Queen Victoria

There are several series which I have started on this blog and not continued/finished.  So I thought I'd pick them up again. I particularly enjoyed writing about the women listed in Deborah Felder's book: The 100 Most Influential Women of All Time. Felder wrote about them in the order that she had ranked them, but I chose to write about them chronologically, in hopes of fitting them more closely in my mind with the time in which they lived. I'll have to go back and re-read my posts about the earlier women. I see I last wrote about George Eliot who lived from 1818-1890.

The next person listed is Queen Victoria (1819-1901), ranked 38 out of 100. I must admit I'm not much of a fan and I'd need to go back and re-read the library book to remember why Felder gave her that much credence. Though I'm certainly no expert, the only real way in which I would consider her influential is that she and her husband Albert changed the pattern of behaviour for British monarchs. 

They both had unhappy childhoods which they attributed to the sexual escapades and affairs of their parents; they decided to be more upstanding, to practice higher morals and to raise their children to behave similarly. I'm not sure the latter attempt was successful, considering the life of their eldest son, Bertie. Nevertheless the Victorian era became synonymous with rigid social rules about sexual morals, such that even when discussing furniture one said 'limbs' rather than 'legs'. The Victorian era is also remembered as one of hypocrisy (hence the name, Victoria's Secret for the lingerie company), because of the levels of poverty that led to prostitution, the widespread use of child labour, also the strictest observance of the class system. Between the 'family values' they upheld and the size of the family they produced (nine children) Victoria and Albert personified a lifestyle with which the growing middle classes of Britain could identify.

Just before Victoria came to power in 1837, Britain had passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 which outlawed slavery in the British Empire (with a few exceptions). In 1838 £20 million pounds was put aside to pay to slave owners as reparation for the loss of their slaves; of course no reparation was offered to the slaves themselves.

Nothing I've read about Victoria suggests she was a particularly fond mother.  She thought babies were disgusting. Later, she saw her children as obliged to serve and please her and seems to have had little regard for their feelings. Whether this was because of her view of being a mother or of being a queen, I'm not sure. I gather this was not an uncommon attitude in Victorian society overall, particularly where advantageous marriages were concerned. 

According to Wikipedia Victoria supported the Reform Act of 1867, before which only 14% of the seven million men in Britain could vote. This act doubled that number. However, Victoria was not in support of women being able to vote.

Victoria has never been depicted as particularly intelligent but rather a woman ruled entirely by her emotions. Her journals report that she enjoyed her sex life with Albert, which is fair enough. After his death she withdrew from public life so much so that a protester put up a notice on Buckingham Palace demanding that

"...these commanding premises...be let or sold in consequence of  the late occupant's declining business."

She was known to be susceptible to flattery and apparently had the odd crush on various men, earning her the nicknames of "Mrs Melbourne" and "Mrs Brown".  Queen Elizabeth I also had affairs of the heart, or at least one with Robert Dudley, but as queen before the institution of constitutional monarchies she had a great deal more power and during Elizabeth I's reign England became a great power.

The Great Famine in Ireland happened during Victoria's reign, when Britain was at its peak, the richest nation in the world. For some time I've held her largely responsible in my own mind. However, just now I've read that she gave £2,000 toward the British Relief Association in aid of the Irish, more than any other individual. 

I've long thought of her as full of self-pity, a spoiled and pampered individual who happened to be born into the royal family. That said, she had a horrible childhood living under the Kensington System, an elaborate set of rule devised by her mother and her mother's supposed lover to keep Victoria weak and dependent.  She clearly adored her husband, though she was loathe to lose any of her power to him. I can't imagine that being royalty, particularly being the longest reigning monarch in Britain's history is conducive to having what I would consider to be an admirable character. The 'constitutional monarchy' had been in place for well over a century by the time Victoria became Queen, so her powers were quite limited, perhaps only to "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn".  So perhaps I'm too hard on the woman. In any case her name describes the era in which developed societies became industrialized and she perhaps witnessed the largest changes in the world during her reign, the longest in British history to date.

By the way, mark your calenders. This year 11 September will not only be the 14th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it will the be day on which Elizabeth II takes the place of Queen Victoria as the longest reigning monarch.  I'm wondering what sort of events will mark the observance of that event!

The Disinherited Son

The son that was effectively disinherited by the donation of Wallington Hall to the National Trust, George L. Trevelyan, sounds like an early day hippie to me (he's even got long hair).  He imagined his family was descended from a knight of King Arthur's round table; granted, Sir Trevillian sounds like Trevelyan.  He is called a founding father of the New Age philosophy, you know metaphysics, spritualism and self-help psychology stuff. 

I guess when your worldly goods have been given away before they become legally yours, it's just as well to get a more spiritual outlook on life.

In addition to being one of the first trained teachers of the Alexander Technique, he was associated with the Findhorn Foundation near Moray, Scotland, a large 'intentional community' (commune). I've never visited an 'ecovillage' but it sounds interesting. 

In addition to all the spiritual and educational ideas, Trevelyan was involved with another activity, a tradition begun by his uncle, my favourite George M. Trevelyan. I'll tell you about that in my next post.

