White Star Lines–Titanic Connections at the ABL–Rose Kingsley and the S S Shannon

Posted on May 21, 2018 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, more commonly known as the White Star Line, was a prominent British shipping company. Founded in 1845, The White Star Line, operated a fleet of clipper ships that sailed between Britain, Australia, and America. The ill-fated Titanic was perhaps their most famous ship. The Armstrong Browning Library has a few connections to the Titanic. One connection relates to a set of postcards that disappeared with the Titanic and another relates to the author of the hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” the song that was purportedly playing as the Titanic sank. The Armstrong Browning Library’s collection includes a letter with the White Star logo in its heading and several letters written on board ships or while individuals were preparing to board ships. The letters, written between 1841 and 1912, are lines from people who were passengers on SS (Steamer Ships), RMS (Royal Mail Steamers), or HMS (Her Majesty’s Ship). It is interesting to note that one of the first purposes of steamers crossing the Atlantic was to deliver the mail. These lines, written from steamer ships, may shed some light on the adventure and danger presented by steamer travel in the late nineteenth century.

Rose Kingsley. Courtesy of The Kingsley School. This girls’ school, still in operation today, was begun by Rose Kingsley in 1884 as the Lemington High School for Girls.

Rose Georgina Kingsley (1845-1925) was the oldest daughter of Charles Kingsley, nineteenth-century clergyman and novelist. In 1869 she joined her father on a trip to Trinidad. The Kingsley’s trip is recorded in At Last: A Christmas in the West Indies. Harper & Bros, 1871. They spent seven weeks exploring the island of Trinidad before their return to England.

SS Shannon

Their trip began on the SS Shannon. The SS Shannon was built in 1854 as a paddle-wheel steamer by Napier and Sons of Glasgow. The first paddle-wheel steamers had begun crossing the Atlantic in 1838. The Cunard Line (the company that later built the Titanic) began their first regular steamer service with the RMS Britannia in 1840, sailing from Liverpool to Boston. The SS Shannon was a successful mail steamer for the West India Line until she was withdrawn and refurbished some time around 1875. She was converted to a screw steamer and lengthened. Her maiden voyage as a refurbished ship broke all records of speed and she only consumed 635 tons of coal. However on her second trip the SS Shannon went aground on the Pedro Bank, southwest of Jamaica and was lost. Passengers, crew, and mail were all saved. (The Shipwrecked Mariner. Vol. 23, 1876, 45)

The Armstrong Browning Library has three letters from Rose to mother, brother, and sister, written during her trip to Trinidad.

The first letter was written on board the SS Shannon.

Writing Room on board the SS Shannon

Rose Georgina Kingsley to Fanny Kingsley. 12 December [1869].

In this letter Rose describes the “fairest ever” voyage, gives accounts of her seasickness, and tells of her father’s Sunday sermon in the Saloon. The family was always very interested in natural history, and the other letters, written after they arrived in Trinidad, are filled with Rose’s descriptions and illustrations of frangipani, bougainvillea, shells, coral, poison trees, monkeys, toucans, parrots, kinkajous, ocelots, mosquitos, and giant spiders.

Rose Kingsley to Grenville Kingsley, 24 December [1869].

In this letter Rose draws a picture of a spider, life-size. She writes: “I found […] spider in my room as big as this but that is considered quite tiny here!!”

In the final letter Rose wrote from Trinidad she says, “we are coming in the Neva & that I hear she is most comfortable & the fastest ship in the Service.” In fact, the RMS Neva was a new ship, built in 1868 by the Caird and Company shipyard, accommodated 272 first class passengers, and boasted an oak and gilded saloon, furnished in walnut. The RMS Neva replaced the RMS Rhone, which was wrecked in a hurricane in October 1867 (Jampoler, Andrew. Black Rock and Blue Water: The Wreck of the Royal Mail Ship Rhone in St. Narciso’s Hurricane of October 1867. Naval Institute Press, 2013).

Rose was quite a pioneer. She traveled across the Atlantic the next year and joined her brother, Maurice, as a new member of the Colorado Springs community in Colorado. In 1872 she travelled with General William Jackson Palmer exploring the possible route of a railway from Texas to Mexico City. Her adventures are recorded in her writings, which include South by west: or, Winter in the Rocky Mountains and Spring in Mexico, Rides and Drives in the Far West, and Ulay, the Chief of the Utes.

I could not find a biography of this rather amazing woman. Perhaps this is a project that needs to be undertaken.

White Star Lines–Titanic Connections at the ABL–Captain Crozier and the HMS Terror

Posted on May 14, 2018 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

This post relates the story of another earlier steamer disaster. The remains of this wreck, HMS Terror, were found recently.

On September 12, 2016 the wreck of the HMS Terror was discovered in Terror Bay, King William Island, in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Wreck of the HMS Terror

The HMS Terror had began her career as a bomb vessel, engaged in the War of 1812. In fact, it was the vision of the HMS Terror bombarding Fort McHenry that inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star Spangled Banner.” In 1836, the ship was refurbished for exploration, making trips to the Arctic (1836) and to the Antarctic (1839). After her trip to the Antarctic, she was again refurbished at Woolwich for a trip to the Arctic through the Northwest Passage.

HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, the two ships used by Sir John Franklin on his 1845 ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage. The ships became trapped in ice at King William Sound (Victoria Strait) for three years, leading to the deaths of all 135 men.

The HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were the two ships used by Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) on his 1845 ill-fated search for the Northwest Passage. The ships became trapped in ice at King William Sound (Victoria Strait) for three years, leading to the deaths of all 135 men.

The HMS Terror set sail on 19 May 19 1845 but never returned. A message, dated 22 April 1848, and signed by Captains Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier (1796-1848) and James Fitzjames (1796-1848?), was found at Point Victory on Prince Regent Inlet stating that they were abandoning both the Terror and the Erebus.

Sketch of HMS Terror by George Back. Courtesy of the Toronto Public Library

Mystery enveloped the fate of the ship and her crew until the discovery last year. Visit the Royal Museum Greenwich to find out more about the discovery of the HMS Terror.

Photograph of Captain F. R. M. Crozier

The Armstrong Browning Library has a fragment of a letter probably possibly written by Captain Crozier in 1842, shortly before he began his fateful voyage.

Letter from Captian F. M. R. Crozier to Sir Thomas. 28 March [1842]. Page 1.

Letter from Captain F. M. R. Crozier to Sir Thomas. 28 March [1842]. Page 2.

The letter states:

My dear Sir Thomas,

Thanks for yours of 26^th which I received this day on my return from Ireland. I was before perfectly satisfied, and believe me my confidence has not been in the least shaken by Commander Beadons test, and very strange…

…write him so soon as I get a little of my bustle over.

It is possible that Sir Thomas was Sir Thomas Hamilton, 9^th Earl of Haddington, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty at the time. Commander Beadon was conducting tests of lifebuoys in February and March of 1842 (Transactions of the Society, Instituted at London, for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce Royal Society of Arts Great Britain, Vol 54 (1843), 121). However, part of the letter is missing.

There is another interesting inscription in pencil in another hand at the bottom of the page:

Capt. Crozier —who commanded the same ship as Sir John Franklin’s expedition & was lost with him in 1843-6 . My brother was lost with him.

This letter was found with other letters removed from an album of letters and autographs collected by Mr. Lewis R. Lucas. However, no one with the surname Lucas was found among the crew lists of either the Terror or the Erebus.

Mystery still shrouds the letter fragment. Who was Sir Thomas? Can we date the letter by Commander Beadon’s lifebuoy tests? What was very strange? What was Captain Crozier’s bustle? Who has the rest of the letter? Whose brother was lost in the expedition of the Terror?

White Star Lines–Titanic Connections at the ABL–Sarah Flower Adams and “Nearer, My God, To Thee”

Posted on May 7, 2018 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

This post, although not directly related to the steamers, draws a connection between the author of “Nearer My God to Thee,” the song reported to have been played on the sinking Titanic, and the Armstrong Browning Library’s collection.

Postcard of “Nearer my God to Thee and the Titanic

It was purported by several passengers, including Mrs. Vera Gillespie Dick (1894-1973), that “Nearer my God to Thee” was the song that the band was playing as the Titanic sank. Able to board a lifeboat, Mrs. Dick later reported

Even in Canada, where we have such clear nights . . . I have never seen such a clear sky. The stars were very bright and we could see the Titanic plainly, like a great hotel on the water. Floor after floor of the lights went out as we watched. It was horrible, horrible. I can’t bear to think about it. From the distance , as we rowed away, we could hear the band playing ‘Nearer , My God To Thee.’

Logan, 238

The bandleader on the Titanic, Wallace Hartley (1879-1912), was reported to have said to a friend that if he were on a sinking ship, “Nearer, My God, to Thee” would be one of the songs he would play (Barczewski, Stephanie. Titanic: A Night Remembered. Bloomsbury Academic, 2006, 132). There are, of course, arguments against the “Near my God to Thee” story, and it is likely that the tune, which might have been either Horbury or Propior Deo, was not the one that we recognize today, written my Lewis Carey.

Image of Sarah Flower Adams

However, the words, based on the story of Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28:11–12, were written by Sarah Flower Adams in November of 1840

Sarah Flower Adams.”Nearer My God To Thee” from Conway, Moncure Daniel. Centenary History of the South Place Society:Based on Four Discourses given in the Chapel in May and June, 1893. London, 1894.

and first published in Hymns and Anthems by W. J. Fox, 1841. Sarah Flower Adam had eleven hymns published in the book, and “Nearer My God to Thee” is No. 85.

“Nearer My God to Thee” in Hymns and Anthems by W. J. Fox, 1841. Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

Robert Browning was a childhood friend of Sarah and her sister Eliza. They often discussed religion. Robert Browning writes in a letter to Eliza, Sarah’s sister, circa 1841, that “all this music I shall be so thoroughly gratified to hear,” referring to the Hymns and Anthems. Robert Browning himself had a hymn in the book, No. 146, based on his poem Paracelsus:

I stoop
into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time ; I press God’s lamp
Close to my breast ; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom : I shall emerge one day

The Armstrong Browning Library has a letter written by Sarah Flower when she was twenty-two years old and Robert Browning was fourteen.

