1815 Stothert Battle of Waterloo Letter Marquess Huntly Defeat of Napoleon Bath

Description

For your consideration is an exceptionally rare and historically significant autograph letter signed by John Stothert (17941879), prominent Bath industrialist, civic leader, future City Councillor and Commissioner of Police, and a member of the distinguished Stothert family whose engineering enterprise would later develop into the celebrated firm Stothert & Pitt. Addressed to George Gordon, 5th Duke of Gordon (17701836), then Marquess of Huntly, one of Britain’s most prominent military noblemen and senior Army officers, the letter was written at Bath on 26 June 1815, only eight days after the Battle of Waterloo and four days after Napoleon Bonaparte’s second abdication. It belongs to the earliest surviving body of private British correspondence produced in the immediate aftermath of the campaign that decisively reshaped nineteenth-century Europe.

Its historical importance lies not only in its extraordinary proximity to Waterloo, but in its preservation of contemporary reactions while the final consequences of Napoleon’s defeat were still unfolding. Writing directly to Huntly, Stothert discusses Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blcher, Bonaparte, Paris, and intelligence then circulating among influential British political and social circles. Unlike official dispatches or later memoirs, the letter captures the uncertainty, optimism, and immediacy of events before the historical narrative had fully settled. Particularly revealing is Stothert’s reference to translated intelligence arriving from the Continent, illustrating the informal channels through which news reached Britain’s political and military elite during one of the defining moments of the modern age.

Especially engaging is Stothert’s enthusiastic praise of Blcher, whose timely arrival secured the Allied victory alongside the Duke of Wellington, together with his humorous observation that, should Bonaparte be brought through Bath as a prisoner, the city’s Mayor intended to lodge him at Stothert’s own residence. This vivid anecdote offers a rare glimpse into British public sentiment during the closing days of the Napoleonic Wars while transforming the letter into far more than routine correspondence. Equally significant is the stature of its correspondents: Stothert would become one of Bath’s leading civic figures, while Huntly, later 5th Duke of Gordon, occupied a distinguished position within Britain’s military aristocracy. Their exchange therefore documents the intersection of provincial leadership and the highest levels of British public life at the precise moment when Paris remained the focal point of European affairs and the post-Napoleonic settlement had yet to be fully determined.

Autograph letter signed, “John Stothert,” Bath, dated 26 June 1815. One folded manuscript letter on laid paper measuring approximately 16 10 inches when fully opened, addressed to George Gordon, Marquess of Huntly, later 5th Duke of Gordon. Surviving private letters written within days of Waterloo are inherently scarce; examples combining a notable author, an eminent military recipient, contemporary references to Blcher, Bonaparte, Paris, and the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo are rarer still. Preserved with its original folds and only minor age-related wear consistent with early nineteenth-century correspondence, the manuscript remains in highly collectible historical condition.