‘The Director reported that Mrs. Howard, Green Gates, Albion Hill, Loughton, Essex, had gifted a portrait of herself as a young child by Robert Brough, and the committee agreed that the gift be accepted and that a letter be sent to Mrs. Howard conveying their appreciation therefor’.1
(‘Green gates’ was a house that Edith and her husband occupied temporarily while they were looking for permanent accommodation in London). 2
In the catalogue of donations to Glasgow, the painting is entitled Edie, Daughter of O. H. Edinger, Esq., London (2285) and was presented by Mrs Geoffrey E. Howard, of Ashmore, near Salisbury on 6 June 1942.3
There is no photograph available of the painting as it is currently on extended loan to Edith’s family.
The portrait was painted about 1900 when ‘Edie’ was nine. It was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy (RSA) Exhibition of 1900 having been sent from the Rossetti Studios, Flood Street, Chelsea, London. 4 The artist, who was Scottish, was a protégé of John Singer Sargent who in turn was a friend of Edith`s father which is probably why Brough was chosen to paint the portrait.5
Figure 1. Photograph supplied by Professor Sir Michael Howard and used with permission
Edith Julia Emma Edinger (“Edie”) was born in London on 15 May 1891 6. Her parents were German Jews who emigrated to Britain and took British citizenship. Her father, Otto Henry Edinger was born in Worms in 1856; her mother was Augusta Fuld, whose date of birth was 24 June 1869 7. They married in Germany on 2 July 1890 8. Edith had two younger brothers, Valentine (born 1894) and George (born 1900) 9.
Otto had first visited London in 1875 and set up in business there. He appears on the 1881 Census as a ‘lodger’ at 72 Prince`s Square, Paddington. 10 He was employed as a clerk. However, by 1901 he was living with his family at 83 Cadogan Gardens, Chelsea. He was now a stockbroker and employed six servants.11 He made several trips to New York between 1904 and 1907 but seems to have been unaccompanied. 12
Otto`s family was now ‘rich and fashionable ……..kept a carriage and a butler, rode in Rotten Row, and in the winter months took the train out to Leighton Buzzard to hunt’. 13 As a result, Edith received a privileged upbringing. She ‘went to a fashionable, girls` day-school near Sloane Square and to finishing schools in France and Germany’. She was a debutante at the court of Edward VII and was also presented to the Kaiser aboard his yacht. (She reported to the family that the Kaiser spoke better English than Edward VII). ‘She dined with his officers, flirted with the King of Norway (and) attended the Berlin premiere of Rosenkavalier. She was lively, witty, wealthy ……….. and very beautiful’. She met her husband, Geoffrey Eliot Howard, at a dance at the Alpine Club in London in 1913 and they married on 19 November the following year. 14
Figure 2. Photograph supplied by Professor Sir Michael Howard and used with permission
Geoffrey, who was born on 24 December 1877 in Walthamstow, was thirty-even and Edith twenty-three. He was a director of the family firm of Howards and Sons based in Ilford and was later appointed chairman 15. The firm manufactured pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals. (Their main medicinal products were ether, quinine and aspirin, the latter being marketed with the slogan ‘Howard’s Aspirin is not the cheapest – it is the Best’)16
After their marriage, Geoffrey and Edith moved into a house in Brompton Square ‘in a highly fashionable area on the borders of South Kensington and Chelsea’. Their first son, John Anthony Eliot Howard was born there on 19 January 1916. The next three years saw the birth of another son, Denis Valentine Eliot Howard but also the death of both of Edith`s parents. Her brother Val was killed on the Western Front in 1918. After the war they moved to a larger house looking on to Ennismore Gardens where a third son, Michael Eliot Howard was born in 1922.
According to Michael, the 1920s were happy times for his mother. Her family was growing up and living in some style with a retinue of servants to look after them. She had a wide circle of friends in London and in the country. In addition, ‘She collected pictures and (Chinese) jade with enthusiasm and discrimination with a taste for modern artists’. She possessed works by Walter Sickert, Laura Knight, Duncan Grant, Jacob Epstein, Paul Maitland, Mary Potter, Marie Laurencin and Matthew Smith. She and her brother George were founder members of Chatham House set up in 1920 to analyse and promote understanding of major international affairs.
Geoffrey`s father, Eliot Howard, died in 1927 and his house The Cottage on the Ashmore Estate, near Salisbury in Dorset passed to Edith and Geoffrey . Later as the house became too small for their needs it was ‘swapped’ for the village Rectory. Michael recalled ‘My mother spent what were probably the happiest years of her life redecorating what had now become The Old Rectory……in the elegant and comfortable style of the 1930s’.
‘But in the 1930s ……she slipped into a decline from which she never entirely recovered. Still implacably elegant, increasingly neurotic ………she spent the rest of her life in a search for the kind of stability that the world of the twentieth century proved unable to provide’. Her depression was exacerbated by the likely outbreak of war and the prospect of all three of her sons being called up for military duty. When war did break out, she moved with the family out of London to Ashmore. They returned to London in early 1940 when the more valuable pictures (in her collection) were placed in store’.
However, in the bombing which followed, their house in Brompton Square although not directly hit was declared unsafe and they were again evacuated to Ashmore. In the spring of 1942, they moved back to central London to a flat in Ennismore Gardens. Edith ‘regained her old elegance and sparkle ……. visiting picture galleries and adding to her small, excellent collection of contemporary, British painters’. She also worked in the Red Cross attending to the needs of prisoners-of-war. ‘Air raids she took in her stride, refusing to go to the shelter at night and next morning, immaculate in twinset and pearls……..she crunched in her high heeled shoes through the broken glass of Knightsbridge and Piccadilly to the Redfern Gallery or Harrods; this was her finest hour’.
After the war she and Geoffrey moved to a house in Egerton Crescent, London. Geoffrey Howard died on 16 January 1956 and was buried at Ashmore. Edith survived him by 20 years and died in the spring of 1977 aged 86. Her ashes were buried at Ashmore beside her husband.
It is still not clear why Edith took the decision to donate her portrait to Glasgow since it seems unlikely that she ever visited the city. Was the nationality of the artist a factor? The painting itself had crossed the border once before to be exhibited at the RSA exhibition of 1900. It may have been sent north to escape the bombing in London although many of her other paintings were placed in storage at that time. It may also be that as she continued to collect the works of modern artists, she needed space to display them.
References
Minutes of the Corporation of Glasgow, November 1941 to May 1942, C1/3/105, Mitchell Library, Glasgow. Minute of the Committee on Art Galleries and Museums, 21April 1942.
Information from Professor Sir Michael Howard, Edith’s youngest son
Catalogue of Paintings Donated to Glasgow Corporation, Glasgow Museums Resource Centre
Baile de Laperriere , Charles, editor, The Royal Scottish Academy Exhibitors, 1826-1900, Hillmartin Manor Press, 1991
This and subsequent quotes are used with permission from Captain Professor, a life in war and peace – The Memoirs of Sir Michael Howard, Continuum UK, 2006.
This oil painting was bequeathed by the sitter, David Fortune, of the Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society, 84 Wilson Street. It was received in June 1911.
David Fortune was born about 1842 in Glasgow. His parents were Helen Brown and David Fortune, a master plumber. It is possible that both his parents died when David was young because in the 1851 census he was with his grandfather, David Fortune, a journeyman plumber, and his grandmother Smollet Renton.1 (His grandparents had married on 19 June 1818 in Glasgow). 2 They were living at 74 Cannon Street, Glasgow along with David`s uncle John Fortune who was 17 and his aunt Smollet Fortune aged 14. David`s parents do not appear in any census. In the 1861 census 3, David`s occupation was ‘printer compositor’. He was now aged 18 and living with his uncle John and his wife Mary at 140 Cumberland Street, Hutchesontown. His grandfather was living with them.
