Letter from Shelley's father refusing to help Mary

Home > Explore the exhibition > Mary Shelley in England > Letter from Shelley's father refusing to help Mary

Sir Timothy Shelley

Mary Shelley's ‘Journal of Sorrow’

Playbill for Presumption: or, The Fate of Frankenstein!

In this section:

Letter from Shelley's father refusing to help Mary

MS. Abinger c. 69, fol. 2r

MS. Abinger c. 69, fol. 2v

MS. Abinger c. 69, fol. 3r

MS. Abinger c. 69, fol. 3v

Shelfmark: MS. Abinger c. 69, fol. 2r

Credit: Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Order image

Object details

8 Feb 1823

Sir Timothy Shelley

Related information

Biography: Mary Shelley

Family tree

Description

After Shelley’s death Mary was forced to ask Sir Timothy Shelley, the father-in-law she had never met, for financial assistance. She used Byron as an intermediary, and the letter here is Sir Timothy’s unequivocal response. As far as he was concerned, his son had forgotten his ‘first Duties in life', and Mary was one of those ‘unworthy & interested individuals' who had estranged him from his parents. He declined to help her in any way, although he did grudgingly agree to provide some support for her son, Percy Florence, provided he returned to England and was placed in the hands of a guardian (to be appointed by himself).

Sir Timothy's stipulation that Percy Florence be educated in England was a principal factor in Mary Shelley's decision to leave Italy in August 1823. She refused to hand her son over to a guardian, however, and for the next twenty years was obliged to communicate regularly with 'Sir Tim', always through his solicitors, in order to obtain funds for Percy's education at Harrow and Cambridge. And she lived in constant anxiety that Sir Timothy would take offence at something she did, and withdraw the allowance (see Mary Shelley, Editor).

On Christmas Day 1821 Shelley and Byron had made a wager of £1,000: who would die first, Sir Timothy Shelley or Lady Noel, Byron's mother-in-law? When Lady Noel died in the new year Shelley won the bet (although Byron refused to pay up), and Sir Timothy would in fact live for another twenty-two years. He finally died in 1844, aged ninety. Shelley's eldest son by Harriet, Charles, had died in 1826, so Percy Florence inherited the baronetcy and the entailed part of the estate. When writing in 1823, however, Sir Timothy must still have regarded Charles, not Percy Florence, as his heir.

Transcript

Field Place
Feb^ry. 8^th. 1823

My Lord

I have receiv’d your Lordship’s letter, & my Solicitor M^r.Whitton has this day shewn to me copies of Certificates of the Marriage of M^rs. Shelley & of the Baptism of her little Boy, & also a short abstract of my Son's Will as the same have been handed to him by M^r. Hanson.

The Mind of my Son was withdrawn from me, & my immediate Family by unworthy & interested individuals when he was about nineteen, & after a while he was led into a new Society & forsook his first associates. In this new/ Society he forgot every feeling of Duty & Respect to me, & to Lady Shelley.

M^rs. Shelley was, I have been told, the intimate Friend of my Son in the Life time of his first Wife, & to the time of her Death, & in no small degree as I suspect estrang'd my Son's mind from his Family, & all his first Duties in Life; with that transgression on my Mind, I cannot agree with your Lordship that though my Son was unfortunate, that M^rs. Shelley is innocent; on the contrary I think that her Conduct was the very reverse of what it ought to have been, and I must therefore decline/ all interference in matters in which M^rs. Shelley is intrested. As to the Child I am inclin[e]d to afford the means of a suitable Protection & care of him in this Country, if he shall be plac'd with a Person I shall approve; But your Lordship will allow me to say that the means I can furnish will be limited as I have important duties to perform towards others which I cannot forget.

I have thus plainly told your Lordship my determination in the hope that I may be spar'd from all further correspondence on a Subject so distressing to me & my Family.

With respect to the Will & Certificates I have no observations to make, I have left them with M^r. Whitton, & if any thing is necessary to be done with them on my part he will I am sure do it.

I have the Honor, My Lord,
to be y^r. Lordships most Obed^t. H^ble. Serv^t.
T. Shelley.

Owners

Lord Byron; ? Mary Shelley; ? (bequest, 1851) Sir Percy and Lady Shelley; (bequest, 1889) Lady Shelley; (bequest, 1899) Shelley Scarlett (later 5th Baron Abinger) and/or Robert Scarlett (later 6th Baron Abinger); (bequest, 1917) Robert Scarlett, 6th Baron Abinger; (bequest, 1927) Hugh Scarlett, 7th Baron Abinger; (bequest, 1943) James Scarlett, 8th Baron Abinger; (bequest, 2002) James Scarlett, 9th Baron Abinger; (purchase, 2004) Bodleian.

Shelley's Ghost