Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    L30/12/35
  • Title
    Correspondence from Elizabeth and Hugh Hume-Campbell (Lord and Lady Marchmont), parents of Alexander Hume-Campbell.
  • Date free text
    1768-1780
  • Production date
    From: 1768 To: 1780
  • Admin/biog history
    Elizabeth Hume-Campbell, nee Crompton was the daughter of Windmill[s] Crompton [1705-1771] and his wife Elizabeth, nee Partridge [1707-1770]. Elizabeth had a sister, Anne [1732-1800] who married Edward Barker [1729-1773]. Edward was a consul at Tripoli. Anne Barker died as a result of a fire setting fire to her clothing. Anne and Edward had three children: 1) Elizabeth Barker[1751-1788], who married General Lake. 2) Edward Barker [1753-1835], referred to in the letters as Ned. 3) Francis Henry Barker [1756-1830]. Vicar of St. Stephens near St. Albans and of Northchurch Hertfordshire. Referred to in the letters as Frank. Before marrying Elizabeth Crompton, Hugh Hume Campbell had been married to Anne Western [d.1747], by whom he had four children: 1) Hon. Patrick Hume-Campbell. Died young. 2) Hon. Margaret Hume-Campbell. She married Maj.-Gen. James Stuart on 20 September 1763.1 She died on 7 January 1765 without issue. 3) Hon. Anne Hume-Campbell. Born c.1734, died 1790. Married Sir John Paterson, 3rd Baronet on 23 October 1755. They had one daughter, Anne, who married Philip Anstruther in 1778. She died in 1822 without issue. 4) Hon. Diana Hume-Campbell. Born on 4 June 1735. Married Walter Scott in April 1754. She died July 1827 at age 92. She succeeded as the 5th Lady Polwarth on 11 March 1822, de jure. They had at least two children: 1) Anne, 1759-1819, unmarried. 2) Hugh Hepburne-Scott, 6th Lord Polwarth 1748-1851. Hugh Hume-Campbell and his second wife Elizabeth had one child, Alexander, to whom the letters are addressed.
  • Scope and Content
    About 170 letters. [Typed transcripts of nos. 86, 90, 91-92, 170, 171, 173, 175, 200, 206]. The early letters are written weekly to Polwarth when he was on the grand tour, both parents usually writing together. At this time Marchmont had great hopes that his son would fit his pre-conceived pattern, and took pains to advise him. He writes "My dear". An example is 16 January 1770: [Regular arrival of letters]. "You was mistaken in my meaning of the causes of the irregular arrival of your letters. You are now a man, and therefore negligence and idleness cannot be suspected in you without bearing hard on your character. The foundations of character are laid at your age... An idle, dissipating trifler would never deserve that I should bestow on him the whole reward of my whole life of attention, application and laborious assiduity; yet all my object is to place on you all the reward I can contrive to deserve. Such conduct is no compliment, it must mark a fixed regard and settled confidence, both that you will deserve it, and enable yourself to make all the use of it necessary to your own honour and happiness. If you neglect the last you disappoint yourself; if the first you disgrace me; and altho' my partiality for you may supply an excuse for me, there will be none left for you. Let this therefore remain fixed on your mind that, as my bestowing on you all the reward I can merit is the most demonstrative proof of my affection and good opinion of you, so it is a constant indispensable obligation on you to labour to deserve it." "May God bless and preserve you." And 1 May 1770: " I approve extremely your plan for the use of your remaining time at Gottingen. What I wrote was merely to fill up your time with confirming methodical arrangement of your ideas according to the rules of logic without straining your attention or application, since you come fresh from the precepts... For all I mentioned Wolff for his close attention to method and adherence to using his terms in the precise sense he has primarily given them by his definitions". The Earl's letters decrease after Polwarth's marriage (there seems nothing directly bearing on this); and the last seems to be January 1779. There is a gap in letters between 5th Februaury 1771 and November 1772. Two more show his attitude: 15 January 1771: "I have in view in my plan of your education to qualify you to be a British peer with honour and efficacy. You can by bringing every step to the test of this bottoming principle determine by yourself how far it will be useful or not to you in the course of life and duty you are born to pursue. If you agree to pursue the same plan, after my plan is at an end, which it must be, as soon as ever your turn comes to build on the foundations I could only lay, then the same bottoming principle will serve you as a touchstone to judge of all your future conduct". 22 January 1771: "I am glad you are able to go thro' so much exercise. Take care however not to overdo, so as to check your acquiring a sufficient stock of health to enable you to go thro' the course of serious application that lies before you. It will take the exertions of all the mental habits you have hitherto acquired; and the length of time that must be employed in a sedentary way, to render it of real use to you, may be too hard on you, if it find your health not firmly established. I mention this because the beginning of your own plan must have considerable effect on the success of what has been the end of all my endeavours to place you on advantageous ground at your outset." 3 December 1772: "It is got even to the King that you are turned foxhunter. There may have been no ill-meaning in telling him so, but there may have been malice, for there cannot be a more contemptible character in this country. Take as much of it as amuses you or tends to your health, but avoid every appearance by speaking or otherwise of its not being an inferior consideration with you. Talk of it lightly as one of your amusements, and as contributing, not as necessary, to your health; and in reality take great care to keep yourself superior to that and every class subordinate to true manly objects fit for one of your station. According to what you write of your estimated expense, let me advise you to avoid every additional expense till you have tried your estimate by experience. For, depend upon it, this last will greatly outrun the former".
  • Level of description
    file
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