By 1865, aged 23, David Fortune had become secretary of the Central Working Men’s Club based at 153 Trongate. He had a house at 10 Wellington Street 4. While occupying this position, he was instrumental in setting up the first of several industrial exhibitions he was to be involved with. From a retrospective article in The Bailie we are told that:
Mr. David Fortune was the Secretary of the first Industrial Exhibition in Scotland. It was held under the auspices of the Central Working Men`s Club, in the present Royal Polytechnic buildings, in the year 1865, and was opened by the late Duke of Argyll as a Winter Exhibition. Mr. Fortune was also connected with the Partick and Whiteinch Exhibition held in the same year. 5
(An earlier edition of The Bailie had demoted him somewhat stating that he was ‘janitor of an industrial exhibition in what is now (1889) the Polytechnic Warehouse’). 6 According to the Glasgow Encyclopaedia, The Royal Polytechnic buildings were at 99 Argyll Street and the exhibition (of 1865) had ‘500 exhibits, 400 of which, its placards announced, were by working men’. 7
Figure 2. A medal Awarded at the Industrial Exhibition of 1865. On file at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC)
The Post Office Directory for 1866-67 lists David Fortune as the ‘manager of an Industrial Museum at 99 Argyll Street with a house at 26 George Street’.
On 15 March 1866, David Fortune married Ann Webster, a seamstress, at 24 Stockwell Street, Glasgow. In the same year, on 29 November, their first child, George Roy Fortune was born. 8 This occasion gives the first glimpse of David`s passion for the Temperance Movement as the child seems to have been named after George Roy Esq. who, according to a report on the movement 9, was a prominent member of the Scottish Temperance League and became its Honorary Director in 1868. The whole family was named as members of the Scottish Temperance League in 1868-69 with George Roy (aged 2) a ‘Juvenile Adherent’. In the report David Fortune is listed among those ‘Gentlemen who have frankly given their occasional services in the advocacy of the cause….their labours have been most abundant and self-denying’. He contributed five shillings in Donations and Subscriptions. (William Collins, the publisher, and future employer of David Fortune, who was also a member, contributed £5).
The following year, aged 25, David Fortune was appointed to the post of Janitor of Anderson`s University and Keeper of the University Museum. There were 267 applicants for the post with 14 leeted. (Whether significant or not, David Fortune was the first name on the leet). He was appointed on 18 September 1867, with a salary of £60 per annum. In addition, he was to receive a 5% commission on Annual Subscriptions to the University which he was to collect. He was also to occupy the Janitor`s House rent free with water, gas and coal included and free of taxes. He sent his letter of acceptance on 20September 10 (Appendix 1).
In the census of 1871 11, the family was at 204 George Street (the Janitor`s House). David is described as the ‘Curator of University’. Apart from George Roy, aged 4, there were two other children, Jamie E. (a daughter who probably died young) and Maggie Webster aged 7 months. Another child, Anne Smollett Fortune, had been born on 24 July 1869 12 but is not recorded on the census. In the Glasgow Post Office Directories from 1868 to 1872, David Fortune is listed at the Andersonian University, 204 George Street. He was still pursuing his temperance activities as the following advertisement, which appeared in The Temperance Record of 1871, illustrates:
Amy Royson`s Resolve, by David Fortune. A New Prize Temperance Tale. Price, in paper covers, 1s; post free, 14 stamps. In extra cloth boards, 2s; post free 28 stamps. Published by John S. Marr and Sons, Glasgow. 13
According to the Anderson`s University Calendar, David Fortune was Janitor of the University until 1871-2. However, on 21 February 1872 he tendered his resignation in order to take up a ‘new post’. Although his terms of employment stated that he was required to give three months’ notice, he asked to be allowed to relinquish his post within fourteen days and was given permission to leave on 1 March.14 His ‘new post’ was that of Secretary of the Irish Temperance League (ITL) in Belfast.15 On 2 June 1873 he communicated an article on The Origin of the Temperance Agitation in Ireland which was published in a volume entitled The Early Heroes of the Temperance Reformation. 16 ‘He was a very dynamic and effective secretary’ of the League and had the idea of setting up coffee stalls in Belfast ‘for which the ITL is popularly remembered’. 17
In 1876 an International Temperance Conference was held in Philadelphia. David Fortune contributed an article The Irish Temperance League which was published in a Memorial Volume. 18 He left the ITL in 1877 (a departure that was ‘greatly regretted’) and returned to Glasgow to take up a ‘share in the management of the important business of Sir William Collins &Co.’.19 From 1879 to 1881 he was living at 89 North Frederick Street 20 and according to the census of 1881 he was the ‘foreman of a stationery manufacturer’. There had been an addition to the family – David jnr. who was aged two and born in Glasgow.21
Between 1881 and 1886 he became President of the Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society (SLLA).22 It is likely that this was a part-time post as his main occupation was still with William Collins. In the same year he gave evidence to the Select Committee on ‘National Provident Insurance’. 23, 24 (Appendix 2) At that time the SLLA had over 30,000 children under the age of five listed as members, but he denied, in his evidence, that child insurance encouraged infanticide or neglect.
He was now resident at 104 Peel Terrace, Hill Street, Garnethill. As The Bailie commented ‘whenever a decent, hard-working, shoemaker or warehouseman blossoms into a ‘swell’ he chucks his ancient dwelling-place in Monteith Row or North Frederick Street, and travels ‘out West’. 25 The article was bemoaning the exodus from the East-end of Glasgow and the increased prominence in city affairs of the West-end.
On 25 November 1886 an Industrial Exhibition was opened at the Burnbank Drill Hall and Grounds in Great Western Road. David Fortune was a member of the Executive Committee and Honorary Secretary. Of the members of the Executive Committee, The Bailie commented ‘One and all of these gentlemen, each of whom is a citizen of repute, has wrought with might and main to further the scheme’. 26
Figure 3. The Executive Committee, Burnbank Industrial Exhibition. The Bailie, 24 November 1886.
An advertisement was placed in TheGlasgow Herald advising that there would be ‘Illuminations with Electric Light’, ‘Machinery in Motion’ and ‘Sir Noel Paton`s Choice Works’ etc. etc. The proceeds of the first week and any overall profits were to be given to local charities. An article in the same issue gave a full account of the attractions on offer. 27
In the Glasgow Post Office Directory of 1888-89 David Fortune is described as ‘manager, Sir William Collins, Sons and Co., Stirling Road’ and ‘President of Scottish Legal Life Assurance’. According to The Bailie the SLLA ‘may be congratulated on the possession of a Chairman (President) whose strong common sense and admirable business faculty has already been of the utmost advantage in their interests’. 28 He was also Chairman of the Congress of Friendly Societies and Director of the Scottish Temperance League. His interest in education was shown when he gave evidence before a Royal Commission on Technical Education.
David Fortune`s next major project was the East-End Industrial Exhibition of 1890 held in Dennistoun.
‘It is but a few months since an East-end Industrial Exhibition was suggested by Mr. David Fortune, and today………the Marquis of Lothian unlocks a palace of instruction and entertainment’. 29
Perhaps because of the influence of David Fortune the exhibition seems to have been a teetotal affair and perhaps because of that ‘misguided decision’ was lacking in visitors. 30 However, a later edition of The Bailie states that the exhibition ‘resulted in a surplus of £3000 being handed to the Corporation to aid in building the People`s Palace.’ 31 This is confirmed by an article in the Glasgow Encyclopaedia:
The East End Industrial Exhibition of Manufactures, Science and Art, took place in 1890-91. Its profits were to go towards establishing ‘an institute for the intellectual and social improvement and recreation of the inhabitants of the East End of Glasgow’. – this objective was realised by the erection of the People`s Palace.32
‘Concerning Mr. David Fortune, the Chairman of the Executive Committee, there is little need to say anything. Mr. Fortune is an eager and enthusiastic worker at whatever he puts his hand to, and he usually contrives to make the different enterprises with which he is connected turn out successes.’ 33
One of his duties was to reply to the toast to the executive at the opening ceremony.
