This is a copy of a series of extracts taken from the Memoires of Rev. John Hodgson by Rev. John Raine, written between the years 1819 and 1840. John and his family lived at Heworth Shore, county Durham. He wrote the letters to his wife Jane, while he was visiting London and they give a wonderful insight into the family and times they lived. He made a number of visits to the British Museum to collect material for his History of Northumberland. (Hodgson Line)

[Extracts from letters dated 1819, 1821, 1829 & 1840 to his wife Jane.]               11 Upper King Street, Bloomsbury, 10th May 1819. My dear Jane,         Yesterday morning I met Robert at the Admiralty, from which place we took seats upon a coach for Bromley. The morning was exceedingly charming; a cool fresh air with a bright sun, and as agreeable elasticity or springiness in the atmosphere, gave a cheerfulness and sobriety to the spirits, and to the tone of thinking, that made one delighted with being in existence. Of all things in nature a fine spring morning is the most delightful, and the more so when that morning is a Sunday morning, and connects all our better thoughts with that glorious and magnificent Being that formed us capable of being delighted with the contemplation of His works.       Spring, my dear, is a season of hope and pleasure, and it has often in this beautiful season reminded me of the hope and pleasure I have in my children. At present it to a delight, unmixed with any uneasy anxieties, that occupies our mind when we contemplate the prospect of their future life. As the summer of the year begins to advance, and the expectation of fruit is every day converted by degrees either into real promise or disappointment, our satisfaction, it we find in then the fruit of good living, will be greater than it is at present; but our anxieties may also be converted into sensations more poignant than those of disappointment.       Kent, as far as we travelled in it, seems a delightful county, well wooded, has a waving surface, and is covered with a luxurient verdure. In some parts I observed the trees to be sobrily[?] mutilated, stripped of all their branches, excepting a little tuft at the top, so that they resemble the inverted queue of the man of fashion thirty years ago. But the abundance of untonsed trees, especially the frult-trees, and the luxuriantly-flowering horse-chestnut, give a richness and charm to all the suburban villages of the metropolis, which to a person habituated to the bare hamlets of the North of England to exceedingly enchanting. All nature here to in the greatest luxuriance - even the ash is beginning to clothe its naked branches. Will you, my dear, when you receive this, note how the hawthorn is advanced about High Heworth? On the road between Lewisham and Bromley I observed that in a few places it was full blown; but generally that the petals of the flower are unfolded.       I found all the family well, excepting my aunt and Mrs Richard Rawes. My aunt has had a bad fit of the gout, of which she is however, much recovered, and able to hobble into the garden and watch her bees. Mrs Richard Rawes, has been ill during the winter. She has had one child, and though her expectations of having another have often been raised, they have as often been prematurely disappointed; she is at present still vary lame, and it is truly pitiable to see the lively, active, and high-spirited Mrs Cantwell, now scarcely able to hobbleover a well-carpeted room, and robbed of all her wonted vivacity; but she is in the way of recovery.       I dined with Mr Palmer, who married one of my cousins: they are exceedingly kind and hospitable people and have a delightful residence on the outskirts of Bromley. Mr Palmer has done much to it of late, by way of beautifying the garden and orchard ground, and adding largely to the stock of green-house plants, of which Mr. Richard Rawes brought him a splended collection last year from China. I must remember that I have promised to send him a few plants of the Ayrshire rose. He is both an agreeable and intelligent man and I was much pleased with the frank and open simplicity of his wife.       I had tea with Mr Robert Rawes, the master of the school, a gentleman of refined education, and a member of Magdalen College, Oxford. His spirits I understand are far from equal, now cheerful and now low and melancholy; in whom the L'Allegre and the Il Penseroso of Milton are combined. There were on this day a swarm of cousins and half-cousins, and countrymen, at his house, where open hospitality seems to be kept on Sundays.       Bromley in Kent, May 23rd. This morning my brother (Robert), and I came here on stage. It was highly gratifying to observe on our way the great improvement the country had made since the 9th, on which day I first visited this place. The late rains had greatly refreshed the country. We arrived just in time for church. The clergyman preached from 'If ye love me keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father and he shall send you another Comforter.' Before dinner I sat with my aunt about two hours: she to at her own house, but confined to her bed of the gout, which was brought on by over anxiety for her daughter Mrs Richard Rawes, in the beginning of this month. She is, however, recovering and in good spirits. Her memory is still astonishingly accurate - as well in present matters as those which occured 60 years ago. She remembers all the people in Bampton in Westmorland, where she was born, much better than I do, and brought many things back to my memory which with me would for ever sink into oblivion, but for the conversation I had with her.       After dining with Mr. Palmer we had a stroll in Mr. Rawes' shrubbery; it is a deep narrow dell with fishponds in the middle. One side partly in garden, and one side partly in grass, with filberts, flowering shrubs, etc. The other side is covered with tall forest trees and underwooded with laurel in great health. On the brow of the hill on one side of this shady retreat is a boarding school for ladies, which belongs to the lay Rector of Bromley, the Bishop of Rochester, and which is rented and sub-let by Mr. Rawes. It was about 8 o'clock when we were here, and close to us, but not that I could discern it, we listened to the "Sweet bird that shuns the noise of folly, most musical, most meloancholy."       