Letters
1851
Emma
Evans to her cousin, Arthur Phelps
28 December 1851
From Bosworth
1852
Emma to Arthur Phelps 18
June 1852 Staying with the Attwood cousins at
Ashleworth, Gloucester
Emma to Arthur Phelps 8 July
1852 From Portishead, Bristol
Emma to Arthur Phelps 5 August
1852 From London
Emma
to Arthur Phelps 23
October 1852 From Farnham, Surrey, visiting her Aunt Harriet and Uncle
Septimus Grover.
Emma
to Arthur Phelps 21 November
1852 From Bosworth
Emma to Arthur Phelps
30 December 1852 Trials and errors of
a budding sculptor.
1853
Emma to Arthur Phelps 5 January
1853 Emma is highly irritated
Emma
to Arthur Phelps
20 August 1853 From
Bosworth. Her father not well. Janey's birthday.
Charles
Partridge writes flatteringly about Emma to Arthur Phelps in
17 April 1853.
(Charles was
a further cousin to Arthur.)
Emma to Arthur Phelps
1853 - an incomplete letter.
Emma to Arthur Phelps 26
September 1853
Emma to Arthur Phelps 10 October
1853 Emma writes from Hastings.
Emma to Arthur Phelps 19 October 1853
Second week of the holiday
Emma to Arthur Phelps 17 December 1853 Thoughts about being able to be both a
wife and sculptor in the future.
1854
Emma to Arthur Phelps 1854.
The letter is not dated but must be written some time in 1854 before Dr Evans
died in November.
Emma to Arthur Phelps
18 March 1854 Arthur is in India.
Emma to Arthur Phelps 1 September
1854 Frances Dickinson (née de Brissac) has died. Emma visits her cousin Lewis Evans at Sandbach, Cheshire.
Emma to Arthur Phelps 18 October 1854
From Bosworth - a time of change.
Emma to Arthur Phelps 17
November 1854. Emma's father Rev. Arthur Benoni Evans has died.
1855
Emma to Arthur Phelps 2 February 1855 Emma's engagement to Dr. John Waddington Hubbard
Emma to Arthur Phelps
31 May 1855 Emma stays
at Osbaston hall so she and John Hubbard can conveniently meet up.
Emma to Arthur Phelps
3 August 1855 From
16 Kensington Square
Emma to Arthur Phelps
18 October 1855 From Abbots Hill Farm
1856
Emma to Arthur Phelps -
18 February 1856
Emma is now married and back at Market Bosworth
1857
Emma to Arthur
Phelps 2
March 1857. Her first baby Arthur John Hubbard is four months old. Emma
keeps her mind alive beyond that of motherhood!
Emma to Arthur Phelps 2 November 1857 Emma
recovering from gastric fever, they have bought a new cow; John W Hubbard is
also an artist.
1859
Emma to Arthur Phelps 3 January 1859
Changes at the Dixie (Bosworth School) and some cats.
Emma to Arthur Phelps 6 September
1859 from Bosworth.
Arthur John Hubbard now two and a half.
1860
Emma to Arthur Phelps 29 February 1860 from
Bosworth. AJH now talking well and young George, a toddler.
Below is a simplified table showing how Emma and Arthur are cousins. As a boy Arthur was a pupil at his uncle's (A.B.Evans) school in Bosworth. Arthur lived as part of the family houshold in Bosworth as a son. Although ten years younger, Arthur would have got to know Emma well, as she was like an older sister to him. The letters show their friendship ran deep. Eventually Arthur married Caroline Anne Peyton, his second cousin, in 1868 and they had four children. Arthur became a Lieutenant General of the Bombay Army.
I am indebted to Anthea Boylston and Penelope Forrest
great granddaughters of Arthur Phelps for making these letters available and for
transcribing them. Emma sometimes wrote very closely with dark ink on flimsy
paper on both sides, (a Victorian habit,) which made deciphering quite
difficult.