An Unwanted Christmas Present

Just before Christmas 1826, a spendidly bound copy of the annual, Ackermann's Forget Me Not* arrived at Shrigley Hall near Macclesfield, home of William Turner, High Sheriff of Cheshire, as a gift for his fiteen-year-old daughter and heiress, Ellen.

To the fury of Ellen's family, a close examination of the unexpected gift revealed that it had been sent by non other than the thirty-year-old Lothario, Edward Gibbon Wakefield who was on bail awaiting trial for the audacious abduction of Ellen in March of that year, after which he had carried her off to Gretna Green where he had tricked her into marriage.

So as not to encourage any hope that Wakefield might have that Mr Turner would allow the runaway marriage of Wakefield and Ellen  to stand, Mr Grimsditch, the family solicitor, advised that it would be wise to treat the gift as if it had never arrived.                      

 

*Forget Me Not, which was frequently spendidly bound, contained, engravings, essays, fiction, poems, weather guides, and other practical information.

By 1826, the annual had become a popular Christmas gift.  Indeed the very year that Ellen received a copy from Wakefield her father had also given her the annual for Christmas.

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