Letters to Margaret Mackintosh, found during renovations at a dilapidated Victorian house in Ealing. There are ninety two letters in all: thirteen from Willoughby, February 1869-August 1872 and January-March 1877; thirteen from James, July 1871-March 1876; six from Ethel, May 1874-early 1877; six from Mary Anne, May 1874-January 1877; six from members of the Holmden family, June 1871-December 1877; one from Mrs. Mackintosh's brother, Alex Macpherson, undated; four from her friends the MacIrvines, September 1874-December 1876, and thirty three from various other friends.
There are also four letters to Willoughby from his uncle Alex, brother and sister-in-law; one to Mary Anne from an unnamed woman friend; one, almost undecipherable, to MA; one to a Mrs. Brodie from a Miss Paul; one to a Mrs. Ferguson from Alex Macpherson; one to "dearest Lucy", unsigned, and one which has neither beginning nor end.
Apart from the letters there is a certain amount of miscellanea: a dressmakers bill; a list of subscribers to a good cause; two prescriptions (Mrs. Mackintosh was troubled by a persistant cough, and Willoughby by asthma); a wedding invitation; a "short account of Miss Macready's last illness and death written by her nurse"; two manuscript verses, one a copy of "Work for the night is coming ...." and the other a long piece of doggerel extolling the virtues and recording the passing of little Nellie, aged about three; and finally two faded photographs, one of a bearded man in Victorian dress and the other of a younger man in an academic gown.
