4 Frances St. Copenhagen
Islington Oct. 6, 1881
Dear Nepehew William:
In addressing these lines to you i hope they will find you-your dear Wife and Sisters in good health. As regards myself,
my health is very good and things in England with a bad harvest and a dulness in trade foreshadow a very trying winter. Theire is a general feeling in this country of sympathy on the sad lot of your worthy President. You see non of us can foresee by wat means our own lives are spared let us be ever so Exalted but it does occur and pass away. And i believe the higher power orders all things not the Destiny of man his he will have to go through it whether for good or bad you will see on the other side the 2 oldes men on record in England.
This his my birthday born Oct. 6, 1804 with my kind love to you all from Uncle John
John Moxham Asprey Dumville
For Nephew William H. Dumville
As i have given you the two oldest men in England i will now give the bigest man the noted Daniel Lambert a native of Leicestor. He measured three feet one inch round the leg nine feet four inches round the body and weighted 52 Stone 11 lb fourteen pound to the Stone. He departed this life on the 21 of June 1800 aged 39 years and his buried at Leicestor the inhabitanse of the town have erected a monument.
The letter was transcribed by Donald W. Dumville on 21 July 1973
There are very few people who can boast that they remember two Jubilees. Without a doubt it is almost a matter of impossibility for any now living, however young they may be, to witness another. There is one, however, who is a very near neighbour, and who is related to the publisher of this journal, who remembers distinctly the Jubilee of George III., and who has lived to see through the reigns of two subsequent monarchs - George IV. and William IV. - also fifty years of her Majesty's reign. The octogenarian referred to was born on October 6th, 1804, and is consequently in his 83rd year. His name is John Dumville and he is to be seen regularly as clockwork taking his constitutional walks in tbis neighbourhood, every day and in all weathers. In writing to us he says: "I remember the Jubilee of King George III., our Queen's grandfather, the circumstances concerning it, and was five years old at the time. On the day of his Jubilee there was a large school opened at Fenny Stratford, Bucks, my father (Benjamin Dumville) giving the freehold land that it now stands upon. By virtue of this he was entitled to send two boys free to this school. I remember on the day in question I was marched through the street between two bigger boys, each taking hold of my hand, into the school. I had on me a silver medal which was heavier than a five shilling piece, and bore a figure or George III., and an inscription commemorative or the event. I had it in my possession for 71 years, when I gave it to my great niece, Lydia Dumville Taylor, when she was only one year old, and she is now in her eighth year. Any who would like to see it can by applying to my nephew, Mr. Joseph Taylor, ironmonger, St. Ann's-road."
DUMVILLE - On December 28, at "Ebenezer" House, St. Ann's-road, Stamford Hill, John Moxham Asperry Dumville, in his 84th year.