WCP5448

[1]

May 5^th

Dear Mr Wallace

Since writing today I have thought "How curious it is that Mr F Roberts[']¹ name & date of death is not on the fam[ily] vault at Astead[sic]² — for unless my memory serves me a trick I saw the names of Father & Son³ & dates on the tomb in cut letters filled with black. if they were cut the few years intervening [2] between the d^eath of father & grandmother⁴ is not sufficient alone to account for the absence of name & dates on the same stone.

Is it impossible that the Hand of Man helped in the matter?

I know Gorringe⁵ had an estate in the West of Ireland^{6 "Donegal"} that was left him by his mother but in def debt and he was hungry for money to pay off the mortgage.

The estate is close on the shore of the atlantic[.]

If overbearing impudence is any indicator of character He would do anything — at any rate you might get a copy of the registration of burial from the [3] Ashtead Roster[?], and if you know the date of Fanny[']s⁷ sitting to M^rs Walker⁸ for her miniatures it would lead to the probable date of M^r R's death: in the following way. A year or almost a year and a half after F. had her miniature[?] taken the Roberts went to Italy and each of them sat to an Italian artist for half length portraits in Oil — very nice things they were but the traveling so upset M^r Roberts that he died about another 12 months after this ^his return. If you have any definite idea when Fanny sat for portrait the other dates will follow sufficiently near to enable you or your friend to name to the Verger[?] of Clerk[?] at Ashead[?] about the year of Mr R's interment? & so get at the Book[?] of the year wanted. The G Clerg[y]man[?] & all concerned used to be the sort not at all likely to neglect the importance of ^{attaching to} such[?] a change[?]