I drove Lady Hatherton to see some cottages and cottagers and we called on Mrs Morris who keeps a public house and shop for boatmen by the side of the canal to the south of the canal bridge at Acton. We found her a charming person, the mother of 11 eleven children (all alive and well brought up), keeping a most orderly house and saying the boatmen always behaved well there – a tribute to the influence of her own character and manner. There is something in the presence of this woman at once remarkably conciliating and commanding