Nella Last's War

Nella Last'sWar:  The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife, 49'.  The Trustees of the Mass Observation Project.

Just the title and the authorship need explanation I think!  To start with, Britain undertook to do some social research beginning in 1937.  The organisation was, and I guess is, called Mass Observation.  It stopped sometime in the 1950s but picked up again in the 1980s.

One of the initial projects involved asking about 500 volunteers to keep diaries and to submit them to the organisation periodically.  In addition to diaries there were specific questionnaires sent out and all sorts.  The variety of topics they asked people about is hilarious.

Anyhow, Nella Last was one of the volunteers and when she sent in her diary pages she identified herself by her age and occupation: 'Housewife, 49'.  This identifier was later used by actress, writer, etc., Victoria Wood, in a 2007 television drama based on Nella's diaries.  Which gives you a hint of how interesting they are. [If you've not run into Victoria Wood, you missed out.  She's a national treasure.]

I loved this book for many reasons:

• It is a first hand account of a civilian's experience of WWII, including being bombed and living in shelters, rationing, etc.
• Born in 1889, she would have been about my Grandma's age, but she was far more exuberant and determined than Grandma ever was - she reminded me quite a lot of my Mom.  
• Hearing all the things she did (cook, clean, run a charity shop, run a canteen, organise a wartime sewing circle) between the ages of 49 and 56 reminds me how lazy I am.
• She - even more than most women of her day apparently - was really good at being frugal.  She had a limited housekeeping allowance that remained the same all through the war.  
• Through the diary, you see her attitude change and her confidence grow.  She stops being a doormat for her husband (who sounds a bit of a lump) and begins to appreciate her own worth. 
• She was clever and creative and she made important contributions to her community just by doing what she loved to do:  cooking, crafting, recycling - and being very organised.
• She talks about anything and everything in a down to earth way. Her husband worked for in a family owned business and they ran a car, which makes them fairly prosperous. People above her on the social ladder clearly turned to her competent and practical ways for aid just as much as those below.
• She always served her husband a hot lunch, which he came home for.
• She felt the most thrifty means to feed her family was to do what they called 'hotel meals', consisting of 'a soup, a savoury dish and a sweet'.  Of course soup can be made from yesterday's left overs; her savoury dishes tended to be casseroles made up of small bits she gathered.  The sweet was often something make shift involving gelatin, tinned fruit, evaporated milk or cream, if she didn't have the means to bake an actual cake.
• She always hid her 'economies' until the war forced everyone to be more careful; then she discovered her frugal skills were much envied and her advice sought.
• She clearly adored her two grown sons, but she wanted them both to live full and fulfilling lives, even if it meant they might not always be safe or near to her.
• In short, she had stacks of character.

If any of these ideas interest you, can I suggest you put your hands on this book?  It isn't indexed as I'd like it to have been, but I found a link that includes some of my favourite quotes.  It doesn't include any of her funny recipes, but you'll get a flavour of the kind of person she was.

Family, friends, woman's role

In these extracts, Nella writes of moments in her family life during the war. She reveals her feelings towards her husband, her sons, her past life and her anger at the limitations that society imposed on women at this time.

Monday 25 September 1939: I've got a lot to be thankful for. Even the fact - which often used to stifle me - that my husband never went anywhere alone or let me go anywhere without him, has settled into a feeling of content.

Sunday 8 October 1939: Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books - that is if I had the brains and the time. I love to 'create' but turned to my home and cooking and find a lot of pleasure in making cakes etc. He [her son Cliff] seems to have got the idea that I'll go into pants! Funny how my menfolk hate women in pants. I do myself, but if necessary for work, would wear them.

Wednesday 15 January 1941: I gave Cliff a very big helping as he had to catch the train back [to his base] after lunch. He said 'If you ever have to work for a living, Mom, come and cook for the Army'. I said 'What do you mean - work for my living. I guess a married woman who brings up a family and makes a home, is working jolly hard for her living. And don't you ever forget it. And don't get the lordly male attitude that thinking wives are pets - and kept pets at that.'

Saturday 24 January 1942: Nella had a huge row with her husband, over whether their son Cliff should volunteer for overseas service. Her husband wants him to remain at home in a 'safe' job, whilst Nella wants him to fulfil himself. Her anger seems to be related to her exasperation at her husband's lack of imagination and resistance to new ideas.

In the early years of their marriage, times were hard and her husband's family was of little help. Nella was still angry at their patronising and arrogant behaviour towards her in those times.

He went on and on about Cliff being a fool and if he had remained a PT instructor, he might never have had to go. Nella replied Would you cling so tightly to Cliff that you would kill all that was fine in him as long as he stayed in England. What about honour and duty. He said 'You always did talk daft, I want my boy to be safe'.

Nella replied angrily

I thanked God I was a fool... and had tried to teach my lads to be fools and if he had been a bit more of a fool, he would have been more of a man. His boy, indeed. He has never taught, cared for, tried to understand either of them - or ever thinks of writing to them - and is not always interested enough in their letters to listen if I read them. Cliff must live, and not shun Life and always be afraid of things and ideas.