According to the 1891-92 Glasgow Post Office Directory he was ‘President, Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society’ but was now described as a ‘mercantile stationer’ at 28 Gordon Street. In the 1893-94 edition he was a manager at Sir William Collins, Sons and Co., Stirling Road and had become Secretary of Scottish Legal Life. In 1895-96 he is listed as ‘J.P., F.S.S.’. In 1897 he moved to 197 Pitt Street and two years later he moved again to 19 Rowallan Gardens, Broomhill.
David Fortune was Chairman of the Glasgow East End Industrial Exhibition which ran from 9 December 1903 till 9 April 1904. It was staged in Duke Street in premises designed for the East End Exhibition of 1890 – 91 and attracted 908,897 visitors. Its aim was to raise funds for the Royal Infirmary but in the event made a disappointing profit of £221. An advertisement for the exhibition appeared in the Glasgow Herald of 9 December 1903. At the closing ceremony ‘the members of the Executive, accompanied by Sir John Ure Primrose, the Hon. the Lord Provost came upon the platform and were enthusiastically received. Mr. David Fortune, who presided, briefly introduced the Lord Provost’. 34 In his speech, the Lord Provost congratulated the Executive on the success of the Exhibition. Mr. Fortune then proposed a vote of thanks to the Lord Provost and the formal proceedings were terminated.
The Bailie again commented:
‘Mr. Fortune`s zeal and energy have permeated the various committees. Exhibitions are Mr. Fortune`s hobby, but in the serious business of life he devotes his time and attention to the work of the Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society, where, as the able and efficient Secretary, he renders yeoman service. Mr. Fortune is also actively identified with the leading social, educational, and municipal movements in the city.’ 35
On 10 October 1911, David Fortune was presented with his portrait in oils ‘in recognition of 50 years public service in Glasgow’. (This was the painting which was subsequently bequeathed to Glasgow). Rather appropriately, the portrait was presented to him at the Scottish National Exhibition of 1911 held in Kelvingrove. The purpose of this exhibition was to raise funds to endow a Chair of Scottish History and Literature at the University of Glasgow. For once, David Fortune appears not to have been involved. The presentation was made by Lord Rowallan in front of a large gathering in the Athole Restaurant. At the same time, Mrs. Fortune was presented with a gold pendant set with pearls. Among those present were David Fortune`s daughter and his son Dr. George Fortune. Also present was Francis Wilson who painted the portrait. 36
On 16 June 1912 Annie Fortune died aged 65 at home in Broomhill. Her death was reported by her son G. Roy Fortune but some details on her death certificate differ from those shown on her marriage certificate i.e., her father is listed as David Webster, a blacksmith and farmer, and her mother as Annie Webster m.s. Hall. 37
After his wife’s death, David Fortune appears to have remarried although this marriage is not recorded on Scotland’s People. His new bride was a widow Mary Ann Gray (nee Kemp) who predeceased him. She died on 24 March 1917. 38
David Fortune died, aged 75, on 12 November 1917 at 19 Rowallan Gardens, Broomhill. He was buried in the Glasgow Necropolis on 14 November but there is no evidence of a gravestone having been erected. His death certificate records that he was an insurance secretary, widower of 1. Annie Webster, 2. Marion (sic) Gray. The death was reported by his son G. Roy Fortune and again the details differ from those on his marriage certificate. His father is given correctly as David Fortune, plumber but his mother is listed as Maggie Fortune m.s. Galloway. 39 His obituary was published in TheGlasgow Herald under the heading ‘A Social Reformer – Death of Mr David Fortune’. The author noted that as well as his many other interests, David Fortune was a ‘keen Burnsian’ and was frequently called upon to deliver ‘The Immortal Memory’. He was a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries and a member of the Greenock Harbour Trust. 40 A memorial service was held on 18 November 1917 in the Newton Place United Free Church in Partick.
Figure 5. Order of Service (On File at GMRC)
His estate was valued at £6913.18s. 6d and in his will,41 he left £100 each to the Scottish Temperance League and the Royal Glasgow Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and £50 each to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and the East Park Home for Infirm Children. He also left bequests to the Sabbath Schools of the Newton Place United Free Church, Partick ‘for the purchase of prizes’ and to the Rose Street Day Industrial School to help with funding the Annual Excursion and Christmas Entertainment for the poorer children. The ‘goods and chattels’ belonging to his second wife were left to her grand-niece Marjorie Hartstone who was then living at 19 Rowallan Gardens.
Two paintings are mentioned in his will; Scotland Yet by Cameron (first name not given) ‘bequeathed to me by the grandson of Robert Burns’ which was left to his elder son and his portrait by Francis Wilson which was to be given to the People`s Palace in Glasgow.
His portrait was offered by his trustees to Glasgow Corporation on 1 February 1918 and was initially declined due to a lack of space at the People`s Palace. However, after further consideration and correspondence from the trustees, the painting was accepted on 31 May 1918. 42
The Artist
Francis Wilson was primarily a painter of landscapes and portraits. He was born in Glasgow in 1876. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art and continued his training in Florence, Paris and Rome. On his return from the Continent, he set up a studio in Glasgow, exhibiting at many of the Scottish societies, including the Royal Scottish Academy and the Glasgow Institute. He also exhibited at the Paris Salon. He was a Member of the Glasgow Art Club and his work is represented in the Glasgow Art Gallery.
References
ancestry.co.uk, Scotland Census 1851
familysearch.org
ancestry.co.uk, Scotland Census 1861
Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1865-66.
The Bailie, No. 1626, 16 December 1903, Mitchell Library, Glasgow
The Bailie, No. 886, 9 October 1889
Fisher, Joe, The Glasgow Encyclopaedia, Mainstream Publishing, 1994. pp 130-134.
Information from Archie Wood, Honorary Archivist, Irish Temperance League. (Sent by email, 2012)
Centennial Temperance Volume. A Memorial of the International Temperance Conference, held in Philadelphia, June 1876. (Published 1877, article number 851 – 852). (Google Books).
The Bailie, No. 886, 9 October 1889
Glasgow Post Office Directories
Scotland’s People, Census 1881
Glasgow Post Office Directories
Scotland in the 19th Century, (ebook), Chapter 6, Section 6.8, Insurance
The Bailie, No. 736, 24 November 1886.
The Bailie, No. 886, 9 October 1889.
The Bailie, No. 736, 24 November 1886
The Glasgow Herald, 25 November 1886 pages 1 and 5.
The Bailie, No. 886, 9 October 1889.
The Bailie, No. 949, 24 December 1890.
ibid
The Bailie, No. 1626, 16 December 1903.
Fisher, Joe, The Glasgow Encyclopaedia, Mainstream Publishing, 1994 pp 130-134.
The Bailie, No. 949, 24 December 1890.
The Glasgow Herald, 11 April 1904, page 9.
The Bailie, No. 1626, 16 December 1903.
The Glasgow Herald, 11 October 1911, page 9.
Scotland`s People, Death Certificate.
ibid
ibid
The Glasgow Herald 12 November 1917.
Scotland’s People, Wills and Testaments, SC36/51/179, pp 228-239, 1918
Glasgow Corporation Minutes, 1 February 1918, C1 3.58, p584; 1 May 1918, p1089; 31 May 1918, C1 3.59, p 1277, Mitchell Library
Appendix 1
David Fortune`s letter of acceptance of the post of Janitor of Anderson`s University and Keeper of the Museum.