I was charmed with the variety and sweetness of its notes; but still there were too many pipes of the woodland choir playing their evening service to hear its warbling in its fullest charms; and I reluctantly left the sweet abode of music and gratitude, with the hope of visiting it before bed time: but at ten the night became wet and I was disappointed.       Bromley. The country around this place to very beautiful, though they tell me not so much as about Tunbridge and the hop country. I have made this sketch out of my aunt's breakfast-­room window. (A sketch with the pen.) It represents garths behind her garden; then a gentleman's house, and beyond in the distance two seats in a country which appears to be wholly wooded.       There is not much hay cut. My cousin, Mr. Rawes, has had one field down for a week, and in very unfavourable weather. Several fields between this place and London are much laid by the late rains. February 26th 1821.       I went by appointment to Mr. Palmer's house at half-past two, in Abchurch Street (London). He took me down to Bromley in his gig, ten miles exactly, in one hour. My aunt and all my friends there are quite well. At the illumination for the Queen Mr. Robert Rawes did not think it right to agree in opinion with the populace, and consequently had his windows broken to the amount or £22, which sum he intends to recover of the country. This morning I returned from Bromley in the same conveyance that took me down; and I have been occupied since eleven in the Museum February 27th.       While I was at Bromley I slept at Mr Palmer's. On Sunday we dined with my aunt, and had a green goose, four months old, to dinner; It was of a Chinese breed, and the most tender and well flavoured bird of its kind that I ever tasted. Yesterday evening I spent with Robert in his lodgings.       To Mrs Hodgson - page 148 vol. 2- Bromley, Kent, May 18 1829 My Dear Jane,       -- Before I came here on Saturday I waited nearly two nearly two hours for Raine, whom I had to meet at the Tavistock Hotel at 11 O'clock, but he never came, and I am at a loss to say how I am to arrange about getting home. Of this however I must make myself able to judge when I get to town. Mr Palmer brought as here on Saturday night in his Phaeton and pair. He does not live splendidly, but in a very handsome style. Besides his phaeton he keeps a close carraige, and has two servants in livery to wait at table. He wishes me much to send John & Isaac to School here. Old Mrs Rawes, my aunt, still enjoys good health. She is sometimes afflicted with gout. I have slept at her house. She was at Church yesterday, and went to Mr Palmer's to dinner, where we stayed till past ten o'clock. We were fifteen to dinner, and all, one way or other, related to each other. Dr Wilson, an amiable and excellent man, who has considerable preferment in the Church, and with whom I became acquainted in Oxford eight years since, was one of the party. He is related to me by my grandmother Rawes's sides Mr Richard Rawes, who is my cousin-german, and his wife, were also there. He was sometime a purser to an Indiaman, but has retired at the age of forty-three from business, and resides at Stratford Grove, in Essex, where I am to dine with him today. He is to take me in his carraige from Mr Palmer's office in the city. Captain Richard Rawes, who I told you some time ago has a situation of considerable emolument in the India House, has had a long and severe sickness since the death of his wife but he is now again able to attend to business, though he has twice said to me with great feeling, "Things are not as they used to be with me, and each time the words were followed with an involuntary effusion of tears. He and his brother William, who you know visited us, inquired much after Bessy. Wm. remembers her well, and Miss Rawes, who to most amiable and happy, in half hinting that we might lose E. ere it were long, says she will not fail to spend a few days with us in July during a month's visit she intends to pay to Mrs Rawes at Houghton-le-spring.       page 415 vol. 2 - 1840 - whilst her husband remained to spend a few weeks with his relations the Palners and Raweses, at Beckingham, in Kent (Clay Hill, Beckingham) Notes:- John Hodgson's mother was Betty, the sister of Richard Rawes of the Rawes Academy, Bromley. John's aunt was Mary, c1745-1831, widow of Richard Rawes (Bromley Line) , the owner of the Rawes Academy in Bromley High Street. Mrs Richard Rawes was Harriet, who died in 1828 aged 38. Her husband was Captian Richard Rawes of he HEICS. The child in question was Richard Joseph, born 1815 but unfortunately died the same year. There is some confusion when John's writes about Miss Cantwell. John appears to be talking about Captain Richard's wife Harriet. There is a possibility that Harriet's maiden name was Cantwell (their marriage has not been traced). Richard's cousin, William Rawes (Augustus Line) Headmaster of Kepier School, Houghton le Spring, however, married Ann Cantwell at St. Andrew's by the wall, London 18 March 1794. Thomas Carey Palmer, died 1839 aged 67, of Bromley, married Elizabeth Rebecca, the sister of Captain Richard Rawes. They lived at the Oakley, Clay Hill, Beckingham. Mr. Palmer was involved, along with Captain Richard, with the importation of plants, including Camellias, from China into England. Mr Robert Booth Rawes, 1785-1841, was the son of Richard Rawes of the Rawes Academy, and brother of Captain Richard Rawes. John writes about strolling through Mr. Rawes's shrubbery. It is not clear to which Rawes John is refering but it is likely to be Captain Richard Rawes. The Reverend John Raine, later to become John Hodgson's biographer. Dr. William Wilson, c1783-1873, Vicar at Holy Rood, Southampton and Canon at Winchester Cathedral, was John Hodgson's second cousin. William's grandfather Robert Wilson was brother to Isabel the wife William Rawes, Yeoman of Wetsleddale, Shap, Westmorland Richard Rawes (Wm Wilson and Besley lines), 1785-1848, Purser of the HEICS, was son of William Wilson, brother to Richard Rawes of the Rawes Academy, Bromley. Captain Richard Rawes, 1787-1831, had lost his wife Harriet in 1828 and, it appears, never got over his loss. William Thompson Rawes, died 1842 aged 54, was younger brother to Elizabeth, Robert Booth and Captain Richard. Mrs Rawes in Houghton le Spring is either Ann née Cantwell, wife of William Rawes, or her daughter-in-law, Sarah née Mitchell, wife of Joseph, William's son. Both lived at Houghton le Spring. Transcribed from the original by Julian Rawes of Cheltenham, 1997