Cliff told his parents that he had let it be known that he was willing to go abroad. He was taken aback by his father's face with tear-filled eyes, crying 'I want you to be safe'.

Nella said

Safe for what? Till his soul dies in his body... and bitter inward thoughts turn his blood sour and torment him.

Death, freedom and marriage

Wednesday 21 March 1942: Cliff's best friend, George, was killed. On Cliff's return home, Nella Last quotes his words.

'I never knew death before, that dreadful nevermore feeling. So much has gone. I cannot linger around a bookshop. I never cared for anyone as much as George. We belonged. Our friendship was one of mutual likes and dislikes.'

Nella Last writes:

So dreadful to see distress one cannot do anything to help or comfort. Words are hollow and brittle things. I could only hold him [Cliff] closely. So much passing that was beautiful and good

Sunday 12 April 1942: When I was a girl, it was considered very odd not to be married at 21 or 22, and my mother said 17 or 18 was the age most girls thought of marriage when she was young. Looking round friends and acquaintance's boys and girls, sons of 25 to 30 with no thought of marriage and girls who are going off to the Services and saying 'Oh we will wait till after the War to get married'.

I feel this conscription of women will be a backward step, for it is taking the best, most formative years from a girl's life and giving her a taste of freedom that many crave for. Will they settle later to homes and children?

Sunday 17 May 1942: My wedding anniversary - 31 years ago. I was married in blue but as no make-up was worn then by a respectable girl, it robbed me of what colour I had. I can remember my huge dark eyes, blazing in my poor white face and my attempts to rub and pinch a bit of colour into my cheeks. My mother thought I was lovely, my husband thought I looked white and afraid.

Thursday 10 May 1945: I love my home dearly but as a home rather than a house. The latter can make a prison and a penance if a woman makes too much of a fetish of cleaning. But I will not go back to the narrowness of my husband's 'I don't want anyone else's company but yours'.

I looked at his placid blank face and marvelled at the way he had managed so to dominate me for all our married life, at how, to avoid hurting him, I had tried to keep him in a good mood.

I know that I'm not the sweet woman I used to be but rather a frayed battered thing, with nerves kept in control by effort that at times became too much and nervous breakdowns were the result. No one would ever give me one again, no one.

Monday 18 June 1945: I can never go back to that harem existence that my husband thinks so desirable.

Queen Katherine

Queen Katherine by Linda Porter.  This is about Katherine Parr, the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII. The one who lived.  This book banishes some of the commonly held beliefs, for example that she was a dowdy old thing that nursed Henry in his old age. She was anything but, in fact she was being courted by the best catch of her day, Thomas Seymour, when Henry stepped in.  She married Seymour in secret soon after Henry died. 

I was astonished to learn that she had been married and widowed twice before she married the King.  Particularly as she never had any children by her first two husbands in spite of being married something like a total of 14 years. Her second husband got dragged into something called the Pilgrimage of Grace, a popular uprising protesting the dissolution of the monasteries.  I'd never heard of this uprising either.  She had no children other than a daughter by Seymour; Katherine died within a week of giving birth.  She only outlived Henry by just over a year. Her fourth husband was beheaded six months later for treason.  I found myself counting on my fingers a lot while reading this book: people died quite young back then, for all sorts of natural and political reasons. 

There was one part that made me laugh and I re-checked the book so that I could share it with you.  It was the marriage vows of Henry VIII and Katherine:

Henry:  I, Henry, take thee Katherine, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part, and thereto I plight thee my troth. 

Katherine:  I, Katherine, take thee Henry to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to be bonaire and buxom in bed and at board, till death us do part, and thereto I plight unto thee my troth.

And some of us women worry about having to promise to 'obey'!

As usual, I'm fascinated by strange words and had to look some of these up:

plight:  pledge or promise

troth: fidelity, allegiance (variant of truth)

bonaire: cheerful and pleasant

buxom:  obedient, lively, yielding 

board:  dinner table

See other Tudor terms at: http://www.thetudorswiki.com/page/Tudor+Words+Glossary  

Suffragettes, Abolitionists and Authors - Part IV

George Eliot (1819 - 1880) Ranked by Feldman as number 27 of out 100 most influential women. Author of Silas Marner, Middlemarch and others. I have seen the former on our shelves, but don't believe I've ever read it. I keep confusing George Eliot with George Sand, only because they are women who chose George as part of their pen name. Even stranger, Sand was French, but this is about Eliot and she was English. Having read briefly about her life, I shall definitely read her work with more interest as hers was a rather peculiar life

She was born in Warwickshire where her father was the estate manager of Arbury Hall, a relatively important position. Because she was considered an unattractive girl with little chance of marrying, she was given a better education than most girls at the time, at least up to the age of 16.   One cannot entirely disagree with this assessment of her appearance, but this certainly doesn't seem to have stopped her from finding love in her life.

