Anyone researching the life of a commercial traveller in the early 19th century may be interested in letters now deposited at North Yorkshire County Record Office.
Among the papers of John Leslie ("Jack") Mackinlay of Pinchinthorpe Hall near Guisborough and Simonstone Hall near Hawes were letters written by his great-great-grandfather John William Nicholson Storr.
John William Nicholson Storr was born in 1781 and he married Elizabeth ("Betsey") Maine on 30 December 1816 at St Mary Magdalene's, Bermondsey. The first of the letters was written the following August, when Betsey was staying in Margate, and the last of them dates from January 1842, with John describing a North Sea passage. These are loving letters home, often written over several days, from a travelling salesman, recounting his news, his journeys, accounts of Betsey's family, and instructions for the home.
The list below gives the date on which John Storr began his letter, the address to which he sent it, and a little excerpt from the letter:
- 31 Aug 1817: to Mrs Jno Storr, at Mrs Fosters near the Jolly Sailor, High Street, Margate, Kent from Chester. Betsey has gone by sea from London to Margate for a holiday:
"My love My dear Betsey. I have just returned from walking on the Walls of this City, it being here a very fine day, I have only known the want of the Company of my Wife to have participated in my observations of this Curious Ancient City, and to have enjoyed the pleasure of Her expressing the delights I know she would have felt beholding the distant View of the Welch Mountains … My dear this City contains the Antientest [ancientest] looking Houses I ever saw and is all together the strangest place I ever saw … I am sorry to hear that you was so very unwell on your passage … pray Betsey do not bathe if you find yourself inclined at all to be unwell, as it will do you great injury ..."
