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CHARLES HUNTRISS - LETTERS HOME

Family - and other livestock

As I have finished my lessons in good time tonight I think I will write to you.

I could not help it but as I was playing rolling about this afternoon on the heath my keys and my knife fell out of my pocket and I never felt in my poacket until I had got hoe and it was almost teatime when I did feel and Bill and I went back for them but we could not find them.

Tell Polly I will write to her as soon as I find time for it. How is the billiard room going on and how are Fanny and Polly and all the other livestock especially the dog.

Please will you ask Papa if I may leran swimming at the baths there is a man at the baths that teaches.

The cakes and the parkin which you gave us are not eaten yet.

Please write and tell me how many eggs the hen canary has laid or if she is still sitting I don't much care to know.

Please can you get some lead put in this pencil it only had a very little in ?? through it.

and now with best love from us all to you I will say goodby I am your affectionate son,

PS I would have written to Polly tonight only I have no paper.

The Heath was not far from school. It is good to know that the tradition of carrying of knives by youths in South London has a long history....

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Charles obviously had a propelling pencil. Such mechanical pencils were first used in the 18th century; the first patent for a refillable pencil with lead-propelling mechanism was issued to Sampson Mordan and John Isaac Hawkins in Britain in 1822.

The baths would have been at Alexandra Hall, just across the road from school, and had just been built - they continued in public use until the 1920's. at some point they were taken over and became a branch of Lloyds Bank