Transcript
Station Hotel, Liverpool.
10 30 P.M.
Dearest Hyacinth*1
We have had a pleasant railway journey down, but I was terribly regretting your absence and feeling so selfish and envying Strachey*2. We got here in very good time, and are in a gigantic Hotel enormously high up. I am very hungry and have ordered a grilled fowl and tea. The post goes out at 11, so I have little time to write. This will be my last letter, darling from this side of the Atlantic! Mrs Strachey*3 was so grateful of the bananas, and it would have done you good to have seen how she and her husband enjoyed them. Please tell Mr Smith*4 to have my roses tied to the stakes -they are all loose.
With love to all and best regards to your cousin, Ever your affect[ionate] lover,|J.D.Hooker.
Please take and mount the Autographs any way you like, but do not so put them up that they cannot be sorted. Besides the loose ones there is a bundle tied round with tape or string in the drawer.
Station Hotel, Liverpool.
10 30 P.M.
Dearest Hyacinth*1
We have had a pleasant railway journey down, but I was terribly regretting your absence and feeling so selfish and envying Strachey*2. We got here in very good time, and are in a gigantic Hotel enormously high up. I am very hungry and have ordered a grilled fowl and tea. The post goes out at 11, so I have little time to write. This will be my last letter, darling from this side of the Atlantic! Mrs Strachey*3 was so grateful of the bananas, and it would have done you good to have seen how she and her husband enjoyed them. Please tell Mr Smith*4 to have my roses tied to the stakes -they are all loose.
With love to all and best regards to your cousin, Ever your affect[ionate] lover,|J.D.Hooker.
Please take and mount the Autographs any way you like, but do not so put them up that they cannot be sorted. Besides the loose ones there is a bundle tied round with tape or string in the drawer.
1. Jardine Hyacinth Hooker, (1842 -- 1921) Hyacinth became the second wife of the botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817-1911) on 22 August 1876 and bore him two sons, Joseph (1877-1940) and Richard (1885-1950). The typed letter is undated but given the reference to the Atlantic it would be in 1877 when Hooker visited America.
2. Presumably Sir Richard Strachey (1817 -- 1908). In 1836 he was commissioned in Bombay Engineers; studied botany, physical geography and geology; Fellow of Royal Society in 1854; President of Royal Geographic Society from 1884-1890; with his second wife Jane he had ten children, one of them was Lytton Strachey.
3. Presumably Jane Maria Grant, known as Jane, Lady Strachey (1840 -- 1928). Married Richard in 1859. Jane was to become a well-known author and supporter of women's suffrage. Her aunt was the famous author of Memoirs of a Highland Lady.
4. John Smith (1821 -- 1888). Worked as a gardener to the Duke of Roxburgh; then from 1859-1864 for the Duke of Northumberland at Syon House. 1864 he became a Curator at Kew until 1886.
Please note that work on this transcript is ongoing. Users are advised to study electronic image(s) of this document where possible. If users identify any errors in the transcript, please contact archives@kew.org.
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