Blackwell Reference Online

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You were a pretty while in writing, Master Tom, after you left me in the dismals – three whole weeks…. If Mrs W, thinks an absence of three or four days so much, who has children, a mother, and sisters to chear her whilst you are away, how must I endure the deprivation of your society for three times that number of years? who have neither mother, sisters, husband, nor children. All my affections are centred in you…. You have many to shew kindness to you, and always about you, I have but one, whom I seldom see – consider this, and make some allowance for me. Ellen Weeton to Thomas Weeton, 16 March 1809. March – I now began to feel the cares of family affairs to to [sic] press hard upon me for I had two daughters one 14 the other 16 to take care of and they were a an age the [sic] is as unmanageable as at any time of life … they had all to learn &c and they learn slowly mary the older kept the House & agness went to work – November this month I was off my work a month poorly … in this last year I have lost 42 Day work &c this has been a troublesome year to me having no wife to care for the concerns of the House nor any Company or any to care for me &c – Benjamin Shaw, Family Records, 1828. These two quotations illustrate the importance of family to two very different early-nineteenth-century people. Ellen Weeton was writing to her married brother, a Warrington attorney. ... log in or subscribe to read full text