Bath & North East Somerset Council

Explore Bath's world heritage

Bath’s Heritage Other things to do in Bath Bath & North East Somerset Council
Part of a letter to Miguel Langton, in Cadiz, from his wife in Bath, 1810 (ref. 0770/1/3) Show image info

Part of a letter to Miguel Langton, in Cadiz, from his wife in Bath, 1810 (ref. 0770/1/3)

Langton family papers

The Langton family took refuge in Bath in 1809, fleeing from the war which Napoleon was waging in Spain.

The family had moved from Ireland, where they were landowners, to Cadiz in Spain in the early eighteenth century. Here they prospered: they became very wealthy merchants, were recognised as nobles, and made advantageous marriages.

However, in 1809, with the Emperor Napoleon of France invading Spain, most of the family fled from Cadiz and took refuge in Bath. The head of the family, Miguel, remained in Spain, but in July 1810, before he could join the others in Bath, he died in Cadiz.

Miguel's son, Miguel Theobald, spent the next seven years attempting to realise the family’s assets in Spain and elsewhere and to share out the proceeds according to his father’s will. In doing this, he wrote a huge number of letters which have survived to this day, and are now among the papers in the Langton collection. They deal with an enormous range of subjects, and reveal fascinating information about life at the time, both in Bath and in Cadiz. Most are in English, but a small number are in Spanish or French.

Read transcriptions of the letters here.

Find out more about the people, places and events mentioned in the letters.

The reference for the collection is 0770. You can see the full catalogue for the collection in our online catalogue - put 0770 in the 'RefNo' box.