Sarah Flower to William Johnson Fox, 31 May 1827.

The very large letter written on one sheet of paper begins: “What in the name of fortune is the girl going to do with this tremendous sheet of paper?” She then proceeds to fill the entire sheet with words, front and back. In the letter Sarah says: “I wonder what I am to be when I go into that other state, —whatever it is? I have often fixed on a bird, a blossom, a star, it all depends on my mood—.” This resonates with the words she later wrote in her hymn, “Nearer, My God, to Thee”—

Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly,

This letter is important to the Armstrong Browning Library, because it also contains Sarah’s transcript of two of Robert Browning’s earliest poems.

Sources:

Marshall, Logan. The Tragic Story of the Empress of Ireland: An Authentic Account of the Most Horrible Disaster in Canadian History Constructed from the Real Facts Obtained from Those on Board Who Survived and Other Great Sea Disasters. John C. Winston Company, 1914.

Conway, Moncure Daniel. Centenary History of the South Place Society:Based on Four Discourses given in the Chapel in May and June, 1893. London, 1894.

White Star Lines–Titanic Connections at the ABL–The Fano Club

Posted on May 1, 2018 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

This first post is directly connected to the Titanic and tells the story of a unique link between Robert and Elizabeth Browning and the sunken Titanic.

In the spring of 1912, one hundred years after the birth of Robert Browning, William Lyon Phelps, Yale professor and Browning scholar, and his wife made a trip to the little Italian town of Fano. Dr. Phelps and his wife had boarded the S. S. Cleveland on 1 July 1911 for their second sabbatical trip from Yale University, visiting England, Sweden, Russia, Germany, France, and were now ending up their travels in Italy. Dr. Phelps and his wife knew that the poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning had visited Fano in the summer of 1848. The Phelpses travelled there with the expressed purpose of walking in the poets’ footsteps.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, aged 47. Oil painting by Thomas Buchanan Read, Florence, November 1853. Robert Browning, aged 41. Oil painting by Thomas Buchanan Read, Rome, November 1853.

In the summer of 1848 the Brownings had travelled to Fano, Italy, hoping the cool sea breeze of the east coast of Italy would provide a respite from the stifling heat they had been experiencing in their home in Florence. They found Fano even hotter than Florence. Looking for some shade they entered the Church of San Agostino and discovered a large painting, The Guardian Angel, by a seventeenth-century artist known as Guercino. In a letter to Mary Russell Mitford, 24 August [1848], Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:

excerpt of letter from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford. 24 August [1848].

we found it uninhabitable from the heat.. vegetation scorched into paleness, the very air swooning in the sun, and the gloomy looks of the inhabitants sufficiently corroborative of their words, that no drop of rain or dew ever falls there during the summer . . . —yet the churches are beautiful, and a divine picture of Guercino’s is worth going all that way to see.

When the Brownings returned to their hotel in Ancona, Robert composed a poem inspired by the painting, which he titled “The Guardian Angel: A Picture at Fano.”

The Guardian Angel by Guercino

I.
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
II.
Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,
From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,
—And suddenly my head is covered o’er
With those wings, white above the child who prays
Now on that tomb—and I shall feel thee guarding
Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding
Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.
III.
I would not look up thither past thy head
Because the door opes, like that child, I know,
For I should have thy gracious face instead,
Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low
Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,
And lift them up to pray, and gently tether
Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment’s spread?
IV.
If this was ever granted, I would rest
My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands
Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,
Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,
Back to its proper size again, and smoothing
Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,
And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.
V.
How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.
O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
What further may be sought for or declared?
VI.
Guercino drew this angel I saw teach
(Alfred, dear friend!)—that little child to pray,
Holding the little hands up, each to each
Pressed gently,—with his own head turned away
Over the earth where so much lay before him
Of work to do, though heaven was opening o’er him,
And he was left at Fano by the beach.
VII.
We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there,
And drink his beauty to our soul’s content
—My angel with me too: and since I care
For dear Guercino’s fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)—
VIII.
And since he did not work thus earnestly
At all times, and has else endured some wrong—
I took one thought his picture struck from me,
And spread it out, translating it to song.
My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?
How rolls the Wairoa at your world’s far end?
This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.

Standing before the painting on Easter day, 7 April 1912, in the church of San Agostino, Phelps wondered why few Browning enthusiasts visited Fano. To encourage such visits, Phelps instituted the Fano Club. Anyone could become a life member by visiting Fano, seeing the painting, and sending him a picture postcard postmarked from Fano. He and his wife bought seventy-five postcards and addressed them to various friends in America. Unfortunately, the postcards never reached their destinations as they were among the cargo on board the Titanic.

But in spite of the first failed attempt, the idea caught on. In his Autobiography with Letters, published in 1939, Phelps reported that over 500 scholars, students, and lovers of Browning had been inspired to make the pilgrimage.

The administration of the Fano Club was passed on to Dr. A. J. Armstrong (1873-1954), founder of the ABL, after the death of William Lyon Phelps in 1943, and has been carried on by each succeeding library director. Today there are over 200 members of the Fano Club from around the world. Each year members are invited to the ABL around May 7, which is Robert Browning’s birthday, for a dinner and a meeting. Members share stories about seeing the painting (now in the Civic Museum in Fano) and the youngest member present reads “The Guardian Angel: A Picture at Fano” to the group.

