Description:The letter above was written to the second Duke and Duchess of Sutherland by Alderman Samuel Wilson in 1838. Wilson wrote to the Duke to report an incident involving his young son, George Granville William (known as Stafford) at the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838.
Wilson writes ‘Being on duty yesterday at the Coronation, as Her Majesties Harbinger, I was on the Platform Witnessing the Homage, when a little Page, a most interesting little boy, came up to me, and enquired if I would like to have a medal’.
Wilson informs the Duke that he had been unable to obtain a medal, as ‘they were all gone – and I felt that my son would be disappointed’.
He writes that the actions of the Duke’s son ‘made so great an impression on my mind, of the pleasing disposition of your son (it was so very kind of him) so unlike the selfish disposition we too frequent meet with in children’.
Click on the left to read the Duke's response to Wilson's report about his son and to see more correspondence between the Duke and his son.