26, George Street, 20th September 1867
Sir,
I beg to acknowledge receipt of your communication of yesterday, acquainting me of my appointment by the Managers, as Janitor to Anderson`s University, and Keeper of the Museum connected with that institution. I cordially agree to the terms specified in your letter, and I need scarcely say that my best energies shall be devoted to the fulfilment of the various duties required of me, in a manner which, I hope, shall prove satisfactory to the Managers and the other gentlemen connected with, and interested in the welfare of the University. With thanks for the great favor (sic) bestowed on one, I remain, Sir etc.
(signed) David Fortune
William Ambrose Esq. Secretary, Anderson`s University.
Taken from the Minute Book of Anderson`s University, 1865-1881.
Appendix 2
David Fortune, the President of the Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society, which was a mutual as well as a collecting society, said its business was almost entirely confined to the working classes. Out of a total of 400,000 members, 38,771 were under the age of 5 and 37,731 between the ages of 5 and 10. He disclaimed the suggestion that child insurance encouraged infanticide or neglect. He recommended that only one insurance should be allowed on a child, as with only one certificate, there would be no possibility of insurance beyond the legal amount. He thought all societies insuring children ought to be registered under the Friendly Societies Act, 1875, but did not recommend the registration of every child life insurance as this would be extremely unpopular among the working classes
Janette Mary Fernie Ranken was born on 16 December 1877 to Robert Burt Ranken, Writer to the Signet, and his wife Mary at 8 Learmonth Terrace, Edinburgh. (1) On her birth certificate she is ‘Jeanette’ but on all other documents this is spelt ‘Janette’. She first appears in the 1881 census (2) with father, mother and her brother Thomas and household staff which included a cook, 2 housemaids, a laundress, 3 nurses and a kitchen maid. In the 1891 census (3) she is at Cringletie Manor House, near Eddleston, with her younger brother William, and a governess, housekeeper, nurse, cook, laundry maid and coachman. Her parents are not present and are presumably furth of Scotland. Cringleltie is now a hotel and is a substantial house which was then rented, since it was owned by another family. (4)
Figure 1. Janette Ranken at Lady Margaret Hall .By kind permission of the Principal and Fellows
She attended Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford from 1895 to 1897 and in their records is described as having been educated at home. (5)
From time to time her father, while retaining his main residence in Learmonth Terrace in Edinburgh, rented other substantial houses in the Borders In 1901 Janette’s residence is listed as with her father at Dalswinton house, Dumfries (6) and at 8 Learmonth Terrace, Edinburgh. (7)
Her father died in August 1902 (8) at Dalswinton House and she was named a Trustee in his Will with her older brother Thomas and others. (9) Glimpses of her may be seen in Hilary Spurling’s biography of Ivy Compton Burnett (10) ‘her (Margaret Jourdain’s) closest friend at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford was Janette Ranken, a statuesque beauty from a well-to –do Edinburgh family’. Margaret Jourdain became a writer and a much-admired historian of furniture. She and Janette lived together until 1917. (11) Margaret was friendly with Janette’s brother William and with his friend Ernest Thesiger. They all moved in a literary and aesthetic circle in London. (12)
Janette eventually became an actor. During the 1914-1918 war she worked in censorship and in relief organizations. From 1918 she worked for the Theosophist Society. (13)
Figure 2. From ‘The Sketch‘ 30 May 1917
Janette married the actor Edward Thesiger, a friend of her brother William, on 29 May 1917 at Holy Trinity, Chelsea London. (14) Margaret Jourdain then became Ivy Compton Burnett’s lifelong companion. Janette’s forthcoming marriage was reported in various papers, in The Scotsman (15) and in The Sketch ‘An interesting marriage between the actor Edward Thesinger and the well-known actor Miss Ranken’. (16) This was because he was known to be gay. She was given away by her brother Major Thomas Ranken.
On the subject of her marriage Hilary Spurling comments that ‘Janette whose devotion to Margaret remained unimpaired by a marriage so unexacting on both sides that a great many of Ernest’s friends never suspected him of having a wife at all’. (17) An article in TheStage published after his death quoted him as saying ‘that the marriage was never consummated’. (18)
After her marriage her life is not well documented and she would appear to have lived on private means and to have continued her interest in Theophisists but she did travel to Colombo in 1928 and to Durban in 1936 (19) (20) and she appears to have been unaccompanied. Ernest Thesinger died in 1961. (21)
Janette was always very close to her brother William and when he died in 1941, (22) she distributed his paintings to Art Galleries in the UK and abroad.
She gave two paintings to Glasgow Museums in 1926 both by William Ranken’, an Oil Painting The Garden Door and a watercolour Dreaming Room at 139 Picadilly She died in June 1970, aged 92 years, in Kensington, London. The last years of her life had been marred by illness. She was blind and latterly bedridden. (23)
It was generally agreed that Janette found women more attractive than men (24) but there were three men in her life. Her brother Thomas Ranken was a donor to Glasgow museums in his own right and is reported separately.
The second and most important was her brother the artist William Bruce Ellis Ranken (1881-1942). (25) He was educated at Eton and the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks. (26) It was there that his lifelong friendship with Ernest Thesiger began. His first exhibition in London in 1904 was well received. He became friendly with John Singer Sargent and travelled to America possibly with him. In America his clientele expanded to include the wealthy and famous and he exhibited successfully. He returned to Britain and his studio was at 14 Cheltenham Terrace, London. His subjects included Queen Mary and the Princess Christian. (27) He also painted miniatures for the Queen’s Dolls’ house.
His many portraits include that of Sir John Stirling Maxwell at Pollok House, which is in the Glasgow Museums Collection and hangs in Pollok House. (28) He became quite wealthy and bought an estate Warbrook, in Hampshire.
He died suddenly in 1942 and left about 200 paintings. (29)
Janette was responsible for donating these to Art Galleries around Britain. Eighty-two of his paintings feature in the ArtUK website. (30) Her husband Ernest Thesiger (1879-1961) (31) came from a prominent English family of public and civil servants. (32) His grandfather was the first Lord Chelmsford; his father was Sir Edward Pierson Thesiger a civil servant; an uncle was General Charles Thesiger of the African campaign and a cousin was the explorer, Wilfred Thesiger.
Figure 6. W.E.B. Ranken. Ernest Thesiger. Photo credit: Manchester Art Gallery (www.artuk.org).
After an education at Marlborough College, he proceeded to the Slade School of Art where he met William Ranken. (33) He tried to follow a career as a painter but became an actor though he continued to be an accomplished embroiderer. From 1909 he had success on the London stage and moved in artistic circles which included George Bernard Shaw and John Singer Sargent. He served in France in the First World War but was wounded and honourably discharged. He first appeared in a film in 1916 but it was not until 1930 that his Hollywood career was launched properly. He continued to appear in films until the year before he died. He appeared in over 50 films and among them are some which are well known such as The Bride of Frankenstein and The Man in the White Suit. (34) He was awarded a CBE in 1960 (35) and died in 1961. (36).
References
National Records of Scotland Statutory Births 1877
National Records of Scotland Census 1881
National Records of Scotland Census 1891
Cringletie House Hotel website
Archives of Lady Margaret Hall. By kind permission of the Principal and Fellows
Dalswinton House Dumfries
National Records of Scotland Wills and Confirmations 1902
National Records of Scotland Statutory Deaths 1902
National Records of Scotland Wills and Confirmations 1902
Hilary Spurling. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart: the later life of Ivy Compton-Burnett. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1984
Ibid
Milne, James Lees. Ranken, William Bruce (1881-1961). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2014.
