From Anne Edmondson

To Edward Frankland and John Tyndall

My much esteemed Friends –

On the occurrences of the last few days,¹ which have distressed us beyond what you could have intended or imagined, I take the liberty of addressing you. I am prompted to do so by my warm attachment to yourselves by the interest I take in the individual who is the presumed cause of all this and by my very natural anxiety for my husband’s² happiness and what is inseparable from it, his success in his new undertaking.³ Under the influence of these combined feelings, I am emboldened to ask you to pause and reflect ere you come to a final decision to withdraw your influence beneficial as we deem it from this infant establishment. Are you sure that your motives for making a change will bear calm investigation? Have you endeavoured to remedy the evils of which you complain, and if not are you acting as you would that others should act by you?

If I understand the matter aright you assign as the cause of your leaving us the conduct of a certain party⁴ which is such as to risk best interests of the establishment. You refuse to lay before him the grounds of the opinion you have formed of him but expect that your view of the case shall be conclusive: thus you place his employer in very embarrassing circumstances, either he must dismiss the individual unconvicted of error, to struggle for bread as he best may a comparative stranger in his own country, or he must retain him at equal risk (as you believe) since his presence is detrimental to the welfare of the place. Why you refuse to speak to the individual of faults which you do not scruple to lay before his employer I am at a loss to imagine, or why, as I have since heard you determine whether he remains here or not you still must go I cannot understand but I think if you take the trouble to estimate if such be possible the amount of injury which one party or both must sustain should you persist in your determination you will be startled and perhaps think it well to ascertain if things be as you imagine.

Excuse me if you think I am interfering beyond a woman’s province in thus writing, the office of peace maker is confined to neither sex and to that only do I aspire. I would if I might diffuse over your ruffled spirits the soothing influence of a clear conscience in this affair, for though you may now think the remark uncalled for believe me there will a time come whether you stay or go when you will be thankful to be able to look back to this period without self condemnation. Allow me then without grieving you to say how I view this matter. I think in speaking of a fellow labourer to his employer in the manner you have done without giving him an opportunity of defending himself you have acted contrary to the spirit of the laws of our country, contrary even to the world’s sense of honour and diametrically opposed to the precepts of our holy religion.⁵ I think were you in the place of the accused you would agree with me and condemn any decision against you in consequence of the accusation as unjust and partial. I believe could you divest of prejudice towards the individual state openly to him your objections and hear his statements in reply you would find much which you have been commenting upon very harshly would bear a different construction and you would be brought nearer to our view of his character and conduct.

We have never been as you suppose so blinded by partiality as not to see faults in him but whatever we have seen we have unscrupulously pointed out to him and hitherto we have not met with such as we should deem irremediable. If you have reason to think otherwise where is your friendship for us and your interest in our establishment if you do not enable us to point them out to him likewise? I fear my friends I shall both weary and grieve you but my motives must be my excuse, I am unwilling to think that we must necessarily be parted from you. I esteem you too much to think with indifference on the probability of your places at our family board being occupied by others, neither would I willingly lose the co-operation of the accused and his friend;⁶ and I believe this storm once blown over this prejudice laid aside there would nothing remain incompatible with your working together as closely as would be required to conduce to the general harmony.

This is what I would wish to see brought about not as a favour to myself (I seek none) but because I believe it to be the right termination of the unpleasant affair and because it would be the only proof you could give of restored confidence in us. In conclusion I must allude to another circumstance which my husband mentioned to me. You say you have by the uncomfortable state of things been induced to resort to a practice to which you were formerly unaccustomed⁷ you know to what I refer, I am not sure that you mean by this anything that I might have remedied, but if you do you cannot confer on me a greater kindness than to point out wherein I have failed and what I can still do for you and your successors to make Queenwood⁸ a more desirable home. Finally allow me to repeat though I may have grieved you by my plain speaking it is my sincere regard for you that has prompted me to risk your displeasure, my husband is ignorant of my intention of writing therefore the responsibility is entirely my own, pass this into his hands if you think well but feel quite at liberty to do so or otherwise as you please with that exception it is intended for your own perusal only.

I am your sincere friend | and well wisher | Anne Edmondson

RI MS JT/2/13a/331-333

LT Transcript Only