2 John & Eliza Laurie

John Laurie was born in 1797 at Barrowstonness (Bo'ness), Linlithgow, Scotland, the son of Agnes and Benjamin Snaddon, but at the age of seven years was sent to London to be brought up by his mother’s younger brother, Peter Laurie.

By 1820, then aged 23 years, he was a partner in Peter Laurie’s successful saddlery business, styled ‘Peter and John Laurie, Army and Hunting Saddles and Harness Makers’ at 296 Oxford Street, London (even though it was not until 1824 that the nephews’ surname was changed by royal licence from Snaddon to Laurie). In 1826 the Post Office Directory recorded the business in the joint names of John and Robert Laurie for the first time.

In 1831 John Laurie married Mary Sparkes, who died the following year leaving a baby daughter. Two years later he was married again, to Eliza Collett. They produced six sons and a daughter over a period of 21 years.

In 1845 he was elected Sheriff of London & Middlesex and appointed Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Middlesex in 1846. The family initially lived in Fulham and Romford and in 1847 he became Master of the Worshipful Company of Saddlers.

The featured correspondence was mainly addressed to a house in Hyde Park Place, London W2, which overlooks the park across Bayswater Road. The Hyde Park Terrace address seems no longer to exist.

In 1854 he was elected MP for Barnstaple was unseated briefly (having been shown to have broken electoral law) but re-elected, retiring due to ill health in 1859. He died on 2nd August 1864.