Perhaps one day those postcards will be found among the remains of the shipwrecked Titanic.

Making Connections: Literary Networks in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Posted on February 15, 2017 by Jennifer Borderud

In fall 2016, students in Dr. Kristen Pond’s upper-level English course, “Literary Networks in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” explored the relationships between writers of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modernist Periods and the influences they had on each other’s works. “Authors did not, in fact, work alone,” Dr. Pond argued, “but often collaborated, either directly by each person contributing something to the final piece or indirectly through the influence of conversations, interactions, or from reading one another’s works.” Utilizing the letters, manuscripts, rare books, and other collection materials at the Armstrong Browning Library, the students ended their semester by curating an exhibition that uncovered connections between one particular literary figure and Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning—the centers of the literary network for the course—or another significant literary figure.

The exhibition Making Connections: Literary Networks in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries is on display in the Hankamer Treasure Room, Armstrong Browning Library, until April 21, 2017.

The Armstrong Browning Library would like to thank Dr. Kristen Pond and the students who made this exhibition possible:

Marcus Appleyard, Rebecca Causey, Victoria Corley, Annie Dang, Taylor Ferguson, Casey Froehlich, Madelynn Lee, Mollie Mallory, Anne McCausland, Emily Ober, Shannon Ristedt, Chris Solis, Alexander Stough, Alex Ueckert, Baylee Versteeg, and Jonathan White.

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin and Francesca Alexander

Posted on November 9, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

The following paragraph appears in the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography in an article entitled “Women Artists in Ruskin’s Circle,” written by Jane Garnett:

In his first lecture in the Slade series Ruskin had already surprised his audience by turning from a discussion of Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones to praise of two women artists, prefacing his comments with the statement: ‘For a long time I used to say … that, except in a graceful and minor way, women could not paint or draw. I am beginning, lately, to bow myself to the much more delightful conviction that nobody else can’ (Complete Works, 33.280). Both of these women lived out Ruskin’s principles of profound religious engagement with nature. One of them was the American Francesca Alexander (1837–1917), to whom Ruskin had been introduced in Florence in 1882. She was at this point forty-five and had been a professional artist for twenty years, although Ruskin was to talk of her as if she were a young girl, and addressed her as ‘lassie’ and as his ‘sweetest Sorel’. She had been brought up by her artist father in Ruskinian ways of looking at nature, and as a devout evangelical. At the age of seven she was said to have announced that she wanted to be an artist and to work for poor children. She collected stories and songs from the Tuscan peasantry, which she wrote and illustrated with figure drawings of the poor, many of whom gathered regularly in her studio, and whom she supported with the proceeds of sales of her work. For Ruskin her work—in both its form and its subject matter—embodied an ideal Christian and artistic simplicity and sincerity. He was to focus on this ideal in remembering—and transfiguring from its religious narrowness—the character of Rose La Touche. He bought and published Francesca Alexander’s The Story of Ida, Roadside Songs of Tuscany, and Christ’s Folk in the Apennine. In his third Slade Lecture he read passages from her preface to the Roadside Songs, and showed some of her drawings; and in June 1883 he gave a drawing-room lecture in London at which he showed twenty of her drawings. The Spectator review, commending their excellence, saw them as exemplars of Ruskin’s teaching.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns two letters from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. April 1885]. Page 1.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. April 1885]. Page 2.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. April 1885]. Page 3.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. April 1885]. Page 4.

In this letter Francesca tells Ruskin about the discussion in which her little group of Bellosguardo friends had participated regarding the drawings of flowers in her book, Roadside Songs of Tuscany:

I must tell you though what some of them said about the Road Side Songs, (which they nearly all saw before it went to you) you may be pleased, now that the book belongs to you, to have the favourable opinion of such distinguished judges as meet in the “brilliant society” of my Sky-parlour. They all seemed principally interested in the pictures of flowers, which brought about a discourse on flowers in general, causing Edwige to remark, what I believe she thinks she has discovered, and what really I don’t believe people think so much about as they might . . . that each flower has just the leaves that are most becoming to it. Then, taking the Easter flowers on the table for a text, poor gentle Bice, with tears in her eyes, improvised a little sermon, (better than many that I have heard in church) on their variety and wonderful contrivances for beauty, as showing the hand of the Creator. “And only think,” said a Contadina woman, contemptuously, “that now-a-days people try to make out that it is only nature who does it all!” At which Edwige said, yet more contemptuously: “It is all very well; and I hear a good deal about inventions in these times . . . but it is my belief that they will wait a good while before anybody makes another invention like those flowers: and if they think it is so easy, they had better try themselves!” Then the Contadina returned to the flowers of the Road side Songs, which she said “Seemed to have all the colours of the real ones, and yet were made of nothing but ink!” And she did not believe I could have done it by myself: probably the angels came and showed me how. And finally Edwige ended the discourse by saying triumphantly: “you will never see any more books born, like that!”

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. 1885-1887]. Page 1.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. 1885-1887]. Page 2.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. 1885-1887]. Page 3.

Letter from Francesca Alexander to John Ruskin. [ca. 1885-1887]. Page 4.

