MS British Library Add MSS 54920: 176-1771
Dear Mr Macmillan,
Thanks for the books which the carrier will probably bring today. I will betake myself to St John’s pupils at once, though it is rather a sudden change from the banks of the Granicus, where I left Alexander.2
And there is another thing that I should like to know ie – the sum that will come to me both for the Pupils of St John and the Danvers Papers. The reason I ask is this, I am much interested in a Church that has been made necessary by the encrease of population at the Bishopstoke station, and the question whether it can be of stone or must be brick may depend on what I am sure of having by Christmas. As the Worthies were to be the same as the Golden Deeds I was thinking myself half way to £200, and could have promised it in time for the estimates and I am now anxious to know what I am likely to have in hand soon.5
I have been anxious to consult you about another matter. I have been feeling much the want of a Guide or handbook to the Charitable Institutions of England, including all that are not strictly local, and a friend and I have been collecting materials for such a work. We thought Mr Rivington would take it as a sort of companion to his Year Book of Church Matters, but he does not wish to have it unless it consists of only 500pp, and I do not think it possible to make it so short. It seemed to me so much out of your line that I did not ask you about it (as Miss Batty my coadjutor was the chief manager) and I suppose you would not like to undertake; but would you advise us to whom to apply? We began before we heard of Low’s London Charities, and I am not sure whether the book is likely so to take the wind out of our sails so that it ought to be given up. But our plan takes in many that are not London such as homes for convalescents, for clergy widows, the Bath rheumatic hospital &c. I should be very thankful for some advice
Yours sincerely
C M Yonge