A lengthy Autograph Letter Signed, to Mrs Thomson, about her daughter’s engagement, approving the match, yet warning about “troubles - these come to all”.3 pp. 7 x 4 inches, fine.Lancaster Lodge, 11 Boltons, 22 January 1889.
Sir Robert Rawlinson (1810 – 1898), engineer and sanitarian. Lord Palmerston sent a sanitary commission to the Crimea, consisting of Rawlinson and two medical members (Dr. John Sutherland and Dr. H. Gavin), with full powers from the War Office, to do whatever it thought would lead to better hygienic conditions in camp and hospital. The commission reached Constantinople in March 1855, and, by insisting on what now seem the most obvious precautions, succeeded within a few weeks in reducing the death-rate in the Levantine hospitals from 42 to 23.4%. Passing on to the Crimea, it effected a similar improvement there, and by the end of the year the health of the whole British army in the field was even better than it enjoyed at home.