bad bargain for them. Mr Barrett I hear is offended with my interference at all, when without it he would not I am confident had fifty |Who| [illegible word] and that at an enormous rate. Why does he not come out himself and not trust the management of his Estates to persons only notorious for the filthy vice of the Country. Mr Shirley has sent out orders to erect 100 houses on Hyde [illegible word] the next property and to locate 100 families therein. There the abased people will find a refuge while Mr Barrett will lose his most able hands.

If you think it worth while to mention these things to him do: I may yet serve his Estates. If not, destroy it. <***>

Publication: None traced.

Source: Copy, in the hand of William Wemyss Anderson, at Eton College Library.

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