The main series of letters received by the Tredegar estate. The letters were in binders variously intitled 'Mon letters <start date> to <end date>' and 'Monmouthshire and general letters', which despite their titles included letters relating to properties and interests in Glamorgan and Breconshire as well as Monmouthshire. The letters are addressed to J. G. Palling (1879-1881), F. J. Justice (1880-1902), Heber P. Williams (1902-) at the Tredegar estate office, Newport. -- The letters include a number of telegrams, accounts and receipts, as well as notices of assignments of leases and mortgages. (For a series of notices, 1900-1906, see AEC 4). The letters include letters from other Tredegar estate officers (particularly the Breconshire agent, the mineral estate agent and the London solicitor), tenants, prospective tenants, local authorities, other local landowners and estates, commercial concerns and local organisations. The commercial concerns include railway companies, collieries, ironworks, brick manufacturers, wholesalers, solicitors, timber merchants, architects and land surveyors. There are also a few letters to and from Lord Tredegar and Frederic C. Morgan of Ruperra Castle. -- The local organisations and interests are extremely varied, and the letters include applications and receipts for subscriptions and donations. The March-July 1880 letters (AEC 2/2) for example include the Bedwellte Agricultural Society (12, 14), Prince Llewellyn Lodge of Philanthropie, Blaenafon (116), Cardiff Show (103), Cardiff & Penarth Regatta (11), Chepstow Farmers' Club (143), Glamorganshire General Agricultural Society (115), Gloucestershire Agricultural Society (103), a brass band being formed in the parish of Llanfihangel Crucornau (116), Llanvetherine Ploughing Society (143), Magor Farmers' Association (113), Monmouthshire & Caerleon Antiquarian Society (13), the 1st & 2nd Monmouthshire Rifle Volunteers (116, 123), the mayor of Newport's fund relief of the distressed families of the sufferers of the late colliery explosion (9), Pontypool Football Club (145), G & H Batteries of the 1st Worcestershire Artillery Volunteer Corps, headquartered at Pontypool (3), St Mellons District Annual Ploughing Match (144) and the Usk Rifle Corps (123). -- The letters within each binder are generally in chronological order of the date of writing, each letter within each binder being numbered and indexed in the index at the front of each binder. However some letters have earlier letters in the same correspondence grouped with them; the dates of these letters, which can be months earlier, are not taken into consideration in the covering dates of the binders. There are gaps in the numbering sequence within some of the files, and scraps of paper found on the spikes of the original binders are evidence that some letters were torn out, probably being required in the continuing management of the estate. Very occasionally a note was added to the file, or endorsed on an adjacent letter, as to what had happened to the extracted letter. Some letters were later returned to the file, pinned to adjacent letters. Almost every binder has a few letters at the back, out of date order. The letters in the binder covering Jan.-Feb. 1902 (AEC 2/77) are the most out of order, probably due to the upheaval caused by the death of Colonel Justice. -- From July 1902, ring binders with alphabetical dividers were used instead of spiked binders. The letters are not numbered and indexed, merely filed in roughly alphabetical order. -- The original binders and ring binders were rusty and dirty, and have been discarded. The letters from each binder have been kept together as a file.
