SOMERTON MAN: JESS HANDWRITING COMPARISON TO VERSE 70

HANDWRITING COMPARISON

Above we have verse 70, note, in particular, the nature of the letter 'T', there are nine of them,  two in line 1, one in line 2, two in line 3 and three in line 4 with one in the JESTYN signature. Some of these 'T's are not crossed, the first two in line 1, the single 'T' in line 2 and one of the three in line 4.

In fact, if you look carefully, none of the 9 letters 'T' are actually crossed right through.

And now to the Jess letter:

Let's do a count of the 'T's in this letter, 

1. Line 1 has 3 letters T, one is not crossed and two of them are crossed right through. 

2. Line 2 has one T and it is crossed right through.

3. Line 3 has one T and it is crossed right through

4. Line 4 has one T and it is not crossed

5. Line 5, explanation needed here, the first word I think is actually 'Twould' old English,. the letter T is capital in this word. The other T at the end of the line is crossed right through.

6. Line 6 has one 'T'  and on close up is crossed right through

7. Line 7 has three Ts, two are not crossed and one is crossed right through

8. Line has two letters T, one is not crossed and the other appears to have a floating crossbar

In this first comparison, we can see the likeness of the letter b as in the word 'but'found in both examples. The letter 's' is also similar in both. The letter 'D' is not similar in these examples, see the word 'and' as well as the 'd' in withered'

The T in Jess's letter is markedly different.

Here's another letter from Jess:

Thanks to Pete Bowes for the loan of this particular letter!

Again we see examples of the T being crossed right through as well as uncrossed versions. The 'd's do not match those in verse 70. I will leave the rest of this comparison exercise to you the reader, what do you see?

I'll close of this brief post with my take on this comparison exercise, what I see is a significant difference with the letter T, I also see a significant difference with the letter 'd'.

I raise a question about the use of the word 'Twould', you may or may not agree with me but it does seem clear to me that it is the word used and not 'I would' as has been suggested elsewhere. I think  the sentence reads correctly as 'Twould be worse I suppose..' It would not make grammatical sense if it were to read 'I would be worse I suppose..'

Why is that important,very honestly I haven't seen an example of it being used in any other letters I have read from someone of an Australian education. I do know I used it school in Wales and it was fairly common practice. Is this a clue to where Jessica received her primary education?