This letter expresses Francesca’s concern for Ruskin’s well-being. She says:

Some things in your letter trouble me: you seem dissatisfied with Joanie, and . . . I hope I am wrong, but I keep thinking about that miserable time two years ago, when there came about a separation between you, and you suffered more than ever, since I have know you, (as you told me afterwards yourself) and she fell dangerously ill, and as for me . . . Well, I don’t like to think about it! The end of it was, that it half killed you both; and, if you knew the terror that comes over me at the thought of any difference between you and her, you would have patience with whatever I say! You don’t explain what the trouble is, and I ask no questions. You speak as if she worried you . . . But do remember that she is worn out now, with her anxiety during your illness, and is probly [sic] weak and nervous, and worried all the time for fear of your hurting yourself in some way. But I dare say it is foolish in me to be so frightened. Only I am so far away, and have suffered much for my fiends, in these last years; and now I am always dreading some harm coming to you, or to her, whom you have taught me to love.

The Armstrong Browning Library also owns three copies of Roadside Songs of Tuscany in various forms. However, none of the editions contain parts 9 and 10.

Francesca Alexander and John Ruskin. Roadside Songs of Tuscany, 1884.

The Alexanders, who lived near Florence are mentioned several times in the Brownings’ letters.

In 1897 Francesca Alexander published an edition of Tuscan Songs that did not include John Ruskin’s notes but did include the music of the folk songs that she had collected, along with her lovely illustrations of the flowers from along the roadsides of Tuscany.

Francesca Alexander. Tuscan Songs, 1897.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Travels

Posted on November 7, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

John Ruskin’s extensive and privileged travel experiences began as a child. His father, a wine merchant, visited his business clients in the Lake District of England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Strasbourg, Schaffhausen, Milan, Genoa, Turin, the Alps, and Venice. Ruskin returned to many of these places throughout his lifetime to study and sketch his impressions of landscapes and buildings. These two letters record some of those experiences.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to W. H. Harrison. 10 November [1851]. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to W. H. Harrison. 10 November [1851]. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from John Ruskin to W. H. Harrison. 10 November [1851]. Page 4.

This letter, written while the Ruskins were wintering in Venice, was addressed to Mr. W. H. Harrison. The letter thanks Mr. Harrison for his “epigram on friendship” and accepts his invitation for a meeting. The remainder of the letter discusses the restoration of a gondola. An illustration of the gondola is included in the letter. Ruskin comments that the parasol on the gondola was granted to the Doge by Pope Alexander III.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to [Jane O’Meara] Simon. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to [Jane O’Meara ] Simon. 1 March 1863. Pages 2 and 3.

This letter, written from Mornex, Switzerland to Jane O’Meara Simon, describes in great detail his lodgings and the landscapes he views from his lodgings. Mrs. Simon was a close family friend of John Ruskin and the Severns and wife of Dr. John Simon, Ruskin’s physician. Ruskin describes the view from his lodgings in Mornex:

. . . in the morning I get a little Greek and geology done – and perhaps some drawing – none well – but yet enough to give slight [show] of progress. I live in that room you were in, chiefly. –the [day] goes all round it, and I get from corner to corner as it chases me; sitting mostly however at the window next the fireplace . . . I can see the [Salève] slope out of the near window, and the grander [Jorasses] out of the other by turning my head . . . In the morning, I can see Mont Blanc / on my bed – and, sleeping, have the [entire] view from the [Urins] to the [Stanery] [mountains] unbroken.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Friends, Family, and Employees

Posted on November 5, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

The following small group of John Ruskin’s letters are not particularly concerned with art, social issues, or criticism. They focus instead on social engagements, the death of a long-time employee, the design of a dress for a friend, a Christmas wish, and a friend’s memorial, and give us a glimpse into Ruskin’s personal life.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to Charles Kingsley. [ca. 1862]. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Charles Kingsley. [ca. 1862]. Pages 2 and 3.

The watermark on this letter suggests this letter to Charles Kingsley, broad church priest of the Church of England, university professor, social reformer, historian and novelist, may have been written around 1862. During that time Kingsley was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. A few years later, in 1869, Ruskin would became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford. Both Ruskin and Kingsley were becoming more focused on social issues at this time. Kingsley published The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, a tale about a chimney sweep in 1863. Ruskin had just published Unto This Last is an essay and book on economy in 1860.

However this letter is much more lighthearted. Ruskin laments missing his hoped for music that morning and engagements at Colonel Elwyn’s and Mr. Booth’s. He chastises Kingsley for not planning to stay with him that evening and informs him that dinner will be at six.

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to Henry Ritchie. 3 February 1865.

Ruskin to Henry Ritchie. 3 February 1865. Envelope.

This letter to Henry Ritchie, John James Ruskin’s clerk, expresses Ruskin’s shock at hearing of the death of Henry Watson, his father’s head clerk. Ruskin’s father, who had died the previous year, had been very successful in the wine-importing business, employing two clerks, Henry Watson and Henry Ritchie to assist him with clerical duties. Ruskin says that he expected Watson to have died before his Master, “but Death and Time play strange tricks with the little cracked clay pitchers they juggle with.” Ruskin wishes Ritchie and his new partner “all prosperity & peace.”

