T.G.L.
In the hall of my father's house, at Stamford in Lincolnshire, there was, when I was a child, the wreck of a very large green silk umbrella, apparently of Chinese manufacture, brought by my father from Holland, somewhere between 1770 and 1780, and as I have often heard, the first umbrella seen at Stamford. I well remember also an amusing description given by the late Mr. Warry, so many years consul at Smyrna, of the astonishment and envy of his mother's neighbours at Sawbridgeworth, in Herts, where his father had a country-house, when he ran home and came back with an umbrella, which he had just brought from Leghorn, to shelter them from a pelting shower which detained them in the church-porch, after the service, on one summer Sunday. From Mr. Warry's age at the time he mentioned this, and other circumstances in his history, I conjecture that it occurred not later than 1775 or 1776. As Sawbridgeworth is so near London, it is evident that even there umbrellas were at that time almost unknown.
If I have "spun too long a yarn," the dates, at least, will not be unacceptable to others like myself.
G.C. Renouard.
Swanscombe Rectory, May 1.
Dr. Jamieson was the first who introduced umbrellas to Glasgow in the year 1782; he bought his in Paris. I remember very well when this took place. At this time the umbrella was made of heavy wax cloth, with cane ribs, and was a ponderous article.
R.R.