Answer to the Puzzle: Tom Lefroy's handwriting!

My dear friends, apologies for the very belated instalment of the puzzle. Thanks to Amy who has contributed the trivia and to Mimi who has wrecked her brain in trying to solve it (I wrecked my brain for 5min and gave up, hahaha!).


The above is the scanned image of a letter Amy posted to me, and this is the interpretation:

1st line: “Longford October …1836”

2nd line: “…Herries… &Co.”

3rd line: “St James St.”

4th line: “Lefroy London”

Amy’s note:
1. In the olden days, addresser was written on the left side
2. In 1836 , Messers Herries, Farquhar and Company was located on 16 St James Street, London. Some years later it was acquired by Lloyds Bank.

And the leading material that confirms that it was a letter from Thomas Langlois Lefroy (which we didn't post until now on purpose...):


“The Right Honble [Honourable] Thomas Lefroy”

Wikipedia entry of the University of Dublin confirms that "The Right Honourable" was Tom Lefroy's official title by 8 January 1835 (scroll down to 'Elections in the 1830s). The Memoir of Chief Justice Lefroy page 120 noted that in 1830, Tom Lefroy was first elected as the Representative of the University of Dublin. He contested again for a general election on 7 May 1831 and 18 December 1832. He won those elections (wow!) but he had not had "The Right Hon." in his title by then. It seems that Thomas Langlois Lefroy received "The Right Honourable" title somewhere between 1832 and 1835.

Anyway, it seems to me that the letter was indeed written by our Tom Lefroy. Thus this letter might be a specimen of his hand-writing!

Hope the trivia is enjoyable!