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To the Reverend William George Henderson
Otterbourne, Winchester.
Decr 10th 1861

MS Yale University, Beinecke Library

Dear Mr Henderson1 ,

Pray take your own time in making the addition to the paper on Folk Lore, it will not be able to appear in the January no. and indeed I fear I may have to divide it, as 45pp is rather a large allowance out of 112 for one subject, and it will answer better to cut it in two. I am glad to hear of the further additions.

Many thanks also for the list of the Surtees Society publications. I will consult Mr Gibbs about them and hear if he wishes me to avail myself of your very kind offer. I send you the proposals for the Philological Dictionary on whose behalf the collection of words is being made2. Mr Furnival [sic] is the present editor, since the death of Mr H Coleridge.

I observe in the list of Denham Tracts in one of the little bound volumes of Folk Lore which you lent me – No 7- Lodge’s Baptismal Names in the Olden Time.3 Is it one of which it is likely to be possible to obtain a sight or is the sight likely to be useful to my history of Christian names? If you ever saw it, I have no doubt that you could judge, and would be kind enough to tell me. I have been making use of the droll Berwick rhyme about ‘Gillie gachs’.

My mother and I beg to be remembered to Mrs Henderson, and to thank her and you for your kind invitation If our Scottish expedition do take place, we shall have great pleasure in availing ourselves of it, but we are apt to make schemes long before hand that come to nothing.

With many thanks
yours very truly
C M Yonge

1The Rev. William George Henderson was one of the editors of the Surtees Society’s publications, and was evidently the author of the series of articles ‘Notes on the Folk Lore of the North of England’ which appeared in the Monthly Packet in 1862 signed ‘W. H.’. His ODNB entry implies that he did not move from Jersey to become headmaster of Leeds Grammar School until 1862, but this letter suggests that he was already residing in the north of England in the previous year.
2See note to letter to H.H. Gibbs, 25 November 1861.
3This is a puzzling reference, since the Denham Tracts do not seem to include such a work, nor can it be identified.

Cite this letter


The Letters of Charlotte Mary Yonge(1823-1901) edited by Charlotte Mitchell, Ellen Jordan and Helen Schinske.

URL to this Letter is: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/yonge/1848/to-the-reverend-william-george-hendersonfootnote1

One Comment
  1. John Austin says:
    May 5, 2013 at 1:06 pm

    This letter is to William Henderson (1813-1891) of 3 South Bailey ,Durham City, a carpet manufacturer.His wife Lucy (nee Durham) was the niece of Susanna Warren of Edmonton.Henderson published Notes On The Folk Lore Of The Northern Counties Of England And The Borders in 1866 with a reprint by the Folk Lore Society in 1879.
    In the preface to the first edition he states ‘Meanwhile I had shown my lecture to the accomplished Editor of the Monthly Packet…
    John Austin
    Durham
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