Album of correspondence of the family of Captain James Stirling Crawfurd Stirling-Stuart of Castlemilk, Lanarkshire, including manuscript poems.

More than 120 Items, laid down or loosely placed under coloured ribbon on the leaves of a 4to album. In original black waxed cloth binding. The collection is aged but in good condition, with very few items removed; binding worn and shaken. Includes a few cuttings from letters, laid down by the compiler, Anne Helen Margaret, second daughter of JSCSS. The archive consists of the charming and affectionate correspondence of a leading family of the Victorian Scottish gentry. Exclusively devoted to domestic and family affairs, it casts a fascinating light on the social history of the period and milieu. Castlemilk House was built in the fifteenth centry around Cassilton Tower (in which Mary Queen of Scots stayed on the eve of the Battle of Langside, 1568). The estate comprised 2137 acres and in 1909 brought in the substantial annual income of £3300 (Edward Boker Sterling, 'Sterling Genealogy'). According to Sir William Fraser's 'Stirlings of Keir' (1858), JSCSS had succeeded the estate in 1828, 'on the death of his grandaughter Mrs. Margaret Stuart Rae Crawfurd of Milton. He entered the First or King's Dragoon Guards in June 1842, and having attained the rank of captain in that regiment, left the army in November 1852. He married at Dublin on 1st June 1852, Harriet Boswell Erskine, second daughter of Matthew Fortescue [1786-1852 of Belvedere, Dublin]'. There are some charming original compositions. A humorous 40-line poem in eight stanzas (4to, 2 pp), dated 'Castle Milk Sept. 1875', apparently by AHMSCSS's uncle, begins: 'Pippety Pippety of that Ilk | Came dancing down to Castle Milk - | He was sent by fate | To put us all straight, | So he set to work at a terrible rate.' 'I. C. L.' is the author of another poem, 'Shirtingly Not' (12mo, 3 pp), with the 'Moral', 'When I meet Honeymooners aborad | And see that they're awfully bored | I say Honeymooning's a fraud | It is not | My feelings perhaps you'll not laud | When I ask, is not marriage a fraud | You will all reply with one accord | Shirtingly not.-' The Reverend Henry Malcolm writes a 44-line poem (4to, 3 pp) from the Parsonage, Dunblane, 12 November 1868, to thank AHMSCSS 'for the useful appendage | To sew buttons, darn stockings I do all my mendage | Dear Annie, to you I'm this favour now owing | To be independent, at least, in my sewing -'. AHMSCSS's sister 'Lily' composes 'The fable of the crow & the rook' on 9 June 1876 (12mo, 1 p; on Castlemilk letterhead). At the time the album was started AHMSCSS was eight, and the tone of many of the letters addressed to her by adults reflect this, and she is often addressed by her pet name of 'Bunnie'. Her mother writes a large number of long letters, usually serious and addressed to 'My own precious Child', often from her relative Captain Francis Henry Fortescue's London house at 75 Eaton Place, and several while on a European tour (San Remo, Pisa). Most of the letters are from members of the family (mother; father; brother William James; sisters Lily, Mossie, Spinkie; E. Fortescue; H. Fortescue); other correspondents include C. E. Twopeny (addressing AHMSCSS as 'Moona'), A. C. Stirling, W. F. Douglas. There are several letters to AHMSCSS from her old 'Old Granny Fortescue [Matthew Fortescue's wife Erskine (1790-1868), nee Erskine Christie]', addressed to her as 'My dear Annie Bunch', and one with a coloured engraving of Wilton Church as letterhead. Another letter from the grandmother is addressed to AHMSCSS's brother, with engraving of Stonehenge as letterhead, and beginning 'My dear old Bill - you are getting quite an old man really - and if you do not take care you will be finding grey hairs in your read head before long'. Towards the end of the volume are three letters written in 1876, by her new husband William Gordon [Crimean War hero General William Gordon (1823-1883) of the 17th Foot], and addressed to her as 'My own darling Bun'. The opening of one of these - 'What! another letter from that silly old man!' - reminds us that the age difference between the two was more than thirty years. A tutor (name cut away from letter) gives a report (12mo, 4 pp) on 'A. H. M. Stirling Stuart', dated 'Finchley - | 9th. March 1973', beginning her report on the nine-year-old AHMSCSS: 'Her writing denotes much that is loveable & attractive, but also (this is however merely owing to the natural carelessness of youth & health) something perhaps volatile & fickle.' JSCSS's only son, and his heir, William James, was AHMSCSS's twin, and he commemorates this fact as follows: 'Believe me | always to remain | loving & attached | to the Sister who was of the same litter & who consequently is my beloeved | TWIN | ANNIE'. Printed items include the programme (12mo, 1 p) of a theatrical entertainment ('Whitebait at Greenwich' and 'A Happy Pair') by named English actors at the Circolo Internazionale, Sanremo, and a funeral card for Miss Catherine Erskine Gordon (died 3 May 1900). The five-hundred-year-old Castlemilk House was demolished by Glasgow Corporation in 1969 to make way for an ill-advised housing project. Castlemilk is now a district of Glasgow.