SD2478. William Surtees Cook to Editor of The Guardian

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 297.

[Stoke St. Mary, Somerset]

[mid-]July 1861

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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To the Editor of the Guardian

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Sir–

Perhaps you may think it worth while, merely for the sake of truth, and as a matter of fact, to contradict a statement, now going the round of the press, that the father of the above Lady was a merchant, in the ordinary acceptation of the Term–

Edward Moulton-Barrett, now deceased, was a country gentleman, and was never engaged in business. When a minor, he inherited a handsome fortune from his maternal grandfather, and took the name of Barrett, by Royal sign manual, in the usual way, in addition to his patronymic Moulton. He had a beautiful homestead called Hope End, in Herefordshire, in which county he served high sheriff in 1814– He rebuilt the mansion and embellished the park and grounds of Hope End; and in that fairy dwelling the poetess his daughter passed her happy childhood, and the days of her early womanhood. All this is well known in our neighbourhood– Mr Barrett had estates in Jamaica, the produce of which was, of course, sold in London; this may account for the misstatement having got abroad.

Your obedient servant

Long Ago–

The Beacon–

Publication: The Guardian, 17 July 1861, p. 668.

Source: Transcript in editors’ file.

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