An Autograph Letter

Autograph letter, addressed to the Commissioners and Governors of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, 4pp, mailing folds, marginal chipping without loss, April, 1794

The letter is a request for money to pay for the reparation of the road from West Auckland in Durham to Elisham in Northumberland. The letter argues a road opened in recent years allowed greater access across the breadth of the country, with great economic benefits, and now desired to connect the north and south of the country in a similar way. After an assessment of costs and work, road in question “was found that this road might be formed and made so as not only to be very useful and commodious to the publick, and more particularly to those who reside in, or have property in its vicinity, but also to convey the traveller from London to Edinburgh… which may hereafter, be an Object of public and National Concern…”.

It continues the reasoning why Greenwich Hospital should pay some of the cost, “That the Estates of Whittonstall, Newlands, Dilston and Corbridge belonging to Greenwich Hospital do adjoin, or lie contiguously to this Road, and will be considerably benefited and improved thereby.”

The letter is signed by many “memorialists” including William Kiston, J. W. Elliot, George Pearson, Thomas Hopper, Henry Mills, John Harforth, John Lawson, John Silvertop, John Garth, Nicholas Hopper, Joseph Dunn, George Dunn, George Gibson, Gilbert Starforth, George Douglas, George Haggerston, and others.