Frederick Thoby Leyland Prinsep (1887 – 1936)

‘The sub-committee agreed to accept an offer by Mr. Prinsep, 104 Leadenhall Street, London, made through Mr. Noel E. Peck, to present to the Corporation a picture by his father, the late Mr. Val. Prinsep RA, which was executed at Venice and thereafter exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, and to accord Mr. Prinsep a vote of thanks for his gift’.¹

The painting has the title In a Street in Venice with ‘Ay, because the sea`s the street there’ added. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the summer of 1904. In a letter to Noel Peck, Frederick Prinsep states that ‘The picture …. is the last one my father painted. It was executed in Venice and was thereafter exhibited at the Royal Academy’.²

Frederick Thoby Leyland Prinsep was baptised in Kensington, London, on 27 January 1887.³ He was the eldest of three sons of the Calcutta-born artist Valentine Cameron Prinsep RA and his wife Florence Leyland, the daughter of the wealthy industrialist, ship owner and art collector Sir Frederick Richards Leyland (Appendix 1). Valentine`s father, Henry Thoby Prinsep married Sarah Monckton Pattle at Thoby Priory in Essex. Sarah`s sisters, Julia Margaret Cameron (the photographer} and Maria Jackson were the grandmothers respectively of the author Virginia Woolf and the artist Vanessa Bell.

In the 1891 Census, Frederick, aged 4, was living with his parents and younger brother Anthony at 1 Holland Park Road, Kensington, London.⁴ In 1893, aged 6, he sailed with his family from Liverpool aboard the Georgian and arrived in Boston on 4July. Their destination was Chicago. This would probably have been to attend the World`s Fair which opened in May of that year.<sup>5</sup> Frederick was not with his parents at the 1901 census. (Check where he was?) On 8April 1902, aged 15, he was apprenticed to Harold Arthur Burke ‘Citizen and Skinner of London’ for seven years. ‘to learn his art’.<sup>6</sup> (Appendix 2) Frederick`s  father Valentine Prinsep, died on 11 November 1904. He had been a director of the London, Liverpool & Ocean Shipping Company (which became Ellerman Lines Ltd. in 1902) since 1901 and his death was recorded in the company minute book:

The Secretary reported the death of Mr. V.C. Prinsep….. and it was resolved that the Directors have learned with sincere regret the death of their esteemed colleague ….. and desire to tender their sincere sympathy with the Widow and family in their bereavement.⁷

(The Ellerman and Bucknall Steamship Company Limited had addresses at 104/6 Leadenhall Street, London and at 75 Bothwell Street, Glasgow).⁸

Three years after her husband`s death, Frederick`s mother married George Courtney Ball-Greene and on 21 December 1907, the family left Liverpool bound for the Canary Isles. Frederick was with his mother, stepfather and brother Anthony.⁹     

 On 12 December 1911 at a meeting of the directors of the Ellerman Shipping Line at 12 Moorgate Street, London, Frederick was elected to occupy the position previously held by his father on the Board:

Mr. Francis Elmer Speed (who had replaced Valentine Prinsep) tendered his resignation as a director in order to allow Mr. F. T. L. Prinsep to be elected in his place. His resignation was accepted with regret. It was resolved that Mr. Frederick Thoby Leyland Prinsep be and is hereby elected a Director of the Company …… ¹⁰

He was re-elected as a director on 14 June 1912. ¹¹ At this time he held 2000 shares in the company and was living with his mother and stepfather at 14 Holland Park Road, Kensington.¹² (His mother was also a shareholder in the Company partly through shares left to her by her first husband but also on her own behalf). According to the Company Minutes, Frederick left in 1915 ‘to undertake Red Cross work in France’. ¹³ He arrived in France on 21July 1915 under the aegis of the British Red Cross Society and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. He was awarded the ‘15 Star’ and the ‘Victory’ medals.¹⁴ His time in France seems to have been brief as he was still able to attend Directors’ meetings in London and he served as a director of the company until his death in 1936.

