HCR diary 26.10.1817 "Poor Becher has had the misfortune to be, tho' innocently, involved in the late great Liverpool smuggling fraud".
3.1.1818 "called on Mrs Meyer to excuse myself from going to Mr Becker's with her this evening, but she was herself unwell" (Mrs Meyer was the future Mrs Aders)
26.4.1818 about Becher "There are very bad reports in circulation about him. He is charged with acts that amount to gross dishonesty"
20.6.1818 "chatted with Miss L. she seems fully aware of the nature of the imputations on Mr B. She spoke with good sense and feeling on the subject. She is no slight sufferer through this affair as she loses a home. Mrs B. offered to take her to the Continent but Miss L. feels that she ought not to accept the offer." (Miss L was Miss Lewis who lived with the Bechers)
5.8.1818 called on Aders "to speak about Mrs Becher"
22.7.1821 the Aders "gave me a piteous account of poor Mrs Becher who is said to be struggled with poverty but with a cheerful resignation and an arduous performance of her duty to her family"
26.9.1827 Alfred Becher going to Germany not South America "a change in his destination which Aders approves of - he is to take a place at some law office in Elberfeld"
18.6.1828 "breakfasted with Aders - Wordsworth and Coleridge were there - Alfred Becher also"
19.6.1828 dinner at William Jameson's "Becher was there but he was unconnected with the rest except Aders - However he played music and gave pleasure to all but me"
Letter from Eliza Aders in London to HCR in Italy 20.11.1829 "Matilda Becher is on a visit to Ulm"
Letter from Eliza Aders in London to HCR in Italy 5.9.1830 "Matilda Becher comes today to spend another week with me having done so before she went to Ireland where she has been on a visit to Miss Lewis. Matilda returns very shortly to Elberfeld, her mother and all the children are on a visit to (Axelina?) in Denmark"
HCR diary 23.4.1832 about Dr & Mrs Ley, (Mrs Aders son-in-law and daughter) "So scandalous has been the conduct of the Ls that Mathilda Becher told Mrs A. the doctor meant to print the history of Mrs A:s life - and this was to induce a reconciliation"
26.4.1836 at Mrs Aders "she told me of poor Becher's death"
9.11.1836 at Aders "I mentioned that Mrs W Benecke had told me the other evening that Matilda Becker obtained from her (Ch. Souchay made the advance) £200 for Mrs Leigh - Mrs L. has given a receipt for the money - Afterwards Mrs L. turned Matilda B. out of the house - she pretended that the money was for Dr L"
Carl Christian Becher (1770-1836) was the younger brother of Dr Georg Becher, a lawyer, who married Caroline Schunk in Manchester in 1803, and this was Carl Christian's only family relationship with the Mylius, Souchay, Schunk and Aldebert clans, but he was Isaac Aldebert's business partner until they went bankrupt in 1811. Aldebert later said of Becher he was "the cleverest man of business he had ever known" but that he had "an unwarratable confidence in his own judgement" and Robinson once said to Becher "It seems to me you are not so much a merchant as a gambler in goods" (Marquardt II p19-20). Aldebert recovered some prosperity but Becher did less well, and his first wife Sophie, daughter of General von Binzer of Holstein, died in childbirth in 1811, leaving two children Alfred and Mathilde. Becher then married his first wife's widowed sister Charlotte Rosencrantz who had a daughter Axelina. By 1814 Becher was bankrupt again, and in 1815 in debtor's prison, but then recovered again, until shortly after Aldebert's death in 1817 he got in trouble again, and the Bechers left England (Marquardt II p45-6). Robinson had been a great admirer of both Becher's wives, and he was pleased in August 1827 to see Becher's son Alfred (1803-1848), but after hearing of Carl Becher's death Robinson noted in his diary of 26.4.1836 that Alfred Becher eight years before had called in his absence and taken away five volumes of Wordsworth's Works price 35 shillings without ever calling afterwards. Even though Robinson had intended to give Alfred Becher these books, he hadn't told him so, and he didn't forget this theft (Marquardt II p116-7). Seeing him again with William Benecke on 10.6.1840 Robinson noted "His countenance has assumed a very bad expression" (Marquardt II p397) and by the next year "Benecke is now quite disgusted with Alfred Becher" (Marquardt II p411). Alfred Becher was a lawyer and composer, and later moved to Vienna where he was a music critic (Marquardt II p116 n335) but got involved in revolution and was executed there along with Hermann Jellinek on 23.11.1848. There is now a street in Wien named after him (de.wikipedia). Robinson wrote "He was a thoroughly bad fellow" "He was very justly put to death by martial law, for he headed the people to fire on the soldiers after a formal surrender" (Marquardt II p447) and later heard that he could have avoided death "had he not been wilfully impudent" (Marquardt II p483). Robinson was no revolutionary but also seems to have been a face reader - as in several other instances (24.11.1821 the "face somewhat Guelphish and therefore not intellectual" of Ewald Aders / 25.4.1818 Longdill "has an almost Jewish face" / 12.3.1832 Thomas Campbell (QV*) "I did not like his face"). Alfred Becher's sister Mathilde was at Godesberg with Mrs Aders' daughter Ellen in the summer of 1828 when Wordsworth and Coleridge visited (Marquardt II p112) and was living (still unmarried?) in 1857 with her stepsister Axelina (nee Rosencrantz) now Frau Weber (Marquardt II p483).