After her education finished her father's position allowed her access to the library at Arbury Hall. It is said that her writing draws heavily on Greek literature and only one of her books can be printed without the use of Greek typeface. Her mother died when she was 16 and she took over the housekeeping for her father. She was 21 when her brother married and took over the family home, so she and her father moved to a village near Coventry, where she fell in with Charles Bray and his wife. Their home was a meeting place for people interested in discussing radical views. Whether it was their influence, or the varied exposure at schools to differing religious views, the challenges of the day to the Anglican church by religious dissenters or her independent reading, at some point Eliot began to reject Christianity. Though her father threatened to throw her out of the home for these ideas, she remained with him until his death when she was 30. She then spent a year in Switzerland, travelling there with the Brays but continuing to stay on her own.


When she returned to England she moved to London with the intention of becoming a writer under her own name and she worked as assistant editor for a left-wing journal for three years during which she met George Henry Lewes, a philosopher and critic. Within a few years Evans and Lewes decided to live together in spite of the fact that he was married. Lewes had a wife and three children, but because they had decided to have an open marriage (these Victorians!) she had four other children with another man.  As these four children's birth certificates bore Lewes' name, he could not divorce her on these grounds. Evans and Lewes lived together openly for 20 years. It is surmised that it was in order to hide her living arrangements from the wider public rather than her gender that she took a male pen name, though she was rather scathing of the majority of women's writing of the day. It was during her time with Lewes that she wrote her popular novels, noted for astute observation of rural life and for their social, political and psychological insight.


When Lewes died in 1878, she spent two years editing his final manuscript for publication. She found comfort in the company of John Walter Scott, a man 20 years her junior whom she married in May 1880. She died in December that year from a throat infection coupled with her chronic kidney disease. With such an unusual life, I suspect I'll remember Mary Ann Evans / George Eliot much better in future.

Suffragettes, Abolitionists and Authors - Part III

This group of posts is about the next five women listed in chronological order from Deborah Felder's book, 100 Most Influential Women.   All of these posts are listed under the heading 'Influential Women'.

Charlotte Bronte (1816 - 1855) Rated 44th amongst the 100 most influential women. Author of Jane Eyre, Villette and Shirley. Aged 27, developed crush on married man, a teacher in Brussels. Age 38, married, got pregnant and died.

Emily Bronte (1818 - 1848) Rated 45th. Author of Wuthering Heights. Age 20, became teacher in Halifax, worked 17-hour days, health failed. Died of TB, aged 30.

There is no doubt this was a brilliant family and that a number of their published works are classics.  Virtually every decade has produced a movie of either Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre or both, though granted this isn't necessarily a measure of their literary worth!  Though today they might be thought as stories more written for women than men, in their day they were thought to be remarkably unfeminine. However, after reading the Wikipedia entries for these two sisters and their parents, a remarkable collection of doom, gloom and death interspersed with literary genius and a bit of laudanum addiction, I'm thinking that there was something wrong going on there.


The father initially did several apprenticeships, as a blacksmith, a linen draper and a weaver before entering higher education and becoming an Anglican priest. He married Maria Branwell, the daughter of a successful merchant. His position in Haworth was as a Perpetual Curate, which is a post held in a sparsely populated area which doesn't have a vicar. So far as I can tell, they were Perpetually Poor. The children entertained themselves by writing poetry and novels. The only son also painted, which apparently also involved the obligatory consumption of alcohol and possibly laudanum. The children's ill health is attributed to a poor water source, it being runoff from the church graveyard, to poor living conditions at a Yorkshire school for curates' children (later depicted at Lowood in Jane Eyre), and to overwork as teachers and governesses. Tuberculosis is of course contagious and its manifestation was encouraged by generally poor nutrition and of course there were no antibiotics at the time. For the most part, the Bronte offspring were felled by this disease:


Elizabeth - died aged 11
Maria - died aged 12, (both in 1825);
Anne, died aged 29,
Emily - died aged 30,
Branwell, died aged 31 (all in 1848/49); all died of tuberculosis.
Charlotte died aged 38 from TB, or possibly from severe morning sickness.
Maria Branwell Bronte, their mother, died aged 38 from uterine cancer.


Patrick Bronte, the father, lived to the age of 84; his son-in-law, Arthur Bell Nichols remained with Patrick until his death in 1861 and himself lived to be 87. This strikes me as quite strange, that's all I'm saying.

Suffragettes, Abolitionists and Authors - Part II

This is another post about influential women, as listed in a book by Deborah Felder.  Although I've long ago returned the book to the library, I recorded her list and her rankings for future use here.  I've been researching them on the internet in a different order to their ranking, rather I've put them in chronological order to appreciate more about the time in which they lived.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815 - 1902) was rated 7th in 100, and I would have to agree that she rates this high. Abolitionist, women's rights activist, suffragette, temperance activist. I believe this is one of the women about whom I was supposed to write an English research paper at university when I was 16. Never mind that it was my first ever research paper (with footnotes and everything!) and that the books I brought home from the library all weighed a ton and looked dry and daunting, my uninformed impression of Stanton was that she would be dead boring. Forty years later I realise how mistaken I was (I dropped out of school rather than face that hurdle; 16 was too young for me to have a go at higher education).