*****

Letter from John Ruskin to Miss Rudkin. 29 October 1875. Page 1.

Letter from John Ruskin to Miss Rudkin. 29 October 1875. Page 2.

This letter, addressed to Miss Rudkin, expresses a desire to find “a pretty, quiet, thoroughly strong, and not fussy nor catchy sort of dress for Ethel Hilliard,” daughter of Rev. J. C. Hilliard. Ruskin was staying at the Hilliard’s home at Cowley Rectory. He often sought refuge from London at their home. Hilliard’s son, Laurence, became Ruskin’s secretary in the 1870s. We know nothing of Miss Rudkin, other than that Ruskin paid her £14 14s for a silk frock presented to his pet, presumably Ethel Hilliard, on Ruskin’s own birthday, according to Fors Clavigera, Volume VI.

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Letter from John Ruskin to Margaret. 22 December 1878.

With this letter Ruskin sends a Christmas gift to his cousin Margaret, thankful that he has “been preserved through so grave an illness to see another Christmas.” He expresses the hope that the bright frost in Brantwood “may neither be dark nor unhealthy in London, and that you may yourself have stronger health in the coming year.”

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Letter from John Ruskin to Emma Sidney Edwardes. 2 May 1886.

This letter is addressed to Emma Sidney Edwardes, the step-daughter of Dr. Grant, the physician of Ruskin’s father, and wife of Sir Herbert Edwardes, administrator, soldier, and statesman active in the Punjab, India. Her book, paying tribute to her husband’s life, Memorials of the Life and Letters of Major General Sir Herbert Edwardes was published in 1886. In the letter, Ruskin says:

I am so very glad and thankful that book is done. Heaven knows how thankful I shall read every word of it—no wife ever had better right to love her husband to the uttermost—and you have love him, worthily. I think you will be beloved by the way you & he come in gradually in Praeteita.

Emma is described in Chapter 1 of Volume 2 of Praeterita as a nice and clever daughter. On December 22, 1883, Ruskin had delivered as lecture, “The Battle of Kineyree.” The lecture was published as A Knight’s Faith, and two years later, inn 1885, published as A Knight’s Faith : Passages in the Life of Sir Herbert Edwardes, in Bibliotheca Pastorum, Volume 4. Ruskin describes his work in the preface:

The following pages are in substance little more than grouped extracts of some deeply interesting passages in the narrative published by Sir Herbert Edwardes, in 1851, of his military operations in the Punjaub during the winter of 1848–1849 [A Year on the Punjab Frontier]. The vital significance of that campaign was not felt at the time by the British public, nor was the character of the commanding officer rightly understood. This was partly in consequence of his being compelled to encumber his accounts of real facts by extracts from official documents; and partly because his diary could not, in the time at his disposal, be reduced to a clearly arranged and easily intelligible narrative. My own abstract of it… reduced the events preceding the battle of Kineyree [18 June 1848] within the compass of an ordinary lecture, which was given here at Coniston in the winter of 1883; but in preparing this for publication, it seemed to me that in our present relations with Afghanistan, the reader might wish to hear the story in fuller detail, and might perhaps learn some things from it not to his hurt”

Ruskin presented The Edwardes Ruby to the British Museum in honor of Sir Herbert Edwards in 1887. The inscription reads:

The Edwardes Ruby
Presented in 1887 by John Ruskin
‘In Honour of the
Invincible Soldiership
And loving Equity
Of Sir Herbert Edwardes’ Rule
By the Shores of Indus’.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s “Old Coachman”

Posted on November 1, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

The Armstrong Browning Library has fifteen letters that deal in one way or another with David Fudge, John Ruskin’s coachman for fifty years. The following anecdotes are recorded in The Works of John Ruskin, Volume 35, 717-718.

From “Mr. Ruskin and his old Coachman” Daily Chronicle, January 22, 1900:

‘David’ would daily drive him through the Surrey lanes, then (ten or twelve years ago) untouched by the builder. The sight of a brooklet or of a picturesque bit of road, said Mr. Fudge, would always call for the eager request: ‘Drive through there, David; drive through there!’ The Professor was a great walker, and would often dismount from his brougham and set out across country. ‘Then, I suppose, you would meet your master to take him home after the walk?’ “Yes; before leaving the carriage he would insist on sketching out a plan of the road I was to take to meet him. And more than often I found him waiting for—such was his pace and his knowledge of the foot paths. My master was a very plain liver, and almost a teetotaler. He was very reserved in his way, and kept but little company. But, min you,’ added Mr. Fudge, with emphasis, ‘he was as good a master as it is possible to have. All the old family servants are amply provided for. I have many a time seem my late master heartily shake the hand of a crossing sweeper whom he thought well of. Mr. Fudge proudly brought forth from his breast pocket a number of affectionate letters written to him in later years.

From the Western Morning News, January 22, 1900:

Like all Ruskin’s servants, David Fudge is provided for in his old age, and every month since his retirement, he has received a cheque from Brantwood. The old man keeps all his letters with a jealous affection. In one of them Ruskin says: ‘Dearest David,—I am sorry to hear of your illness, but hope you will be better. I enclose £5, with which you may be enable to buy some comforts.

