Every family has its stories. Passed down through the generations as tales told at family gatherings or by grandparents to their grandchildren, they detail who we are and how we came to be. However, how many of us can tell our stories through the exact words of the people that lived them?
Alexander Graham Bell and his descendants would have no difficulty in answering this question. Born in an age when letter writing was commonplace with most people, Aleck and his family were copious writers who held that their epistles to each other should not be discarded. As a result, their story can be told, today, through thousands of letters dating as early as 1862, when the inventor was only fifteen years old.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1847, Alexander Graham Bell lived a unique life. Influenced by his father, Melville, a professor of elocution, and his deaf mother, Eliza; the loss of his brothers, Melville and Edward, to Consumption; and marriage to his deaf pupil, Mabel Hubbard, Bell left a legacy to the world that few could imagine living without. How this came to pass can best be seen through the letters that passed between these individuals. These letters we present to you here.
Now in London, Mabel wrote to Alec’s parents, bringing forth news that they would be staying until the following summer. With much news, Mabel wrote a lengthy letter to her mother-in-law. As such, it will appear in the “Bell Letters” over the next two weeks.
115 Jermyn St
London Thursday Oct.25th
My dear Mrs. Bell
I have not written to you before because I have dreaded telling you of our plans, and wanted Alec to do so. But he has gone off to Bradford now, and when he returns he will be occupied with the preparation of his lecture here, so I must write myself. Alec has decided to remain here until next summer. He says that in America there are plenty of trained men who know all about the telephone and its management, while here there is no one but himself.
Then there are his patents in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy. All except the last one in the control of my father as my trustee, but of course when he is so far away and has so much to occupy him at home, he cannot manage the business so well as some one here could. Then some gentlemen here, headed by Latimer Clarke have agreed to organize a company with a capital of two hundred thousand pounds to control the patents here, and they say they must have Alec’s services as electrician at least for the first year.
So that altogether Alec thinks it best he should remain. He thinks he is more sure of a good income here than at home. I believe if the company is organized he will recieve one thousand pounds salary. There is a young man now in London and Sweden, his full name Yens Sigfried Krogh Hopstock. He heard of Alec and the telephone, procured a pair of instruments, experimented with them and became so much interested in them that though only a poor civil engineer he applied for patents in Norway, Sweden and Denmark in Alec’s name, and then set out to go to America to see Alec about it. It was by the merest accident that he heard we were here.
Alec has agreed to complete the patents and to appoint Mr. Hopstock his general agent for all three countries. Last night a young friend of mine with her husband came to dine with us. He is about twenty-two, and has some six or seven million of dollars, and he was so much fascinated with the telephone that he wanted to take out patents in every country not secured at his own expense, and in pure generosity and eagerness to be of use. Alec of course declined, though the young fellow made his offers in such a modest way he could not but be pleased, but he at least proposed to let Mr. Sears take out the Italian patents and either let Alec pay him back or take an interest. Alec thought he did it partly to please his pretty young bride, though why she should be pleased I do not know. Who do you suppose took dinner with us on the 25th, Mr. McBurney and his wife — nee Marie Eccleston. They were married last February and sailed today from Plymouth for Australia.
Alec says Mrs. McBurney looks if anything younger and less stout than when he last saw her. As for Mr. McBurney he is a little man with a brown beard and ghastly white face. He seemed to me far gone in consumption, but as Alec says if he has held out so long he may hold out longer. He is much interested in Visible Speech and Alec explained it all to him…
The Bell Letters are annotated by Brian Wood, Curator, Bell Homestead National Historic Site.
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Bells staying in London until summer
14
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28.11.2023
Every family has its stories. Passed down through the generations as tales told at family gatherings or by grandparents to their grandchildren, they detail who we are and how we came to be. However, how many of us can tell our stories through the exact words of the people that lived them?
Alexander Graham Bell and his descendants would have no difficulty in answering this question. Born in an age when letter writing was commonplace with most people, Aleck and his family were copious writers who held that their epistles to each other should not be discarded. As a result, their story can be told, today, through thousands of letters dating as early as 1862, when the inventor was only fifteen years old.
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1847, Alexander Graham Bell lived a unique life. Influenced by his father, Melville, a professor of elocution, and his deaf mother, Eliza; the loss of his brothers, Melville and Edward, to Consumption; and marriage to his deaf pupil, Mabel Hubbard, Bell left a legacy to the world that few could imagine living without. How this came to pass can best be seen through the letters that passed between these individuals. These letters we present to you here.
Now in London, Mabel wrote to Alec’s parents, bringing forth news that they would be staying........
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