From 1915 till at least 22 July 1921 when his mother died, Frederick`s address was  14 Holland Park Road, Kensington.<sup>15</sup> In 1923 he (and his brothers) presented the painting by his father to Glasgow. This was possibly a result of him disposing of some family possessions and moving out of his mother`s house since in 1925 he was living at 47 Curzon Street, Westminster.¹⁶ It was also about this time that he wrote to Noel Peck about the donation to Glasgow.

Frederick`s interest in ships and shipping, not just from a commercial point of view, was shown in 1924 when he had a book published on the subject.¹⁷ It must also have been about this time that he married Francoise Catherine Pauline ……… (maiden name unknown. However, she may have been the Catalina Francisca Paula Sala Pous who was born in Gerona, Spain on 24 September 1876. ¹⁸ This date matches her age at death.).

Thereafter he is recorded on several voyages presumably associated with his shipping interests or holidays. On 20 January 1930 he and his wife left London bound for Madeira aboard the City of Nagpur. The following month on 18 February he arrived in Southampton from Buenos Aires. ¹⁹ His address was 16 Bolton Street, London, W.1. ²⁰ Meantime, his wife (now named as Catalina Francisca Pauline Prinsep) was registering some land at Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire. Her address was ‘The Abbey’, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire.²¹

            On 17 January 1931 Frederick arrived in London having travelled from Durban via Cape Town and Dunkirk. He was described as a ship owner aged 44 and was accompanied by his wife and four others aged between 15 and 51. They all gave their address as ‘The Abbey’, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. ²² By 1932, Frederick had an address at 47 West Hill, N.6.²³ The owner and chairman of the Ellerman Shipping Line, Sir John Ellerman, died in 1933. He left £2,500 ‘to his friend Thoby Prinsep’.²⁴ The following year, on 23October, Thoby and his wife travelled to Calcutta leaving from Liverpool. Their address this time was 35 West Hill Court, Highgate, London.²⁵ but in 1935 his address was again at 47. In that year both Thoby and his wife were in Birkenhead for the launch of the new steamship City of Manchester. It had been built for the Ellerman Lines by Cammell, Laird, and Co., and ‘on May 2^nd it was christened with Australian wine by Mrs. Prinsep, wife of Mr. F. T. L. Prinsep, a member of the executive controlling the Ellerman Lines, Ltd. The City of Manchester has been built specially for the Australian trade and is fitted for the carriage of all classes of cargo, including chilled beef. The new ship will be an important addition to the company’s fleet’. ²⁷

By the following year the Prinseps had moved to The Lychgate, Spencer Road, Canford Cliffs, Poole, Dorset

Thoby Prinsep`s last voyage was made on 23 January 1936 when he left Liverpool for Marseilles.  He was 49 and a ‘ship owner’, with an address at Stoneways, Winnington Road, Hampstead, London. He was travelling with a nurse, Miss Daisy Winn, aged 33, of the same address.²⁸

Frederick Thoby Leyland Prinsep died aged 49, on 12February 1936 at Villa la Pescade, Avenue du Cape de Nice, Nice in the south of France. ²⁹

News was received in London yesterday of the death in the South of France of Mr Frederick Thoby Leyland Prinsep, elder brother of Mr. Anthony Prinsep the theatrical producer and son of the late Mr Val. Prinsep, the Victorian R.A. ³⁰

The Ellerman Line`s house magazine said that:

The directors have to report with sincere regret the death, in February last, of Mr. F.T.L. Prinsep, who had been associated with the company as a director and one of its managers for about twenty-five years, and they desire to record their appreciation of his valued services to the Company. ³¹

He was buried on 15 February 1936 at St. Barnabas Cemetery. Kensington.³² His will was probated on 8 April 1936. ³³ When it was written on 10 January 1929, his address was ‘The Abbey’, Bourne End, Bucks with his business address 104 Leadenhall Street, London. He lists bequests to his wife Francoise Catherine Pauline Prinsep, to his brothers and to his stepson, Serge Albert Kiriloff. The latter was to receive his ‘gold platinum watch chain’ as well as £1000. This was later altered to £25,000 in a codicil of 1934 when he was living at 47 West Hill, Highgate.

