Description:During the seventeenth century Samuel Terricke worked for Sir Richard and Lady Katherine Leveson at Trentham. In 1660 he sent a number of letters to Sir Richard Leveson (1598-1661) and Lady Katherine containing news from London and describing his efforts to find Red Canary Wine and a cook for the household at Trentham.
In a letter dated 19th November 1660, featured above, Terricke reports political and military news to Sir Richard, informing him about bills passing through Parliament, and that ‘Mr. Callamy will bee Bishops of Coventry & Lichfeild’.
Terricke’s letter includes a well documented report of the arrival of the ‘Canary Ships’ which were ‘expected very shortly’. The Canary Ships brought imported produce such as sugar and wine from the Canary Islands. Caroline A. J. Skeel notes that trade between England and the Canary Islands had been well established by this time for over a century, with wine becoming the primary import from the late sixteenth century onwards. In his letter Terricke writes that he would use his ‘interrest’ to ‘procure’ Sir Richard some ‘Red Canary’ wine.
Terricke had been given the job of finding a cook for Trentham Hall. He writes to Sir Richard ‘I shall give you an account of a Cooke very suddenly’.
Contextual Information: Caroline A. J. Skeel ‘The Canary Company’, English Historical Review, Vol. 31, No. 124, 1916, pp. 529-544