Sarah Godson friendship album

1829-1834

Most album entries are signed by members of the Godson family, including Eliza Godson, Richard Godson, Mrs. Richard Godson, Mary Anne Godson and Margaret Godson. The 1861 census lists Sarah Godson, age 56, living at Court House in Tenbury Wells, along with Margaret and Eliza, all three unmarried. Sarah Godson is still living with Margaret at Court House in the 1871 census, but her age is listed as 69. Other contributors to the album include Ann Say Nixon, Frances Mary Emily Sarragin, Marie Owen, and Eugenia Sabilla. Album formerly owned by Sarah Godson of Tenbury Wells, Worcester, England, filled with manuscript and artwork contributions by her family members and friends. On the first leaf recto is scripted in pencil, "Sarah Godson / February 1829," beneath which is written in pencil in a later hand, "Tenbury=Worcester / Tenbury Wells / E.A.G." The manuscript entries are mostly poems, some original, some copied (Byron's "Youth and Age"; Mary Anne Browne's "Woman's Heart"; Tennyson's "Anacreontics"). Among the artwork contributions are a fanciful painting of a woman composed entirely of flowers; a watercolor of a black woman carrying a basket; a highly-detailed pencil drawing of a crested pheasant; watercolors of a "Country Woman of Meris Wanden" and "A Milkman of Fribourg"; a watercolor of an Arabian man; a number of other watercolors and drawings (many of flowers); and several printed illustrations (engravings, etc.). Laid in is a drawing of a young woman, clearly based on an early photograph.