Elizabeth was born in New York, the daughter of a lawyer and a politician Daniel Cady and enjoyed a formal education not often given to daughters. She was one of five daughters who lived to old age, out of eleven children born to the Cady family. Her father's sadness at her 20-year-old brother's death and a statement that he wished she was a son led her to believe he valued sons more than daughters. In spite of her excellent academic achievements she could not go to university. Elizabeth met Henry Brewster Stanton through her involvement with the abolition and temperance movements. He was a journalist, anti-slavery orator and, following their marriage, an attorney. Elizabeth required that 'promise to obey' be removed from the wedding vows as she was entering into a relationship of equals. They attended the International Abolition of Slavery Convention in London on their honeymoon. Though she took her husband's name, she refused to sign herself as Mrs. Henry B. Stanton, always insisting on her own name. Married for 47 years, because of employment, travel and finances they lived apart more often than together, though they had six children together, as part of what she called 'voluntary motherhood'; she felt that women should have control of their sexual relations and childbearing, an unusual idea in an era when women were expected to 'submit'. Though much alike in temperament, they disagreed on various issues, women's suffrage in particular; neither Elizabeth's father or husband favoured it.


Elizabeth was one of the organisers of the first women's rights convention in 1848. After initially working with Susan B. Anthony with their common involvement in temperance work, they formed a working partnership focussed on women's suffrage, in which Elizabeth wrote many of the speeches delivered by Anthony, who being single and childless was able to attend more functions. Though Elizabeth wanted to address women's rights more widely, she was persuaded to concentrate on suffrage. She and Anthony both broke with the abolistionist movement following the Civil War in that they lobbied against the ratification of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments, giving the right to vote to African-American men but not to women.


In 1868 the two women formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, of which Elizabeth was president for 21 years. In her later life she travelled widely in the US and in Europe, speaking on behalf of women's rights. Her views included rights of economic opportunities, right to serve on juries and gender-neutral divorce laws. In 1892, she delivered a speech, Solitude of Self, to the Committee of the Judiciary of the US Congress. She and others wrote The Womans Bible, published in the late 1890s, to refute religious views that women should be subsurvient to their husbands. Though this book enjoyed great sales, its controversiality eventually caused the NWSA to separate itself from its ideas and, to some extent, Elizabeth. Several quotes suggest that at 80, though old, obese and bedridden, she was undaunted: "The only difference between us is, we say that these degrading ideas of woman emanated from the brain of man, while the church says that they came from God." "Our politicians are calm and complacent under our fire but the clergy jump round the moment you aim a pop gun at them 'like parched peas on a hot skillet'". "Well, if we who do see the absurdities of the old superstitions never unveil them to others, how is the world to make any progress in the theologies? I am in the sunset of life, and I feel it to be my special mission to tell people what they are not prepared to hear ..."


Forty years later, I definitely feel I did myself a grave disservice, not having studied about Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I think she might have changed my life. There are some excellent quotes from her here and here. My current favourite is

The heyday of woman's life is the shady side of fifty.

Suffragettes, Abolitionists and Authors - Part I

I thought I'd dip back into my List of 100 Influential Women (or rather Deborah Felder's list).  I always learn something new and inspiring from writing these posts. 


Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811 - 1896) Felder rated Stowe number 11 on her list of 100 influential women.  Harriet was born and died in Connecticut.  She was one of her father's 13 children.  Her mother (of 9 childen) died when she was 5 years old.  Harriet's father was a Presbyterian minister and she had several brothers who became notable ministers.  Harriet attended Hartford Female Seminary, run by her elder sister Catherine, where she received a classical (traditionally 'male') education.  When she was 21 she moved to Cincinnati to join her father who had become president of the Lane Theological Seminary.  During a cholera outbreak, she visited the home of another seminary student in Kentucky.  It is said that there she was taken to see a slave auction, an experience that left its mark. 

An uncle in Cincinnati invited her to join a writers' club, called the Semi-Colon Club, where she met Calvin Ellis Stowe and his wife Eliza Tyler Stowe.  When Eliza died a few years later, Harriet married Stowe, a professor at the seminary.  They later followed his career to Maine, where the couple took part in the Underground Railroad, assisting fugitive slaves.


Of course, Harriet Beecher Stowe is most famous for having written Uncle Tom's Cabin.  This book was initially published in the anti-slavery journal National Era, in installments over a nine month period before it was published in 1852.   When she and her family were later invited to the White House to meet President Lincoln, it is rumoured that he said something to the effect, "So you're the little lady who caused this great big war."  In fact, no one knows quite what was said, but journal entries of both Harriet and of her daughter refer to this visit as 'funny' and they apparently found the experience quite amusing.  I doubt it can be said that she caused the war, but her book certainly will have fuelled the discussions about slavery.