The Works of John Ruskin, Volume 28, 520, records Ruskin’s comments in Fors Clavigera Vol. VI, paragraph 10: “I have got two Davids, and a Kate, that I wouldn’t change for anybody else’s servants in the world.”

Very little mention is made of a person who for a great part of Ruskin’s life was his daily companion. These letters give a few more glimpses into Daivd Fudge’s life.

Letter from George Nugée to John Ruskin. 24 November 1853. Page 1.

Letter from George Nugée to John Ruskin. 24 November 1853. Page 2.

In this letter George Nugée, Vicar of Wymering, sends a letter or recommendation to Ruskin regarding David Fudge. Fudge had served the family well at their residence in London, 6. Upper Wimpole Street, but because the Nugées were moving to the country, Wymering Manor, where he served as Vicar, and had no room there for a coachman with a family, he was recommending David Fudge’s service to John Ruskin.

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Fragment of a Letter from John Ruskin to David Fudge. [Ca. 1871].

In this fragment Ruskin assures Fudge of his just treatment by both his cousin, Joan (Agnew Ruskin) Severn, and himself and encourages Fudge to “remonstrate with her” if he thinks she gives him more work than is proper. From this fragment, it seems that Fudge had responsibilities at Denmark Hill in the service of Ruskin’s cousin, Joan Severn while Ruskin was away.

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Letter from John Ruskin to David Fudge. 18 October 1877.

Here Ruskin sends David Fudge his cheque, apologizing for the delay, and instructs him to pay Dawson Herdson, the head gardener at Brantwood, and get a receipt.

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Letter from Joan Severn to David Fudge. 30 August [1895]. Page 1

Letter from Joan Severn to David Fudge. 30 August [1895]. Page 2

In this letter Joan Severn informs David Fudge that he may get a request from the architect, William Douglas Caröe, to show him the house where J. M. W. Turner had lived, a place that Fudge and Ruskin had visited some thirty years before. Caröe was interested in preserving the place.

Letter from W. D. Caröe to David Fudge. 2 September 1895. Page 1.

Letter from W. D. Caröe to David Fudge. 2 September 1895. Pages 2 and 3.

In this letter, Caröe asks Fudge to come and see him and help him to find Turner’s house in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.

Letter from W. D. Caröe to David Fudge. 2 September 189[5]. Page 1.

Letter from W. D. Caröe to David Fudge. 2 September 1895. Page 2.

In this letter, which was probably misdated by Caröe, he regrets he couldn’t make their appointment, commends Fudge for the information he gave Mrs. Caröe about Turner’s House, and thanks him for his assistance.

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Letter from Joan Severn to David Fudge. 25 March 1897. Page 1.

Letter from Joan Severn to David Fudge. 25 March 1897. Page 2.

The Armstrong Browning Library owns nine letters written by Joan Severn, Ruskin’s cousin. In 1871 Joan married Arthur Severn, moved into Herne Hill, and began to take over the administration of the property. They also spent time at Brantwood and eventually moved there in 1887, where she began managing that estate.

This letter indicates that Fudge had sent some photographs to Ruskin.

We all think them excellent—it gave him real pleasure to see your face again—& those sweet little children, of whom you must be very fond—& proud—

Letter from Joan Severn to David Fudge. [Ca. 1898]. Page 1.

Letter from Joan Severn to David Fudge. [Ca. 1898]. Page 2.

In this letter Mrs. Severn thanks Fudge for the Christmas card and reports that Ruskin also received his and sends his thanks. She expresses sorrow about the death of the gardener Dawson Herdson.

Letter from Joan Severn to David Fudge. 21 January 1900.

This letter reports on Ruskin’s death.

I know you too will grieve in the terrible sorrow that has come to us by the death of your beloved Master—failure of the heart from influenza after only a day’s illness—no suffering thank God, but just like a peaceful sleep at the end—

Letter from Joan Severn to David Fudge. 20 February 1902.

Joan Severn sends £2 to Fudge and hopes for his recovery.

Letter from Joan Severn to Mrs. Hading. 5 November 1903. Page 1.

Letter from Joan Severn to Mrs. Hading. 5 November 1903. Pages 2 and 3.

Letter from Joan Severn to Mrs. Hading. 5 November 1903. Page 4.

Mrs. Severn sends her condolences to Mrs. Hading, David Fudge’s daughter, and asks that she purchase flowers for his funeral, sending her the bill.

I was much shocked & distressed to get your letter today here, telling of the death of your dear Father whose loss I naturally mourn—& feel in this great sorrow deeply for you all—…your Father’s death removes a land-mark associated with many interesting, & happy associations—

Letter from Joan Severn to Emmie. 21 December 1903. Page 1.

Letter from Joan Severn to Emmie. 21 December 1903. Page 2.

This is another letter of sympathy from Joan Severn to Emmie, Fudge’s daughter. She has sent Mrs. Severn a photograph of her Father with her son and also a memorial card.

Letter from Joan Severn to David’s Daughter. 13 February 1906. Page 1.

Letter from Joan Severn to David’s Daughter. 13 February 1906. Pages 2 and 3.

