Letters to Joseph Strutt

MS3101/C/E/5

Letters to Joseph Strutt

1787-1843

Letters in this section can be divided into two main groups, one comprising correspondence from members of Joseph Strutt's family, and the other comprising letters from his friends and from others with whom he corresponded about various financial and administrative matters. Significant correspondents in the first group include his brother-in-law William Archibald Douglas, who wrote to Joseph Strutt about his mercantile interests in the area around the Cape Coast Castle fort in west Africa, his wife, Isabella Strutt and his children, Joseph Douglas Strutt, Caroline Hurt (nee Strutt) and Isabella Galton (nee Strutt). Letters from Isabella Strutt include a sequence written during their courtship, and contain information about her personal wishes and feelings, as well as news about family members and details of her interests and social activities. Letters from Joseph Strutt's children form a useful source of information about travel, both in Britain and Europe; the sequence of letters from his daughter Caroline Hurt (nee Strutt) were written during her honeymoon on a tour of Scotland and the Lake District, while several letters from his daughter Isabella Galton (nee Strutt) were written from Switzerland. The fullest travel account, however, was written by his son Joseph Douglas Strutt while on a tour of Europe in 1820 and 1821. Letters in this sequence include detailed information about both his sightseeing activities, and about the political situation in Italy and Greece at the time, as well as providing descriptions of his attendance at Queen Caroline's divorce trial before leaving London in the autumn of 1820. Major themes in letters from other members of Joseph Strutt's family include the death of his wife Isabella Strutt in 1802, and matters relating to the death and administration of the effects of William Archibald Douglas. These themes are also significant in the group of letters from friends and other contacts of Joseph Strutt, and these include correspondence from William Archibald Douglas's executors, creditors, and from solicitors. This group also includes correpsondence relating to arrangements for part of Joseph Douglas Strutt's tour of Europe, and to his death in Constantinople in 1821. Evidence of Joseph Strutt's political views can also be found in this group of correspondence. There are several letters of thanks from the representatives of Mechanics Institutions in the Derby area for donations of books and paintings for their reading rooms, showing Strutt's interests in education, and letters from John Thelwall and Major John Cartwright give evidence of Strutt's interest in political reform movements. Letters from Isabella Strutt provide information about Strutt's role in the trial of John Horne Tooke in 1794. A sequence of letters from the poet Thomas Moore reflect Joseph Strutt's interest in literature.

Many letters in this section have been labelled in Joseph Strutt's handwriting, and they were obviously kept and stored by him. It is impossible to discover what his original arrangement may have been, however.

English

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