I have to confess to having not read Uncle Tom's Cabin, but I have now added it to my book list.  She wrote other books, including novels, memoirs, a travel guide and a book about domestic managed co-authored with her sister Catherine.  Some of these books are available online, including Agnes of Sorrento.  I have downloaded a PDF file of her and Catherine's book, The American Woman's Home (published 1869).

The Mystique of Mustique

One of the many benefits of researching the lives of interesting historical people is that one discovers the oddest things one never knew they didn't know.

For example, the Tennants are an interesting family, full of beauty, creativity and more than a little eccentricity.  However, their family fortune was founded by someone with serious brains who discovered a better way of bleaching fabric than using stale urine and sunshine. 

Model - Stella Tennant (1970- )
Actress, poet - Pauline Rumbold (1929-2008)
Aesthete - Stephen Tennant (1906-1987)
Owned Gargoyles Nightclub in Soho, opened 1925 -
   David Pax? Francis? Tennant (1902-1968)
Chemist, industrialist - Charles Tennant (1768-1838)

Then we have Colin Tennant (1926-2010).  In 1958, he bought one of the Grenadine Islands, Mustique for £45,000 (maybe about £2 million in today's money).  Those of you who have been following the doings of the Royals, such as Princess Margaret, will no doubt already know everything about Mustique.  I only learned about it when reading about the doings of Kate Middleton.

If you want to have yourself a nice little holiday, you could do worse than to start here.  Prices listed are per week and the FAQ's are interesting.   (I don't see this in our future, but one never knows.)   

Funny enough Colin Tennant, having lost one son to hepatitis C, another son to AIDS and apparently his island as well, had a strange and happy twist in his life at the age of 83.   Maybe not a bad thing to have a psychotherapist in the family.

Barons, Baronets and Battlements

You know how you  talk about something and you use a word that someone else thinks has a different name?  I'm really thankful to the internet that I can look up these sorts of things.


My word (from Bill):  crenellated, adj.

1. Having battlements.

2. Indented; notched: a crenelated wall.

[Probably from French créneler, to furnish with battlements, from Old French crenel, crenelation, diminutive of cren, notch; see cranny.]

Picture of crenellation

Vivien's word:  castellated: adj.

1. Furnished with turrets and battlements in the style of a castle.

2. Having a castle.

[Medieval Latin castellatus, past participle of castellare, to fortify as a castle, from Latin castellum, fort; see castle.]

Picture of castellation

In other words, they are both words for 'battlements', which could be for decoration, but originally of course were for defense.  Interesting the term 'crenellation' refers to the fact that the indentations are called 'crenels'.  Trust Bill to come up with the word that describes the architectural detail, like quoin.

I had heard the term 'castellated' before and I'm really frustrated not to be able to find that library book again (I hope they haven't sold it!). It was about the history of houses in Britain, particularly castles, peles, manor houses and the like. A very serious book, but well written and fascinating. In it I learned that one had to have Royal permission to "castellate" one's home. I seem to remember that back in that day (1300s-1500s) one even had to display the certificate of permission, sort of brass plaque. 

I don't know if this was about the King being certain that a castle-builder wasn't taking arms against the Crown or if it was a means of raising revenue for the Crown through 'castellation application fees' or something or if it was just a means of raising the prestige of one's house by showing that one enjoyed Royal approval. I suspect it may have been a bit of all these things, as the practice changed from being about defense to being merely decoration. I've seen it in some unexpected places.

So, with that mystery solved, let's move on to the next.


In looking up all sorts about famous people from the interwar period I found myself getting tangled in the varying titles of their ancestors and descendents, particularly about Barons and Baronets.  I wondered what was the difference. 

Turns out that a Baron is the lowest level of noble title in the Peerage.  You know the term, peers, like as in 'equals'.  Only in this case it refers to people who are privileged to sit in the House of Lords - that kind of equal.  At least they could until the House of Lords Act of 1999 was passed which said that one couldn't be a member of the House of Lords just because of an inherited title... except for 92 of them.  I haven't got my head around the whole thing and I'm unlikely to.  Have a go at it yourself, if you like.  I gather heritary baronies are few and far between these days.  However one can be 'raised to the peerage' as a lifetime peer, and that's a different kettle of fish.  (See means of raising revenue, above; or I'm I being too cynical?).

That said, I was really more interested in the title 'Baronet', going back to our old friend Percy, High Commissioner of Egypt and buddy of Nancy Mitford.   In looking up that word, I found that I'm not being cynical at all - James I began creating hereditary baronetcies to raise funds.  I gather hereditary titles of any kind are increasingly rare these days, however - and you can impress all your friends with this tidbit - whilst a Baron is a member of the Peerage, a Baronet (sounds like a baby Baron, doesn't it?) is still a commoner. 

I'm certain that there are endless more details that you would love to know, but I've satisfied my curiosity for the moment.  I may never figure out how how they decided which 92 peers could stay in the House of Lords and what exactly is the purpose of the Standing Council of the Baronetage.  They say that the title has been documented as far back as Edward III, who may also have been the first involved in permissions to castellate.  Financially clever guy, wasn't he?  According to the movie, Braveheart, his dad was actually William Wallace. (Silly snippets like these help me remember the history...). 