Archives of Lady Margaret Hall. By kind permission of the Principal and Fellows
Ancestry.co.uk
The Scotsman 10 April 1917
The Sketch 30 May 1917
Hilary Spurling. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart: the later life of Ivy Compton-Burnett. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1984
The Stage 20 October 2000
Ancestry.co,uk
ibid
England and Wales National Probate Calendar
Milne, James Lees. Ranken, William Bruce Ellis (1881-1961). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2014.
Hilary Spurling. Secrets of a Woman’s Heart: the later life of Ivy Compton-Burnett. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1984
ibid
National Records of Scotland Statutory Births 1881
A Forgotten Gay Great: mrmhadams.typed.com
ibid
Art.uk
Ancestry.co.uk
Art.uk
Ancestry.co.uk
National Portrait Gallery website
Anderson, Michael. Thesiger, Ernest Frederic Graham (1879-1961) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2014.
Wikipedia
Anderson, Michael. Thesiger, Ernest Frederic Graham (1879-1961) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2014.
In October 1917, Alexander Brownlie Docharty gifted a series of his own paintings to Glasgow Corporation. (Appendix 1)
Fig. 1 In the Woods Early Spring (1914). (1436). (c) Glasgow Museums; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Figure 2. An Autumn Day (1917). (1437). (c) Glasgow Museums; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Figure 3. Winter Sunshine. (1917). (1438). (c) Glasgow Museums; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Figure 4. THe Old Clock Tower, Evening. (1439). (c) Glasgow Museums; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Figure 5. Springtime, Hawthorn Blossom (1917). (1440). (c) Glasgow Museums; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
Alexander Brownlie Docharty was born on 8 October 1862 at 5 McAslin Street, Glasgow. 1 This was in the Townhead area of the city near the present University of Strathclyde. He was the second son of Joseph Docharty a pattern designer and his wife Elizabeth Brownlie. Joseph and Elizabeth had married in Calton, Glasgow on 13 June 1859.2 They went on to have three sons and three daughters. At the 1871 census 3, the family was living in Crossmyloof, Cathcart. Joseph Docharty was described as a ‘designer and coal agent’ born in Bonhill, Dunbartonshire.
Alexander left school aged thirteen to work with his father designing calico prints. At the same time, he studied in the evenings at the Glasgow School of Art under Robert Greenlees and in 1878 at the age of fifteen he had a watercolour, On the Cart Pollockshaws hung in the Glasgow Fine Art Institute. It was priced at three guineas.The painting was submitted from 5 Viewfield Terrace. 4
At the 1881 Census, Alexander was living with his widowed mother, grandfather (a retired grocer) and siblings at Langbank, Renfrewshire. He was described as a ‘landscape painter’. The following year he had a painting Arran Cottages hung in the Royal Academy in London. The painting was sent from 113 West Regent Street, Glasgow. 5 However, his attempts to make a living from painting seem to have been premature and he found employment as a designer with the firm of Inglis & Wakefield who had a print works at Busby.
By 1885 however, he had returned to painting and while living at 11 Prince`s Street, Pollockshields he shared a studio with his uncle James Docharty and his cousin also James Docharty at 134 Bath Street, Glasgow. 6 James Docharty, A.R.S.A., was a well-known painter of landscapes who exhibited extensively at the Royal Scottish Academy from 1864 till his death in 1878. He undoubtedly had a significant influence on his nephew Alexander`s decision to try to make his living as an artist.
On 6 June 1890 at Nether Barr, Ayrshire, Alexander married Catherine McKnight a schoolteacher and daughter of a farmer from Kirkconnell, Dumfries. His occupation was ‘landscape and portrait painter’ and his address ‘Maitland, Dailly’. 7
At the 1891 census he was at Nether Barr with his in-laws. In the same census his wife and their new-born son, Joseph, were at 4 Melville Street, Govan with Alexander`s mother and family.
Alexander was among those Glasgow painters who in 1891 appended their names to a petition requesting that the Corporation of Glasgow buy Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle by J. A. M. Whistler. 8 This painting was duly purchased (for 1000 guineas!) from the artist and is now in Kelvingrove Art Galleries in Glasgow.
In 1894 Alexander went to Paris where he entered the Academie Julien and studied for a time under Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Laurens. On his return to Scotland, he went to live and work at Kilkerran in Ayrshire. He painted mainly in oils and spent about fourteen years in Kilkerran in a cottage owned by Sir James Fergusson. 9 One of the works he produced there was shown at the Venice Biennale in 1903 and purchased by the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs. It hung in the Consulta Palace in Rome. 10
According to the Glasgow Post Office Directory for 1895-96, he still had a business address at 134 Bath Street with a house at Ruglen, Kilkerran, Ayrshire.
In 1901, the family was living at 3 Jane Street, Blythswood Square, Glasgow. Alexander was now an ‘artist (painting) working on his own account’. As well as Joseph there were now two other children, William McK. Docharty, aged 5 and Mary R. Docharty, aged 3. Both children were born in Kirkoswald, Ayrshire. There was also a servant employed who had been born in Dailly. 11
In the early 1900s, Alexander spent his summers in Symington painting at Dankeith, Dundonald and Auchans. 12 He also travelled to the Highlands and the nature of the subjects he depicted is indicated in the titles of a few of his more outstanding works including, Winter in Glenfinlas (1902), Ben Venue (1905) and Lochiel`s Country which was shown at the Royal Academy, London and was purchased by Glasgow Corporation. In 1907, his September, Glen Falloch was exhibited at the Glasgow Institute. It was purchased by Archibald Watson Finlayson of Merchiston (qv) and presented to Glasgow Corporation.13 In 1916 his painting Glen Morriston was sold for 320 guineas by J. and R. Edmiston.
Alexander travelled and painted in Europe especially in Holland and made trips to Donegal in Ireland. In 1903 he went to Paris and then to Italy via the Riviera and on to Naples, Rome, Florence visiting Venice several times. One of his landscapes, Glenfinlas, was hung in the St. Louis International Exhibition of 1904. This may have come about because an uncle, Alexander Brownlie, had emigrated to the USA and in 1904-5 was living at 338 Bloomfield Avenue, Montclair, NJ. He was a member of a flourishing artistic community in the town. (An article in the Montclair Times describes a walking tour of the town which pointed out the homes of turn-of-the-century artists. This included the home of Alexander Brownlie). 14
Alexander Brownlie Docharty was a member of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts and served on the Council of the Institute. In addition, he was president of the Glasgow Art Club from 1911 to 1913 and was a Member of Council thereafter.
In 1915, the Balloch Estate on Loch Lomondside, was sold to Glasgow Corporation and on 2 October 1916, Alexander wrote to the Lord Provost with his offer to ‘paint and present several of the more outstanding views (autumnal and spring) of the park and its surroundings’. (Appendix 1) The five paintings produced were those gifted to the Corporation in 1917. It seems that the first of these had been painted before the acquisition of the estate at Balloch and this may have given him the idea for the remainder.
On 26 July 1926, age 63, Alexander sailed on the Caledonia from Glasgow to New York. He was accompanied by his daughter May Rankine Docharty . They arrived back in Glasgow from New York via Moville in Northern Ireland on 10 October having travelled first class on the California. 15
By 1940 he was living with his daughter at 20 Hyndland Road, Hillhead. 16 He died there on the 12 November 1940 aged 78. 17 However, the death notice in the Glasgow Herald states that he died at 6 Montague Terrace. 18 He was buried in Cathcart Cemetery on 14 November 1940. (His uncle, James Docharty, was also buried there). His wife pre-deceased him and he was survived by a son and daughter. An obituary was published in the Glasgow Herald19 and his death was also reported in an article in The Scotsman which noted that ‘he took a deep interest in religious work and served as an elder of Glasgow Cathedral’. 20
Figure 6. From the Glasgow Herald 13 November 1940.
