• Name: Holcroft, Louisa
• Gender: Female
• Birth Date: 24  June  1801
• Death Date:

Daughter of Thomas Holcroft and Louisa Mercier, baptised with her three brothers and sister shortly before Holcroft's death in March 1809. Married John Badams at St Pancras on 30 December 1828 (Carlyle Letters). According to Thomas Carlyle, Badams was an alcoholic and the marriage was not a happy one. Badams died in 1833. Badams knew the Carlyle's wel. In a postscript to one of Carlyle's letters to Margaret A. Carlyle on 1 May 1835, Jane Carlyle wrote: 'Carlyle has not told you a piece of news we heard yesterday, so curious as to be worth recording—Mrs Badams who a year and half ago made such outrageous weeping and wailing over the death of her Husband is on the eve of a second marriage (has been engaged for months back) to a French-man who is—her own half-nephew!!! the son of a Sister who was daughter of the same Father by a former wife! such things it seems are tolerated in France—to us here it seems rather shocking— Such is the upshot of all poor Badams's labours and anxieties and sacrifices of soul and body in amassing money! Himself lies killed with Brandy and vexation in a London churchyard and the wreck of his wealth goes to supply the extravagancies of a rabble of mongrel French who have neither common sense nor common decency.'

Indeed, it seems that Louisa did marry Barham Cole Mergez (her father's grandson!) - but the marriage seems to have taken place at Whippingham, Hants on 15 October 1835. The last entry referring to her in Godwin's diary is to 'L Baddams calls (Mergez)'.

• MS. Abinger c. 77, fols. 29-32: 6 January 1825
• The Carlyle Letters Online, http://carlyleletters.dukejournals.org

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.

• Name: Badams, John
• Gender: Male
• Birth Date:
• Death Date: September  1833

Badams married Louisa Holcroft Jnr in 1828 (according to The Carlyle Encyclopedia). Thomas Carlyle thought that Badams was an alcoholic and the marriage was an unhappy one.

• The Carlyle Letters Online
• Mary Cumming, The Carlyle Encyclopedia (Madison, N.J. and Teaneck, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press: 2004)

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.