Modern Mitfords

One of the more satisfying aspects of reading biographies instead of novels (though I do like them, too) is that the story sometimes continues after the book is finished.  Also, depending upon how accurately the biography is written and how famous the person, one can sometimes see how their life has fitted into and perhaps contributed to history, that is, what led to now.

Unity and Pamela

Sadly, four of the seven Mitfords - Pamela, Unity, Tom and Nancy - died without issue, as they say.  Nevertheless, it's not all just history, the Mitfords. One of the Mitford sisters, Diana - the fascist one - was first married to Bryan Guinness, of Irish brewery fame (and titles I can't be bothered to look up). One of her grand-daughters, titled socialite Daphne Guinness is regularly in the press here. Has anyone not heard of Lulu Guinness, the handbag designer? She's married to one of Diana's grandsons.
 

Deborah and Nancy

Diana's second marriage to Oswald Mosley (also titled) put her in the political spotlight, not to mention prison. If anyone were a fan of Formula One race car driving, they might be interested to know that Diana's son Max Mosley is a former president of the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile).  Charlotte Mosley, who edits many of the books compiled of Mitford family letters (which I'm in the process of collecting), is married to Diana's other son with Mosley, (Oswald) Alexander Mosley.  

Then there was Jessica Mitford, the communist sister who went to Spain during their civil war with a cousin whom she married (he'd given up his titles).  Strangely enough she eventually settled in America.  Turns out Jessica was more influential than I'd realised.  I'm going to have to read some of her work soon, given the really clever snippets I've found just recently.  In particular I need to put my hands on Hons and Rebels [Note: Hons is short for Honourable, an aristocratic title).  Even the study questions for this book make me curious about it.   J. K. Rowling [Do I need to tell you she wrote the Harry Potter series?] is quoted as saying that Jessica Mitford's writing was highly influential for her; so much so that Rowling named her own daughter Jessica.  Jessica Mitford's daughter, Constantine, is recognisably a Mitford; look at her photo and tell me the words spit and image don't come to mind.  

Deborah Mitford, the youngest child, married into the Cavendish family and when her husband's elder brother was killed in WWII, she became the Duchess of Devonshire, her husband being the 11th Duke of Devonshire.   Debo, now the Dowager Duchess, is still living and has worked with her niece-in-law, Charlotte Mosley, to identify the myriad of personalities of decades past whose names are dropped and sullied or shined in the scribbles of the sisters. 

Jessica and Diana

The Mitford looks are pretty much legendary.  They just don't seem to make ugly babies in that family.  Present day Mitfords include Jasmine Guiness and Tom Guinness, models.  Also a model, Stella Tennant (Deborah Cavendish's grand-daughter)  looks remarkably like her great-uncle, Stephen Tennant, a notable Bright Young Thing.  [I tried to add David Tennant to this family but, pretty as he is and in spite of the fact that he starred in Stephen Fry's movie Bright Young Things, he's actually a McDonald not a Tennant.  There is a David Pax Tennant, but that's another post...]

I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Mitford family changed history, other than perhaps in the revelations of Jessica Mitford's investigative journalism.  What I do believe is that these fascinating women keep alive the interest in the interwar period and the political changes that were happening in their day.  I think this is a good thing.  

In a recent interview, Charlotte Mosley said she found that most people who knew about the Mitfords tended to be over 50, but I don't believe that's true anymore.  Bill's daughter, Helen, and son-in-law Martin came for lunch today.  Helen is nowhere near 50 and she knew exactly who the Mitfords were.

NB:  These drawings were done by William Acton, brother of Harold Acton.  Lovely Lucinda, shows us how some of the Mitford 'girls' looked in 1985.   At 91, the Duchess of Devonshire was recently on the cover of the WI (Women's Institute Magazine) and she's still looking pretty good, I think.

Small Country

I wrote not long ago about the library selling many of its books at shockingly low prices.  It has since been revealed that the current Central Library, built in 1975, is no longer fit for purpose.  The lift (elevator) doesn't work and cannot be repaired and the heating system is unrealiable.  The building is almost entirely glass and will have cost a fortune to heat in any case. 

Lismore Castle

So, they were shrinking the inventory of books to be moved down to about 24,000 of which only about 8K will be on display.  I may be fairly grumpy over the coming months about this limited selection.  On the other hand, the library is moving back into the building I showed you here, labelled 'Free Library' and built in (ahem) 1857.  What does this say about modern construction?


The council have yet to decide how the current library site will be re-developed and, given their record for other similar decisions in North Tyneside, I expect we'll be using the 19th Century building for a good while. 

However, the library is not the topic for this post, rather that I've just started reading one of the books I bought there:  Love from Nancy:  the Letters of Nancy Mitford; (I paid 50 pence for it).  I'm finding it much more readable than the letters between her and Evelyn Waugh, which I bought from Amazon.  In both books, mind, the most interesting text is in the many footnotes which explain who was whom and what was what.  It's sort of like reading a book and working a jigsaw puzzle at the same time:  after a while the mosaic begins to form a recognizable picture and names in footnotes are greeted like familiar friends. 

