Completed: Letter to the Times needed

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Completed: Letter to the Times needed

Post by gardener »

Hope someone has a library card that lets them search the Times archives :-)

I just came across a letter to an Icelandic paper, dated 3 Feb 1883, by W G Spence Paterson. He was very annoyed about a couple of letters published in the Times. He says that one WG Lock had written to him in September (1882 I presume) and asked if he agreed with the information in a letter which he wanted to send to the Times. Paterson replied that he did. Then (so Paterson says) Lock published this supporting letter without asking permission, and worse still he published a different letter of his own so it looked as though Paterson was agreeing to something entirely different.

Anyhow, that is all a bit of a sidetrack. I want to find out more about this W G Lock and I hope that if someone can find the letter in the Times then it will have some indication of where W G Lock lived, or something else. This is all I know so far:

William George Lock was English. He travelled to Iceland in 1878 and 1880 and published a couple of books about it. He seems to have been into hunting and fishing and was also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

I don't know where he was born, or when, or what he did with the rest of his life.

So, if someone has online access could they look for a letter by W G Lock (or W G Spence Paterson) published after September 1882 and before 3rd Feb 1883. If you can give me the contents of the two letters then that would be interesting, but mostly I want to know if it says anything about Lock which would help pin him down.

:-)
Last edited by gardener on Sun Oct 23, 2011 10:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Letter to the Times needed

Post by MarkCDodd »

Challenge accepted....lets see...which library.....aha....
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Re: Letter to the Times needed

Post by MarkCDodd »

Okay..the letters are about asupposed famine in Iceland and a fund that was set up to help the starving.

Charles E Paterson sent a letter saying there was not such thing and he should no as he had just returned from there.

His brother, Spence Paterson, is the British Consul to Iceland.
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Re: Letter to the Times needed

Post by MarkCDodd »

Okay...got them all...PM your e-mail....
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Re: Letter to the Times needed

Post by gardener »

That has to be the best service ever!
Have sent you a message, thank you very much :-)
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Re: Letter to the Times needed

Post by grangers14 »

Is this completed now gardener?
Jo :)
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Re: Letter to the Times needed

Post by gardener »

Well, it seems so ungrateful to say no but the stuff Mark found for me doesn't actually mention this Lock chap at all. (Very interesting though to read though).

Hang on and I'll see what it said exactly over here...
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Re: Letter to the Times needed

Post by grangers14 »

Ok no problem :grin:
I'll put my hoover away!
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Re: Letter to the Times needed

Post by gardener »

I give up! It is a total tangle of he said and I said and the letter said...

:(
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Re: Completed: Letter to the Times needed

Post by MarkCDodd »

Doesn't the last article explain who said what?
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Re: Completed: Letter to the Times needed

Post by grangers14 »

Leave it longer if you would like? It just looked like you had the info
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Re: Completed: Letter to the Times needed

Post by gardener »

MarkCDodd wrote:Doesn't the last article explain who said what?


It just seems to make things even more confusing! the writer says that perhaps the original tale of famine came from Copenhagen - but that has to be taken in the context that Denmark ruled Iceland at the time so probably got blamed for everything by some people. It is a great article though and quells the idea of a famine but I don't see that it says anything about Lock.

All the help and discussion has cleared my mind a bit though and I may have found him in the census so I'll post about that and call this done :-)
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Re: Completed: Letter to the Times needed

Post by gardener »

Deffo done now Jo.

I just found that the guy wrote a book about it all

Icelandic troubles : and Mansion House Muddles : an exposé of the famine story of 1882

and they have it in the reading room of the library so I should be able to get his side of the story at least :-)
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