Mr Frederick Thoby Leyland Prinsep, of Stoneways, Winnington Road, Hampstead Lane, Finchley, a director of Ellerman Lines and other concerns, left £208,842. (Estate Duty £50,221). He made various bequests and left three-quarters of the residue to his wife and divided the remainder between his brothers, Anthony, the theatrical producer, and Nicholas. ³⁴

Judging by his will, he was not a collector of art as all his paintings were either by his father or were passed down through the family. Catherine Prinsep died in 1945, aged 68, at Hendon, Middlesex.³⁵

Noel Edwin Peck was born on 5 December 1873 in Glasgow. He was the eldest child of William Edwin Peck and Margaret Budge Forbes.³⁶ According to the 1891 census he was an ‘apprentice shipbuilder’ living with his family at Broomhill Farm House, Partick. ³⁷

Ten years later the family had moved to Newington in Renfrewshire and Noel was now a Naval Architect. ³⁸ He joined the firm of Barclay, Curle and Co. Shipbuilders, Glasgow as a draughtsman eventually becoming chief draughtsman and then shipyard manager. He was made a director of the firm and, during the First World War, was Director of Shipbuilding at the National Shipyards. He died at his home in Helensburgh on 13 October 1937.³⁹

Barclay Curle built thirteen ships for the Ellerman Line between 1903 and 1918 and a further eight between 1920 and 1936.⁴⁰ Presumably Peck would have been responsible for supervising the building of most of them and it is likely that in this capacity he would have met Frederick Prinsep.  The close connection between Barclay Curle, Peck and Prinsep would probably explain why the painting was given to Glasgow together with the fact that Valentine Prinsep had exhibited at the Glasgow International Exhibition of 1901.

In the Object File associated with the painting at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre it is stated that it was ‘presented by the artist`s three sons’.

The second son, Anthony Leyland Valentine Prinsep was born on 21 September 1888 in London.⁴¹ In his teens he developed into an excellent tennis player and entered Wimbledon reaching the second round of the tournament in 1909 but was eliminated in the first round in 1910.⁴² In the 1911 Census he was an undergraduate boarding at Carhullen, Newquay, Cornwall.⁴³ The following year on 8 August, he married Marie Kaye Wouldes Lohr at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London. This was a large ‘theatrical’ wedding as she was a well-known Australian actress and was appearing at the Duke of York theatre at the time.⁴⁴ They had one child, Jane Prinsep, who was born in 1913 ⁴⁵. Between 1918 and 1928 Anthony was manager of the Globe Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, London. He and his wife managed it jointly until 1923.⁴⁶ In August 1921 they sailed on the Empress of France to Canada where they were to embark on a ‘theatrical tour’ to Vancouver and back. His occupation was ‘theatrical lessee’.⁴⁷ They returned via Liverpool on 5 March 1922.⁴⁸ The couple divorced in 1928 and on 30 April 1928 Anthony married Margaret Grande Bannerman in Melbourne. She had been born in Toronto on 15 December 1896. This marriage also ended in divorce on 14 June 1938.⁴⁹ Anthony Prinsep died on 26 October 1942 in London.⁵⁰

The third son, Nicholas John Andrew Leyland Prinsep was born on 19 November 1894 and was baptised in St Barnabas, Kensington on 4 May 1904. ⁵¹ He served during the First World War reaching the rank of Second Lieutenant. ⁵² After the war he returned to live with his mother and brother Thoby at 14 Holland Park Road, London. On 9 February 1927 he left Southampton aboard the Olympic and sailed to New York. He was now aged 32 and a member of the stock exchange. On the passenger list he gave his nearest relative as Thoby Prinsep. ⁵³

In January 1930, Nicholas Prinsep married Hannah Edelsten at St. George`s, Hanover Square, London. ⁵⁴ She was a musical comedy actress with the stage name Anita Elsom.