Alexander Brownlie Docharty exhibited widely for almost 60 years including at the Royal Academy (12 works), the Royal Scottish Academy (19) 21, the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolour (5) and the Glasgow Institute (155) 22 as well as at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, the Manchester City Art Gallery and the New English Art Club. His work attracted praise and criticism from various sources. Of his landscapes Caw commented,
‘Painted with gusto, but not without refinement, in frank, fresh and harmonious colour, and good in drawing and design, Brownlie Docharty`s landscapes preserve the aroma of a sincere, if unimpassioned, love of the simple and everyday aspects of Nature and awakened pleasant memories of the country’.23
Harris and Halsby note that, ‘(He) worked mainly in oil but his watercolours can be fine with good composition and sensitive colour’. 24The Scotsman reported on four of his paintings exhibited at the Glasgow Art Club Show of 1899; ‘Mr. Brownlie Docharty`s works have always shown him to be an artist in evident sympathy with the tenderer aspects of nature which disclose themselves in woodland and stream, but his sojourn to Holland has added both sweetness and strength to his brush,…. 25
Again in 1912, the same paper reported; ‘One of the most striking landscapes in the gallery is the Falls of Garry by Mr. A. Brownlie Docharty. ……….the rocks are painted with a solidity which would have pleased Ruskin; the foaming water has been carefully studied, and with a dainty brush, the artist has rendered the summer greens of the trees and the glow of the sky’. 26
Alexander Brownlie Docharty`s two surviving children each had their own claim to fame. His son, William McKnight Docharty served with the King`s Liverpool Regiment during World War I and achieved the rank of Captain. He was twice wounded in action and was awarded the Military Cross. 27 He became a keen hillwalker and compiled and published in 1954, a list of the 900 highest mountains in Britain. He was also the second person to complete in 1960 the ascents of all 220 ‘Corbetts’ i.e. Scottish mountains between 2500 and 2999 feet in height. William McKnight Docharty died on 14 July 1968 aged 72. 28
May Brownlie Docharty, who died in 1972, was a gifted player and teacher of contract bridge. She owned and managed the Western Bridge Club in Glasgow which she formed after her father`s death. 29
References
Scotland`s People , Birth Certificate
Scotland’s People, Marriage Certificate
Scotland’s People, Census 1871
Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts Exhibitions Catalogues 1877-83. (Mitchell Library).
Catalogues of the Royal Academy Exhibitions, 1880-89, W. Clowes and Sons., Ltd.
Glasgow Corporation Minutes, 4 October 1916. C1 3.57, p2002.
There was submitted a letter, of date 2nd instant, from Mr. A. Brownlie Docharty, 3, Jane Street, Blythswood Square, to the Lord Provost, in which he states that the value and beauty of Loch Lomond Park, recently acquired by the Corporation, and its immediate surroundings, might be brought home to many of our working-classes and industrial citizens, if these were depicted on canvas, and, for this purpose, he is willing to paint and present several of the more outstanding views (autumnal and spring) of the park and its surroundings on condition that the pictures be housed together in the People`s Palace, in Glasgow Green, where they would be most likely to come under the notice of the citizens.
The members of the committee unanimously resolved to record their high appreciation of Mr. Docharty`s generous offer, and to accept the same and to award to him, on behalf of the citizens, their most cordial thanks for this handsome gift. It was also agreed that it be remitted to the Convener, Sub-convener, and Councillor Barrie to confer with Mr. Docharty as to the necessary arrangements for the work being executed and to adjust any details with reference thereto.
The gift was accepted by the full committee of the Corporation at their meeting of 18.10.17. “The paintings would, in accordance with the desire of the artist, be housed in the Peoples` Palace in Glasgow Green”.
The Scotsman of October 17 1917, page 5, has the following article, presumably written when the paintings were gifted to the corporation;
“ARTIST`S GENEROUS OFFER TO GLASGOW:- Mr. A. Brownlie Docharty, a well-known landscape artist, has offered to paint for the Glasgow Corporation, several of the more outstanding views of the Loch Lomond Park and its surroundings, on condition that the pictures are placed together in the People`s Palace. In his letter to the Lord Provost, Mr. Docharty suggested that the value and the beauty of Loch Lomond Park might be brought home to the working classes if depicted on canvas. The Parks Committee of the Corporation have recorded their high appreciation of Mr. Docharty`s generous offer and have agreed to accept the gift”.
In 1916 Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (RBCG), adventurer, politician and writer, donated a portrait of his wife Gabriella by John Lavery to Glasgow Museums.
Starting this research, I rather assumed that following the surname of the donor back in time would present no more than the usual difficulties and similarly with his wife. However that that was not the case as Cunninghame Graham’s surname was not a consistent feature of his ancestry. Additionally his wife’s name was an assumed one, entirely different from her birth name.
RBCG’s great-great-great-grandfather was Nicol Graham, the son of Robert Graham of Gartmore and his wife Isobel Buntine, who was the daughter of Nicol Buntine, Laird of Ardoch. Unfortunately there are no primary sources that confirm this however I’m reasonably confident that this marriage is the source of the Bontine part of RBCG’s surname. Hopefully what follows will support that.
Figure 2. Gartmore House in 2oo8. Public Domain (Jonathan Ng).
Nicol Graham married Margaret Cunninghame, eldest daughter of the Earl of Glencairn in 1732.[1] This marriage is the source of the Cunninghame element of RBCG’s surname. They had four sons; the eldest William, baptized in 1733, [2] the second, Robert, born circa 1735,[3] being RBCG’s great-great-grandfather. William, the heir presumptive to Gartmore, and Robert both matriculated at Glasgow University in 1749.[4]
In his entry in the matriculation records William is described as being an advocate in 1756, although I have been unable to find any evidence to support a law degree from Glasgow. In James Boswell’s London Journal 1762-1763, reprinted in the Penguin Classics series in 2010, it is recorded in the notes that he met William on the 18th June 1763 and again in Lausanne, Switzerland on the 21st December 1764, this latter encounter causing Boswell to comment that it pleased him to see that ‘an Advocate may be made a fine fellow’.[5] In 1767 William married Margaret Porterfield, the daughter of Dr. Porterfield of Edinburgh.[6]
In the meantime Robert had decided his fortunes lay in Jamaica, going there it seems in 1752 at the age of 17. His father had a cousin there who was Clerk of the Court in Kingston therefore it’s probable he was the catalyst for Robert leaving Scotland. As it happens the cousin’s name was Bontein, the relationship no doubt as a consequence of the marriage of Nicol Graham and Isobel Buntin.