Remember me mentioning the Loraine's of Kirkharle hamlet?  Well, Nancy was apparently buddies with the Loraine's.  They come up quite a bit as one of her other dear friends, Mark Ogilvie-Grant worked for Sir Percy when he was High Commissioner for Egypt, as an Honourary Attache.  The footnotes are amazing sources of biographical detail, listing dates of marriage, divorce, etc. amongst the aristocratic and literary friends of Nancy's circle.  Read here for a review with many of her lovely witticisms included. 

In reading on the internet about books by Charlotte Mosley (daughter-in-law of Diana Mitford Guiness Mosley) I tumbled onto a reminder that after the youngest of the Mitford sisters, Deborah, married the 11th Duke of Devonshire she inhabited not only the family seat at Chatsworth, but that the Cavendish family also owned Lismore Castle in Ireland.  I've written about this previously, in talking about Fred Astaire, whose sister Adele occupied Lismore Castle upon her marriage into the Cavendish family. 


I keep being surprised by these little circles of coincidence but Bill would remind me, I'm sure, that 'They' are all related in one way or another' and that with the finite number of castles, palaces and the like (large as that number is), there are bound to be duplicate owners...sort of like finding friends with the same birthdate.

What has all of this got to do with me, you might ask? Absolutely nothing.  I just find it all fascinating.  Reading about the Mitfords et al is what I do instead of housework watching TV just about anything else.  It's just about my definition of retirement, OK?

Cliff Notes

If this appears on a different day to my last post, I will have accomplished at least something I've not managed most of last week; I don't seem to be able to get that right at all!  Anyhow...


In between visiting the ceramic art gallery in California and the pottery display in the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, I was browsing the biography section of my library and found Lynn Knight's book about Clarice Cliff.

Loads of folks here in Britain have heard of her, but I never had until reading this book, which I quite enjoyed.  I have to confess that I am still not that in love with ceramics, though I do appreciate them more than I did.  The thing I really liked about Knight's book was that it described so much of what life in the inter-war period was like for an ordinary working class family in Tunstall, one of the towns in Stoke, AKA The Potteries.  After all, everyone didn't live a Downton Abbey lifestyle.  Except that Cliff was far from ordinary.

She determined early on that she would be a designer, a relatively lofty position in the trade (where, typical of Britain, every job has its place in the pecking order) and certainly not one generally held by a woman.  She visited aunts who were pottery painters, took art classes and even left a steady and reliable job at one company to join another where she felt she would have more opportunity to advance.  This was a very unusual choice in that day, but her instincts proved her right.  Through her own talent and ambition, and perhaps aided by a clandestine relationship with her married boss, she advanced to have her own workshop and painters at a relatively early age.   The relationship with the boss is particularly interesting as she certainly never had the appearance of a 'femme fatale'.

It's clear that the whole of her energy went into her work and that she had a nearly inexhaustible source of ideas for new shapes and colours.  She was sent to further training and art classes and travelled to Europe to learn new ideas.  Cliff didn't just come up with pictures to decorate pieces, she designed new shapes.  For example, in the period following the first world war, there was a demand for tea sets that took up less space and she supplied flat-sided pots and cups that all fit together neatly.  She also developed new purposes for pottery, things like decorative ashtrays (now that more women smoked) and things to hang on the dining room or kitchen wall.

Another contribution she made was to send groups of her painters - only the prettiest ones of course - to London and other big cities to do painting demonstrations in large department stores to draw attention to the new pieces available from A.J. Wilkinson's.  By this time there were a very few other notable female pottery designers and some other successful business women, but her story was one of the very few that began from a working class background and in a place other than London.

I must admit that very little of her work is to my taste and we won't be collecting her pieces in this house, though we could use a tea set where all the pieces actually match and one with flat sides has a lot of appeal!  She is mainly known for the line labelled 'Bizarre' and this is a theme she carried on for most of her career, though there are some much more conservative designs that I like quite a bit.  I would need to check the book out again (and for all I know it's been sold...) to find those pattern names.  However, if you are generally a fan, you could always join the collectors' club.

She lived at home until a relatively advanced age (37) and then finally broke all the rules and found her own flat, which of course she decorated extravagantly with her own artwork.  In 1940, after the death of his wife, Colley Shorter and Clarice were married and she went to live at his house, called Chetwynd House, until her death in 1972.

This name, 'Chetwynd House' is apparently rather popular in that part of the world.  There is a Chetwynd House in Stafford which was a post office during the lifetime of Cliff and Shorter.  Colley Shorter apparently named his home for another family home in Wolstanton in Newcastle (under Lyme, not upon Tyne), another part of the Potteries urban area.  That building is now the Wolstanton Working Men's Club. 

Chetwynd House is still a family home, though the present owners apparently have to cope with the fact of their home's famous past resident.  I find it rather satisfying that the fame is not attached to Colley Shorter, owner of A. J. Wilkinson's pottery company, but to the ambitious and talented woman, Clarice Cliff.