Description:Katherine Bulkeley, a widow with connections to Trentham and Cheadle in Staffordshire, sent a number of letters to George Granville Leveson-Gower (1786-1861), the second Duke of Sutherland, throughout the 1830s. Katherine had been recently widowed and her letters to the Duke appeal for money to support her family and assistance in finding employment for her sons.
In a letter dated 26th August 1833 Katherine appeals to the Duke ‘soliciting’ his ‘condescending and benevolent attention’ to her ‘unhappy circumstances’.
The Duke had provided Katherine with financial assistance before. After her appeal for money Katherine had attempted to obtain a pension from the King, yet had been refused. Left with no ‘supply of money’, Katherine complains to the Duke that her sons were unable to support her. Katherine’s three sons were in the armed forces and received pay which she states was ‘only adequate to their expenses’, meaning their assistance to her could only be ‘limited’ and ‘uncertain’.
Katherine’s sons were trying hard to find employment which would provide a more sufficient income for the family. She informs the Duke that her third son had recently ‘served his articles to a conveyancer’ with the intention of becoming established in that profession. However, Katherine writes that ‘from want of money’ she feared he would be unable to pursue the opportunity which he had worked for ‘with so much diligence & expense’.
Katherine appeals to the Duke to help her son, writing that his assistance ‘would be the saving of an honourable young man from pining in misery & want’. She adds that her son’s success would enable him ‘to provide for a widowed mother and orphan sister’.
Although Katherine’s case seems very sad and deserving of assistance nowadays, there were issues of morality which affected contemporary perceptions of her situation. The letter is annotated by the Duke of Sutherland himself. He notes that on this occasion he would ‘decline services’, adding that ‘the children were all born before marriage’. He also notes that he had given Katherine some money ‘6 months ago’.