Emma, Lady Hamilton--Merton Place | Collection of financial papers relating to the sale of the house, 1807-10

Property from the Jean Hart Kislak Collection

Emma, Lady Hamilton--Merton Place

Group of financial papers relating to the sale of Merton Place to Asher Goldsmid, comprising:

i) John Willock, auctioneer, accounts for the appraisal and attempted sale of Merton Place and its contents, and for sums advanced to Lady Hamilton, 8 pages, 4to, 1808-1809

ii) Messrs. Dawson and Wratislaw, account of payments made to Lady Hamilton, and on her behalf, by her trustees from 25 November 1808 to 6 April 1810, with a list of 98 creditors paid in total £7877 6s 10d, 4 pages, folio, 1810, stained

iii) J. Dawson of Dawson and Wratislaw, letter signed, to Germain Lavie, trustee, on the sale of Merton Place, 2 pages, 8vo, Warwick Street, 23 November 1810

FINANCIAL PAPERS DOCUMENTING THE FORCED SALE OF EMMA HAMILTON'S BELOVED HOME. The death of Nelson was not only a devastating personal loss to Emma Hamilton; it also cost her financial stability, despite Nelson's appeal in the final codicil to his will to king and country that "they will give her an ample provision to maintain her rank in life". By the spring of 1808 Emma was left with no choice but to sell Merton Place, the home she had made with Nelson. Willock were called in to value the house, furniture and other property at Merton, but the property failed to sell when offered at auction on 10 June 1808; the three lots were bought in at £13,650. Various attempts followed to sell the house to private buyers, including Lord Castlereagh and Emma's aged admirer the Duke of Queensberry. On 25 November 1808 Emma's trustees agreed to advance her several thousand pounds and assumed responsibility for disposing of the house as advantageously as possible. The following April the financier Asher Goldsmid, a brother of one of the trustees, agreed to pay £13,000 for the house and timber, and to take the furniture and effects at a valuation of £1,801 10s. Willock's account for a year and a half's work came to over £5,000, half of which was paid off by Goldsmid's deposit and most of the rest by the sale at auction of Nelson's wine cellar for £2,351 10s 11d.