 For their honeymoon, the couple travelled to Yokohama, Los Angeles and New York arriving back in Liverpool on 9June 1930. They were accompanied by a ‘lady`s maid’. Nicholas was a stockbroker with an address at 10 Farm Street, Mayfair. ^{55, 56} He seems to have been in Japan on his own in 1933 returning via Shanghai, Colombo, Bombay and Gibraltar arriving in Plymouth on 2 March. ⁵⁷ On 30 January the following year Nicholas and Hannah sailed to New York aboard the Isle de France. They returned to Southampton on 23 February. He was now a ‘merchant in the London Stock Exchange’ still living at Farm Street, Mayfair. ^{58, 59}

However, in April 1936, the couple divorced with ‘Mrs Hannah Prinsep, of Chesterfield House, Mayfair’ being granted a decree nisi with costs from her husband ‘on the grounds of his adultery in a West End hotel’. The suit was undefended. ⁶⁰

In 1940, Nicholas, aged 46, was one of several Flight Lieutenants who relinquished their commissions on appointment to commissions in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. ⁶¹ When his brother Anthony died in 1942, Nicholas, now a Wing Commander, was one of his executors. ⁶² His name appears in The London Gazette in 1952 concerning the dissolution ‘by mutual consent’ of his business partnership with various others. ⁶³

Nicholas Prinsep died on 27 May 1983 in London. He was 88 and was survived by his spouse Cele Prinsep. ⁶⁴

References

1. Glasgow Corporation, Minutes of Sub-Committee on Art Galleries and Museums, 27 July 1923.
2. Object File at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre. This refers to a letter dated 5.7.23 from Thoby Prinsep to Noel Peck, re. proposed gift to Glasgow. (No 50 of papers relating to bequests and gifts). However, this letter cannot be traced.
3. London Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906, ancestry.co.uk
4. Census, England 1891, ancestry.co.uk
5. Boston Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820 -1943, ancestry.com
6. London, Freedom of the City, Admission Papers, 1902, ancestry.com
7. Minute Book of Ellerman Shipping Lines, University of Glasgow Archives
8. Lloyds Register of Ships and Shipping
9. UK Outward Passenger Lists, 1890 – 1960, ancestry.co.uk
10. Minute Book of Ellerman Shipping Lines, University of Glasgow Archives
11. ibid
12. London Electoral Registers, 1832 – 1965, ancestry.co.uk
13. Minute Book of Ellerman Shipping Lines, University of Glasgow Archives
14. British Army WW1 Medal Rolls Index Cards
15. London Electoral Registers, 1832 – 1965, ancestry.co.uk
16. ibid
17. The Development of British Shipping throughout the Ages, Prinsep, Thoby, Ellerman Lines; Spottiswoode, Ballantyne & Co., 1924 http://www.worldcat.org/title/development-of-british-shipping…/82154545‎)
18. Family Search
19. UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878-1960, ancestry.com
20. British Phone Books, ancestry.co.uk
21. The London Gazette, 21 February 1930
22. UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878-1960, ancestry.co.uk
23. British Phone Books, ancestry.co.uk
24. Daily Express 16August 1933
25. UK Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960, ancestry.co.uk
26. British Phone Books, ancestry.co.uk
27. The Courier-Mail, Brisbane 6May1935
28. trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/36749311
29. UK Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960, ancestry.co.uk
30. From his probated will.
31. University of Glasgow Archives, Press Cuttings Book, Ellerman Lines.
32. ibid
33. London, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980, ancestry.co.uk 
34. National Probate Calendar – Index of Wills.
35. University of Glasgow Archives, Press Cuttings Book, Ellerman Lines.
36. London, Deaths and Burials, 1813-1980, ancestry.co.uk
37. Family Search
38. Scotland`s People, 1891 Census
39. Scotland’s People, 1901 Census
40. Glasgow Herald 14 Oct 1937, Deaths and Obituary page 9
41. Lloyds Register of Ships and Shipping
42. London Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906, ancestry.co.uk
43. http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/scores/draws/archive/…/index.html‎
44. England Census, 1911, ancestry.co.uk
45. New York Times 9 August 1912.
46. www.stanford.edu/group/auden/cgi-bin/auden/individual.php
47. ibid
48. UK Outward Passenger Lists, 1890 – 1960, ancestry.co.uk
49. UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878-1960, ancestry.co.uk
50. www.stanford.edu/group/auden/cgi-bin/auden/individual.php
51. The London Gazette 19 February 1943
52. London Births and Baptisms, 1813-1906, ancestry.co.uk
53. The London Gazette 18September 1914
54. NY Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, ancestry.com
55. England and Wales Marriage Index, 1916-2005, ancestry.co.uk
56. NY Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, ancestry.com
57. UK Incoming Passenger Lists 1878-1960, ancestry.co.uk
58. ibid
59. ibid
60. UK Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960, ancestry.co.uk
61. The Glasgow Herald, 9 April 1936, page 19
62. The London Gazette, 28May 1940
63. The London Gazette, 19 February 1943
64. The London Gazette, 4 January 1952
65. The London Times, Death Notices,1982-1988, ancestry.co.uk

