Series 4 - Robert Love letters

2 sub-series

Photocopies of the Robert Love Letters are catalogued as T2393/2 in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), Belfast. They were deposited by Heron & Dobson, Solicitors, Banbridge, County Down, who provided Kerby A. Miller with permission to publish.

The Robert Love letters contain transcripts and photocopies of 16 letters written by or to Robert love, a young emigrant from Banbridge, Co. Down, between 1819- 1823. Love worked for three years as a merchant's clerk or store-keeper in Petersburg, Virginia, thus illustrating what Kerby A. Miller identified as 'an interesting phenomenon, perhaps common among middle-class emigrants: fathers arrange for their sons to be indentured or apprenticed as merchants' clerks or storekeepers to relatives or business associates in America. The arrangements are of limited duration, so the emigrants are expected to return in two or three years, when their obligation is completed'. Robert Love's own letters are included along with letters from Love's sister, a fellow emigrant from Co. Down, and Love's principal correspondent, his father John Love, who consistently offers practical and moralistic advice and religious admonitions. Per Miller: 'The letters also exemplify Ulster Protestant urban-bourgeois culture-a Weberian "Protestant ethic" that links capitalist behavior and religious piety.' They also offer insight into the economic, religous and social conditions of a Southern town, Petersberg, Virginia, in the early 19th century.