Joan Severn replies to Fudge’s daughter’s letter and asks her to visit when she returns to Herne Hill. It is unclear whether Mrs. Hading, Emmie, and David’s Daughter are all the same person. It is known that the Fudges had several children.

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Letter from Sara Anderson to Mrs. Hasting. 8 November [ny]. Page 1.

Letter from Sara Anderson to Mrs. Hasting. 8 November [ny]. Page 2.

Sara Anderson, amanuensis for both Ruskin and Joan Severn, reports that Mrs. Severn has just returned home and asks Mrs. Hasting to send the date of David Fudge’s death and the name and address of the person who is managing his affairs.

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Seeing Many Beautiful Things: Ruskin’s Social and Political Letters

Posted on October 28, 2016 by melindacreech

By Melinda Creech
Graduate Assistant, Armstrong Browning Library

In addition to his importance as an art critic, Ruskin was also a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. The Armstrong Browning Library owns several letters from Ruskin to correspondents who shared his social and political concerns.

John Ruskin to Octavia Hill. 4 Oxtover 1888

John Ruskin to Octavia Hill. 22 November 1865.

John Ruskin to Octavia HIll. 22 November 1865.

In this letter to Octavia Hill, artist and social reformer, Ruskin gives his permission for Hill to “make her offer.” He warns her “not to be rash and to be as sure as good counsel can make you of your game,” advising her that he “had much rather go very slowly, than have failures to your account or to others.” Based on the date of the letter, Ruskin is probably referring to his lease of three houses of six rooms each in Paradise Place, Marylebone as residences for the poorest of the working class. Ruskin placed these houses under the management of Hill, who had a deep concern for housing for the poor.

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John Ruskin to Elizabeth Gaskell. [ca. 1865].

This letter from John Ruskin to Elizabeth Gaskell, English novelist and short story writer, is likely a response to Gaskell’s letter of February 1865. In that letter Gaskell asked Ruskin to pull whatever political strings that he could to make sure that her friend, Alfred Waterhouse, architect of the Assize Courts, had his name among those to be considered as architects for the new Law Courts in London, a position to be appointed by William Cowper. The appointment was prolonged and contentious. The judges wanted George Edmund Street to design the exterior, with the interior designed by Charles Barry. A special committee of lawyers favored Alfred Waterhouse’s designs, Elizabeth Gaskell’s choice. The appointment was eventually won by George Edmund Street, who died in 1881 before the project was completed. This letter suggests that Ruskin had contacted William Cowper and was able to assure Gaskell, “you will see by the enclosed the affair is not so petulantly forward yet, then men of course never make any promises—but I have good hope that he means at least as much as he says.”

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John Ruskin to John Henry Chamberlain. 6 December 1869.

Ruskin apologizes for not thanking John Henry Chamberlain, architect from Birmingham, for his kind note. Ruskin later chooses Chamberlain to be a trustee of St. George’s Guild. St. George’s Guild is an Educational Trust created by John Ruskin to oppose modern, industrial capitalism and the ugliness, poverty, and pollution it produced. He hoped to establish communities that would oppose profit-driven industry and provide alternatives to mass production.

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John Ruskin to John Pakenham Stilwell. 14 February [ny].

The Armstrong Browning Library also owns eight letters of correspondence between Ruskin to John Pakenham Stilwell, British banker, Navy Agent, and Chairman of the Board of Management of the London Homeopathic Hospital. In the letters Ruskin thanks Stilwell for his gifts to St. George’s Guild and apologizes for his mistakes in accounting. In this letter Ruskin laments the plight of the poor:

I am truly helped by your kind letter, and entirely feel with you as to the quantity of good heart left in England. But as far as I have seen in history the innocent suffer with the guilty . . . . And when Revolution comes, as it must, distress will be everywhere.

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John Ruskin to William Cowper-Temple. 23 July 1876.

Ruskin had appointed William Cowper-Temple, a British Liberal Party statesman and politician and family friend, as trustee for St. George’s Guild. In this letter he thanks Cowper-Temple for his note and cheque. “Grannie,” referred to in the letter, is Lady Georgiana Cowper-Temple. He variously addressed her as “Phile,” “Isola,” “Mama,” and “Grannie.” In the letter Ruskin tells William to tell Grannie he is working on an edition of Sir Philip Sidney’s psalter, which was published the next year as Rock Honeycomb: Broken Pieces of Sir Philip Sidney’s Psalter. Laid Up in Store for English Homes. Ellis and White, 1877.

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Armstrong Browning Library & Museum

A blog that explores the work of Robert & Elizabeth Browning and 19th-century Victorian literature and culture

Category Archives: Exhibitions

White Star Lines–Titanic Connections at the ABL–Rose Kingsley and the S S Shannon

White Star Lines–Titanic Connections at the ABL–Captain Crozier and the HMS Terror

White Star Lines–Titanic Connections at the ABL–Sarah Flower Adams and “Nearer, My God, To Thee”

White Star Lines–Titanic Connections at the ABL–The Fano Club

Making Connections: Literary Networks in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin and Francesca Alexander

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Travels

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s Friends, Family, and Employees

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: John Ruskin’s “Old Coachman”

Seeing Many Beautiful Things: Ruskin’s Social and Political Letters