By 1753 he was appointed Receiver-General of Taxes, deputed by Thomas Graham (a relative?), a previous holder of the office. In August of that year he wrote to his mother essentially seeking news from home, in particular asking after his sister Henrietta.[7] He suffered all the usual sicknesses that newcomers to the Caribbean colonies did, overcoming them due to the care of ‘very friendly ladys, the power ofmedicine and the strength of his constitution.’ He wrote two letters to his mother in 1757, the first telling her of his health problems, the second stating that he was again fit and well.[8]
As he gained experience in his tax role he became confidant enough to write to Sir Alexander Grant, a London Parliamentarian who previously had business interests in Jamaica and had advised the Board of Trade on West Indian commerce,[9] criticising the methods employed in the collection of taxes and stating that it was a hindrance to trade. His first personal commercial venture was to invest ‘a small sum’ in a privateer whose sole purpose seems to have been capturing French ships for prize money.[10]
His relatively peaceful existence however was severely disrupted by a slave revolt in 1760. The ringleader was Tacky an Obeah man who claimed occult powers that would protect the rebelling slaves. (Obeah can be broadly defined as anything used, or intended to be used by anyone pretending to be possessed of any occult or supernatural power.)[11]
As can no doubt be imagined the revolt was put down brutally and without mercy, any captured rebelling slave being dealt with by ‘Burning, Hanging and Gibetting.’ The slaves set up a negress called Cabeah as queen of Kingston with robes and a crown. In due course she was caught and executed. Tacky was shot and killed during a chase by an army lieutenant, with two other ringleaders Kingston and Fortune being up hung up in chains alive, Fortune taking seven days to die, Kingston nine days. He reported these events to his father in a very matter of fact way, as if he was describing how to cure belly aches and fevers.[12]
At the end of 1760 a law was passed outlawing Obeah to prevent further slave revolts. Another view of this might be that Act in reality was to protect the concept of the slavery of Africans and to deny the slave population’s African origins.[13]
Robert remained in Jamaica until 1770 continuing with his public duty as Receiver- General until 1764. In the following year he was elected to the National Assembly for the district of St. David’s remaining in that position until 1768.[14] He was also the owner of two sugar plantations on the island: Roaring River and Lucky Hill, his biographical notes in the Glasgow University Story website stating he owned fifty-one slaves of the latter plantation valued at £3,604.[15] In 2018 Stephen Mullen and Simon Newman wrote a report for Glasgow University, its theme being how the University benefited financially from slavery. In it Robert Graham features significantly, including reference to his fathering illegitimate children writing to a friend that he had ‘rather too great a latitude to a dissipated train of whoring, the consequence of which [is] I now dayly see before me a motley variegated race of different complexions’.[16]
In 1757 the Bontine estate of Ardoch was entailed to him by kinsman Nicol Bontine, the entail requiring him to assume the name of Bontine.[17] In 1764 on the death of Bontine he duly became the Laird of Ardoch.[18] Some sources say that Bontine’s death occurred around 1767-68 although I can find no primary source to confirm that.
In 1764 in Jamaica Robert Graham married Anne Taylor, daughter of Patrick Taylor and sister of Simon Taylor,[19] a wealthy merchant who owned several plantations and at the time of his death in 1813 owned 2228 slaves.[20]
Robert and Anne had six children two of whom were born in Jamaica, the others in Scotland. Their first was Margaret Jane who was born in Kingston in 1765 [21] and died the same year. 1766 saw the birth of their second, also Margaret,[22] who in due course travelled back to Scotland with them in 1770.[23] She was a beneficiary of her uncle Simon Taylor’s will in 1813 inheriting £10,000.[24]
Their Scottish born children were John, born and died in 1773, William Cunninghame, born in 1775 and RBCG’s great grandfather, Ann Susannah, born 1776, died 1778 and Nicol, born in 1778,[25] who became a soldier in the Austrian army rising to the rank of Maréchal de Camp.[26]
Robert and Anne on returning to Britain had initially lived in London for a short period but by late 1772 the family were living in Ardoch House,[27] his father Nicol and his elder brother William and family living at Gartmore.
William had been in poor health for some time and in 1774 had gone to Lisbon with his wife hoping that would help him. Unfortunately no improvement occurred and he died there later that year. As his three children were all girls that meant Robert was the next male heir of his father. When his father died in 1775 Robert became Laird of Gartmore in addition to Ardoch. [28] He and his family moved to Gartmore House sometime during 1776.[29]
From that time on he worked to improve his estates. He also appears to have supported his brother’s widow financially, paying for their three girls, education. In 1779 he took a house in Edinburgh to facilitate the education of his own children. Funds were also provided for the education of his illegitimate ‘offspring’ in Jamaica. In 1784 he became a burgess and guild brother of Edinburgh.[30]
Since his return to Scotland he had not engaged in any commercial activity however in 1778 he gave a Captain Stephenson £250 to help fit out a ship to be used in the Jamaica trade.[31]
Despite periods of ill health (gout) life at this point seemed to be very satisfactory, his interest in politics and literary matters growing, however that was to change with the death of his wife Anne circa 1781. Her cause of death has not been established however RBCG refers to periods of illness from when she settled in Scotland. He also from time to time refers to her as Robert’s creole wife however no significant evidence is produced in his book to support that.[32] Robert subsequently married Elizabeth Buchanan Hamilton circa 1786 which was short lived, ending by separation in 1789.[33]
His interests in politics and literary matters had been developing for some time. He became MP for Stirlingshire from 1794 to 1796 with a keen interest in political reform. He promoted a bill of rights during his tenure which although unsuccessful could be said to foreshadow the Reform Bill of 1832. Prior to that he had been rector of Glasgow University from 1785 to 1787.[34]
He also wrote poetry, his main claim to fame lying with his lyrical poem ‘If doughtydeeds my lady please’. When it was written is not clear, probably sometime between 1780 and 1790, but it was included in Palgrave’s Golden Treasury of 1875 and in 1866 Arthur Sullivan put it to music and dedicated it to a Mrs. Scott Russell, the mother of Rachel Scott Russell with whom he had or hoped for, a romantic attachment, much to her mother’s displeasure.[35]
Thereafter Graham was known as ‘Doughty Deeds’, RBCG’s biography of him bearing that title.
In 1796 he inherited the estate of Finlaystone on the death of the last Earl of Glencairn, John Cunninghame, and assumed the name Cunninghame, thereafter known as Robert Cunninghame Graham. He died in 1797 at Gartmore, son William inheriting.[36]
At the age of twelve William matriculated at Glasgow University in 1787,[37] under the tutelage of family friend Professor William Richardson, who holidayed often at a cottage on the Gartmore estate.[38] Apparently destined to run the family estates rather than be involved in business or commerce he then went on to study French and German in Neuchatel in Switzerland from around 1790 until late 1793.[39]
He married twice, first to Anne Dickson in 1798 [40] and they had five children between 1799 and 1809, the first born being Robert Cunninghame his eventual heir and grandfather of RBCG. The others were: Anna (1802), William John (1803), Douglas (1805) and Charlotte Maria Elizabeth (1809).[41]
His second marriage, in 1816, was to Janet Bogle nee Hunter.[42] They had four children as follows: Thomas Dunlop Douglas (1817), Alexander Spiers (1818), Susan Jane (1820) and Margaret Matilda (1821).
Like his father he became involved in politics being MP for Dunbartonshire from June 1796 to May 1797, winning his seat by eleven votes to three, his father Robert being the other candidate. He apparently had committed to support the then government but subsequently ‘now found he was unable in conscience to do so,’ hence the short duration of his political career.[43]
If he really was destined to run the family estates then what he achieved was the exact opposite. He was a gambler, not a very good one as he lost a fortune, and ultimately a swindler. He was forced to leave the country in 1828 to avoid his creditors, having squandered the family art collection through his gambling plus compromising the financial stability of his estates. By 1832 he was living in Florence with his wife Janet and their two daughters.
He was something of a mechanical genius developing a machine with which he could very accurately make copies of rare and famous engravings, thereby earning a living by selling these copies. The machine however was in due course used to produce false letters of credit of the bank Glyn, Halifax, Mills and Co.
