Item 5 - Letter from Henry Riversdale Grenfell to Lord Houghton

2 ff.

Taplow Court, Maidenhead. - Recommends Mr Macdonald as Engineer to the Lancs & Yorks Railway; his wife is Grenfell's cousin and daughter of an adventurer who first fought in Paris in 1830; his experiences in Sacramento, Gibraltar and the River Plate; was condemned to death for attempting to burn Chicago during the American Civil War; sent instead to the 'dry Tortugas' whence he escaped in an open boat and was drowned; 'Is this not a good reason for making his son in law your engineer?'.