
Luke Batterham
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Senior Valuer
MEREDITH MOURNS THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE. Marie, his second wife, had died from cancer of the throat on 17 September 1885, three days before their twenty-first wedding anniversary; he wrote to Lady Lawrence the following day: "The end was very quiet...When I returned from town 40 minutes later, the dead hand was warm. No longer will that melancholy light at her window speak sadly but still of life to my chalet. I used to stand and watch in the night. She was a loyal soul; she will live with me till my surrender of the breath".
Elizabeth Lawrence, chief recipient of these letters, was married to the horticulturalist Sir Trevor Lawrence (commemorated by the eponymous medal issued by the RHS). They lived near Meredith at Burford Lodge, Dorking. Meredith was especially close to Sir Trevor's two sisters Louisa and Mary, writing a series of 120 letters to them between 1873 and 1909 (see The Letters of George Meredith, edited by C.L. Cline, 1970, ii). See illustration on preceding page.