Edited by Tim McLoughlin

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Letter from THOMAS COUPLAND to JAMES BARRY, written April 1795, at Bloomsbury, London

Source: MS James Barry, Papers and Letters. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

Thomas Coupland, although not identified, appears to have been the owner of or agent for the house Barry had been living in since 1788. The rent was £40 per annum in 1792.1 The house was in poor repair and unkempt: 'He lived alone, in a house which was never cleaned; and he slept on a bedstead with no other furniture than a blanket nailed on the one side'.2

I Thomas Coupland acknowledge to have received proper notice from James Barry of his intention toLeave quit the house in Castle Street or only to hold it quarterly at the expiration of his lease of sd. said House at Michaelmas3 next, as witness my hand

April - 1795

Tho^sThomas Coupland

Falcon public house Russel St Bloomsbury at 6 o'Clock

Show/Hide other notes [why?]

1 ^
in 1792] See Barry's house rent agreement, Appendix D.

2 ^
the one side] Recalled by the poet Robert Southey (1774-1843) who visited Barry in the early 1790s (cited by Pressly, Life and Art, p.188).

3 ^
Michaelmas] 29 September, the feast of St. Michael; this was one of the four quarter days of the year on which rents, wages and other agreements became due; the other quarter-days were Lady Day (25 March), mid-summer day (24 June) and Christmas day (25 December).