Letter written by Eleanor Locker, at Birkenhead on 14 September 1843, to John Wilson Croker, Secretary of the Admiralty 1809-30

A long and touching letter to Croker explaining the circumstances of the resignation of the writer’s husband, Edward Hawke Locker (1777-1849), as senior Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, a post he had held since 1829. As it makes clear, he was suffering from what the period called 'mental failure' but which we now recognize as the onset of dementia/ Alzheimer's disease. He had previously been Hospital Secretary from 1819 and had also partly grown up there, his father, Captain William Locker, having been its Lieutenant-Governor, 1793-1800. Croker, an old friend of Locker, had been Secretary of the Admiralty when he was appointed Secretary at Greenwich and instrumental in that.