Appendix 1

Sir Frederick Richards Leyland – Grandfather of Frederick Thoby Leyland Prinsep

            Frederick Richards Leyland was born in Liverpool in 1831. He was apprenticed in 1844 to John Bibby & Sons, Liverpool`s oldest, independent shipping line. He prospered within the firm and was made a partner in 1861. At the end of 1872 he bought out his employers and changed the company name to the Leyland Line. He expanded into the transatlantic trade and by 1882 owned twenty-five steamships.

            In 1855 Frederick married Frances Dawson and the marriage produced four children one of whom, Florence, married Valentine Prinsep. He leased Speke Hall near Liverpool in 1867 and began restoring it with advice from his friend the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The walls were decorated with much of his art collection which consisted of Italian Renaissance paintings including a Botticelli series illustrating Boccaccio’s tale of Nastagio degli Onesti and mentioned in Vasari (now in the Cambó collection, Barcelona, and an Italian private collection). He also became the leading patron of several living artists, primarily Rossetti, Edward Burne-Jones, and James McNeill Whistler. Leyland began to buy Whistler’s paintings in the 1860s and had his portrait, Arrangement in Black: Portrait of F. R. Leyland painted by the artist. Leyland also commissioned several paintings from Whistler including Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland, and several portraits of his daughter Florence and her sisters. He also commissioned The Beguiling of Merlin, from Edward Burne-Jones. In the 1870s, Leyland commissioned Whistler to decorate the dining room of his London house. The resulting ‘Peacock Room’ is considered one of Whistler’s greatest works. However, Leyland refused to pay the price Whistler demanded for the project, they quarreled, and their relationship ended in 1877. The Peacock Room was later dismantled and shipped to the United States.

            Brooding and aloof, Leyland took solace in music, faithfully practising on his piano but never mastering the instrument to his satisfaction. According to contemporaries he was ‘hated thoroughly by a very large circle of acquaintance’ and his ‘immorality and doings with women’ are said to have been widely acknowledged. He and his wife officially separated in 1879, possibly because of Leyland’s liaison with Rosa Laura Caldecott, whom he had established in 1875 at Denham Lodge, Hammersmith, and who bore a son named Frederick Richards Leyland Caldecott in 1883. At about that time Leyland acquired Villette, near Broadstairs in Kent, a house he shared with Annie Ellen Wooster and her children, Fred Richards and Francis George Leyland Wooster, born in 1884 and 1890; they are noted in Leyland’s will as his ‘reputed sons’.

            When Leyland died from a heart attack on 4January 1892 he was one of the largest ship owners in Britain with his estate was assessed at £732,770. He was buried in Brompton cemetery where his grave is marked by a bronze monument designed by Edward Burne-Jones.

            In 1892, John Ellerman formed a consortium which purchased the Leyland Line from the estate of Frederick Leyland. Valentine Prinsep, Leyland`s son-in-law, was made a director. In 1901, Ellerman sold this business to J.P. Morgan for £1.2 million. However, Ellerman remained as chairman and subsequently formed the London, Liverpool & Ocean Shipping Company Limited as a separate enterprise. This company acquired fifty percent of George Smith & Sons, City Line in Glasgow and established an office in the city. Its name was changed in 1902 to Ellerman Lines Ltd. with offices in Liverpool, London and Glasgow. Frederick Prinsep became a director of this company in 1912.

Adapted from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and

http://www.mr-whistlers-art.info/life/k_m.shtml‎

Appendix 2

Frederick Prinsep`s Certificate of Apprenticeship

            Skinners, originally fur companies, made up one of the ‘great 12’ livery companies. Joining a ‘Livery Company’ was a condition of being able to trade in the City of London although it was not necessary to work in the company joined.