In November 1828, Emily writes from Grosvenor Street as follows. “We came to London last Monday having passed a whole summer at Eastcombe. It is very odd that the Duke of Wellington will not say a word as to the intentions of the Government. I begin to believe what some people say, that he has no plan and doesn’t know what to do. ”

Two years later, she writes, “Have you seen the second volume of Lord Byron? It is a wicked book and it is unlucky that I feel myself obliged to own that it is much the most interesting book I ever read in my life!”
There are many references in Emily’s letters from India of her childhood at Eden farm. In September 1838 she writes “Such nice clear air and altogether it feels English and exhilarating. I think of you and Eden farm and the Temple Walk, Crouch Oak Lane and the blue butterflies. I should like to go back to childhood and youth again. There was great enjoyment in them. ” Crouch Oak Lane today would be a walk along the top of Eden Park Avenue towards Eden Park station and the Eden Park Hotel. Crouch Oak Wood was part of the woodland still there in the Bethlem parkland. A clue to the whereabouts of the Temple can be found in the diaries of the son of a subsequent resident, Edward Lawford, at Eden farm. Melville Lawford writes in 1844 “When we came home, Baring and I went on in the cart to the bamboo temple and took my tool box there. We then went on and pulled the boat a little. ” (Their boat was on the lake in Kelsey Park and the temple seemed to be beside the river Beck as it entered the lake. )

In January 1839 Emily writes, “We are more mad than ever; at least, we have got ourselves into one of those scrapes that mad people do. There is a wretched little rivulet, a thing not so big as that ditch by old Holledge’s at Elmers End. This little creek which is dry for 10 months of the year suddenly chose to rise in the night and there is now 7 ft of water. ”Two days later she adds, “That little ditch is quite pompous with 20 ft of water. The only way of passing the camels was by tying six of them in a string to the tail of an elephant who then swam across dragging them all after him. ”
Her letters contain details of her family, which would otherwise have been lost. She had a liking for King Charles spaniels, Chance who accompanied her to India and the less lively Zoe.
Emily herself had the chance to marry the widower Lord Melbourne, PM, but she elected to stay with her beloved brother George. As for children, her sisters had plenty! When visiting Langley farm in 1827, her two sisters had eighteen small children between them. She cared for two of her brother Robert’s sons when her sister in law was lying in after the birth of the sixth child; the eldest just five years old!

She was a godmother several times over. Her friend Pamela, ultimately the mother of eleven, wrote to ask on the birth of a “big monster of a seventh girl” if she could give her new daughter the name Eden as it sounded “Eve’ish”. Pamela had thought of “Rhinocera” but the baby was baptised Caroline Frances Eden! A letter written in 1834 commented on Louisa Colville having her seventeenth child, Mary Drummond her ninth and Mrs Eden about to have her seventh.

Remarkably for the period, few of the children died. Emily sadly recalls the death of her brother Morton in 1821 and her niece Eleanor Colvile died at the age of 16 at Langley farm. The 1881 census showed that at least four of Louisa’s daughters remained unmarried because Emily, Jane, Charlotte and Isalen Colvile were living on private means in Devon at Berry Pomeroy.

Her brother Robert’s daughter, Lena, was not expected to live at birth but she survived to be Emily’s companion in her declining years. George died from a stroke on New Years Day 1849 during a visit to Lord Ashburton at The Grange, Alresford and his sister Fanny died only three months later. Thereafter Emily lived the life of a semi invalid, dividing her time between Broadstairs and Kensington but she outlived all the family except her brother Robert.

She left her two novels and also wrote two books from her stay in India from 1836 to 1842. These were “Up the Country” and “People and Princes of India. ” She was a gifted water colour painter. Three volumes of her paintings were sold at Christies in 1907 and are now in the Victoria Memorial Hall in Calcutta. Her letters edited by Robert’s granddaughter, Violet Dickinson, together with extracts from her father’s journal are the source of most of the detail included above. Emily’s sister, Fanny, also wrote and produced a book called “Golden Interlude. ”

In September 2003, an album containing 27 of Emily’s hand coloured lithographs entitled Portraits of the Princes and Peoples of India was sold at Christies for £28,000 at the Arts of India auction in London. The collection belonged to Mildred Archer who used to run the prints and drawings department of the India Office Library.

REFERENCE. The History Of Monks Orchard And Eden Park. Published by Halsgrove ISBN 1 84114338 3. Now out of print.