Description:Amongst correspondence relating to life on the Trentham Estate is an intriguing letter sent to Lord Gower by a man named Richard Walklate. Richard’s letter tells us about his personal history and customs of life on the Trentham Estate. A colourful and entertaining account which appears to have no single purpose, the envelope of Richard’s letter is annotated ‘much ado about nothing’.
Richard begins his account by referring to customs of tenants on the Trentham Estate being given food at Trentham Hall. Stating that he had ‘neither Eaten nor drank at the Hall since the last Lord’s days’, Richard writes that he had known people ‘taking away as much in the Summer as would serve in the winter’.
Richard tells Lord Gower that he had ‘been seven years in a Troop of horse Guards’ and had served the King abroad. Suffering from ill health, he had been sent back to England where Sir William Leveson-Gower had offered him a bailiff’s job at ‘the Coal Works in Shropshire’. After serving as a local Sergeant Major, forming a regiment of men from Shropshire, Cheadle, Newcastle and Trentham, Richard had been struck down by pleurisy and had exhausted the efforts of local doctors to cure him. Lady Gower had sent Richard to ‘St Georges Hospetal’, but to little avail and Richard appeals to Lord Gower to assist him in getting a military pension. Although the purpose of Richard’s letter is unclear, he comments ‘I know my Lord this does not concern you yet it is some easement to greef to pour out ons greef to a sympathising good man’.