Description:In July 1847 Anne Chinn wrote to Harriet Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (1806-1861), the second Duchess of Sutherland, describing herself as ‘a young person of good family’ who had been ‘reduced by circumstances to the greatest distress’.
Anne’s letter, featured above, states that she was suffering from ‘illness brought on by working’. Her letter describes the harsh conditions she worked in as a seamstress, in ‘a large warehouse without fires’ during the ‘very rigorous winter’. Since falling ill, Anne had been forced to ‘scantily’ support herself ‘by her needle’. However, she had failed to find sufficient employment and informs Duchess Harriet that she ‘has had to part with all her clothes to procure common necessaries’.
Now without ‘a roof of her own’, and threatened with being ‘turned into the streets’ because she was unable to pay her rent, Anne appeals to the Duchess for ‘kind benevolence’. Unable to work because of her illness, Anne implores the Duchess to ‘not forget the unfortunate’.