There were fourteen individuals involved the main instigator of the fraud being the Marquis de Bourbel. They initially obtained a genuine letter of credit from the bank, from a strong box which Cunninghame Graham’s stepson Allan George Bogle had control of, thus seeing the approval signatories required.[44] They were then able to procure the same paper used by the bank, create a number of letters of credit and then forge the bank signatures using Cunninghame Graham’s machine to ‘trace’ them on to the false documents. By this means the conspirators were able to defraud banks in Italy, France, Belgium and elsewhere of £10,700 in six days. That sum today would, on RPI changes alone, be worth around £1million.[45]
However, as always seems to happen, greed overcame caution with one of the fraudsters being arrested on the Ostend ferry whilst trying to flee, the rest when learning of his fate scattered. An article in the Times newspaper goes into great detail with regards to the scheme with all fourteen conspirators being named, including William, his son Alexander and his stepson Allan Bogle. None of the main players in the fraud appear to have suffered any adverse consequences with the exception being the Graham family. Allan Bogle sued the writer of the article which he claimed defamed him. He was eventually awarded one farthing damages and ordered to pay his own legal expenses. Alexander lived under an assumed name in France and died there within the year at the age of twenty three. William was banished from Tuscany, ending up in London where he died in 1845.[46]
He was succeeded by his son Robert Cunninghame Cunninghame Graham. He had married Frances Laura Speirs in 1824 in the parish of Port of Monteith,[47] she being the daughter of Archibald Speirs, son of tobacco lord Alexander Speirs and his wife Mary Buchanan. They had nine children between 1826 and 1844, born in a variety of places. His eldest son and heir William Cunninghame Bontine was born in Leamington, Warwickshire in 1825 as was brother Douglas Alexander in 1844. Four were born at the family estate of Finlaystone between 1826 and 1834, a son and a daughter were born in Edinburgh in 1838 and 1839 respectively, and one daughter was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1842.[48] In the 1851 census he is recorded as a visitor to the Speirs family in the parish of St. Ninians in the county of Stirling.[49]
Presumably the Finlaystone births over eight years are an indication of his involvement with the management of his estates, what he was doing in the other localities, in particular Germany, has not been established. He was Vice-Lieutenant of the county of Dunbartonshire and Deputy Lieutenant of the counties of Renfrew and Stirling.
Robert died in 1863 at Castlenaw House, Mortlake, in Surrey, his son William being his sole executer. Also in 1863 his son William was forced to sell of the Finlaystone estate to pay off outstanding debt, presumably emanating from his grandfather’s gambling activities.[50] In the year of Robert’s death his personal estate was valued at £20,358,[51] however in 1879 a second confirmation took place which identified further inventory valued at £134,276. On this occasion there was a reference to William’s curator bonis, a legal representative who looks after an individual’s affairs because of some physical or mental incapacity. The reason for that will become clear in due course.[52]
William Cunninghame Bontine Graham was to spend most of his life in the military. Prior to that however he attended Trinity College, Cambridge in 1842. What he studied has not been established.[53] In 1845 he became an ensign in the 15th Regiment of Foot (Scots Greys) by purchase,[54] a year later becoming a Cornet in the same regiment, again by purchase.[55] At that time he was serving in Ireland remaining there for circa five years.[56]
He married Anne Elizabeth Elphinstone Fleeming, daughter of the late Admiral Sir Charles Elphinstone Fleeming, in June 1851.[57] They had three sons, the eldest being Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (RBCG), born at Cadogan Place, London in 1852.[58] The second son was Charles Elphinstone Fleeming Cunningham Graham, who enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1873 at the age of nineteen. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1877 and served until 1888.[59] He was awarded the M.V.O. and in 1908 became Groom in Waiting to the King.[60] In 1910 he became Groom of the Bedchamber.[61] The youngest son Malise Archibald Cunninghame Grahame became a minister of religion dying aged twenty five in 1885.[62]
William’s final promotion came in 1855 when he was made a major in the Prince of Wales Renfrew Regiment of Militia.[63] He remained at that rank until 1862 when he resigned his commission.[64] In the following year he became Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Stirling on the death of his father.[65]
From the late 1850s he began to suffer mental health issues. Whilst in Ireland with his regiment he had been attacked in Waterford and had suffered a severe head injury, letters written by his wife between 1857 and 1866 making reference to his problems and suggesting that they arose from this attack.[66] By 1876 it was of such concern that there was a legal notice in the Edinburgh Gazette requiring ‘in theQueen’s name’ the Lord President of the Court of Session to summon William to attend the Parliament House in Edinburgh to determine his sanity.[67] Clearly at some time after a curator bonis was appointed to look after his affairs hence the comment in the 1879 probate statement.
For the rest of his life William continued to have significant mental health problems. He died in 1883 at Eccles House in Penpont, Dumfriesshire, cause of death given as ‘Insanity – about 19 years.’ [68]
RBCG’s life by any measure became an incredible journey starting essentially as a cowboy, then general adventurer, a politician holding, for the time and considering his lineage, very socialist ideas, and a prolific writer.
His schooling began at Hillhouse in Leamington Spa from 1863 to 1865 followed by two years at Harrow. His education continued in London and Brussels before he went to the Argentine in 1869/70.[69]
Why the Argentine? The answer probably lies with his mother Anne Elizabeth who was half Spanish, her mother being Dona Catalina Paulina Alessandro de Jiminez who married her father in Cadiz in 1816. She was apparently aged 16, he was 42 years old. Another connection to South America may have been that RBCG’s mother had been born on board her father’s flagship HMS Barnham in 1828, whilst it was off-shore from Venezuela. At any rate he was brought up heavily influenced by his Spanish grandmother, speaking Spanish fluently from a very early age, and in general having, for the time, an unconventional upbringing.
One other, perhaps more pressing reason, was that his father’s illness had resulted in significant debts for the family, hence, as the eldest son, he would feel an obligation to deal with those debts. It was during this time in the Argentine where he rode with gauchos, dealt in cattle and horses, for which he had an abiding passion, that he became known as Don Roberto. Unfortunately whatever he did in South America had no effect on the debt situation at home and only served to create debt of his own.[70] One clear benefit however was his experiences there were the basis of a number stories he wrote in later life detailing the turbulent every-day life with the gauchos and the physical expansiveness of their country. He returned to Britain around 1877 however he was to go back to South America in later life on a number of occasions, one specific stay was in Uruguay where he purchased horses for the British army during World War I.
He lived in Paris for a while which is where he met his future wife Gabriela de la Balmondiere, apparently half French, half Chilean, marrying her there around 1878. However that was an entirely assumed name, more of which later.
His political career began in the General Election of 1885 when he stood as a Liberal candidate in North-West Lanarkshire. He lost to his Conservative opponent John Baird by over a thousand votes. In July of the following year, again as a Liberal, he stood against the same opponent and won by 332 votes. However he clearly identified as a radical socialist throughout his political career being described as the first socialist elected to parliament. He condemned a whole series of injustices of the society of the day. He was anti-imperialism, anti-racism, against child labour and was for abolishing the House of Lords.. He was also vigorously against the profiteering he saw in property and industry which was to the detriment of the people making the profit, that is, the workforce. Considering his ancestry and family background these were astonishing views to have held but by all accounts not out of character.[71]
His maiden speech in the House of Commons included the following words:
‘ the society in which one man works and enjoys the fruit – the society in which capital and luxury make Heaven for thirty thousand and a Hell for thirty million, that society…. with its want and destitution, its degradation, its prostitution and its glaring social inequalities – the society we call London….’
In 1887 the threat of disorder was such that demonstrations were forbidden. That did not stop a rally in Trafalgar Square against unemployment which ended in a riot. Among the leaders of the rally were RBCG and fellow socialist John Burns. Police and the army were in attendance which resulted in violence with over seventy people seriously injured and over four hundred arrests. RBCG and Burns were both severely beaten, arrested and eventually each sentenced to six weeks in Pentonville jail.[72]
Throughout his time in Parliament (until 1892) he continued to espouse his socialist views clearly and emphatically. On one occasion at the end of his speech he said:
‘To sum up the position briefly. Failure of civilisation to humanise; failure of commercialism to procure a subsistence; failure of religion to console; failure of our parliament to intervene; failure of individual effort to help; failure of our whole social system.’
This led to his expulsion from the House of Commons.[73]
Around 1888 he left the Liberal party and along with Keir Hardy formed the Scottish Labour party, RBCG becoming its first president, Hardy its first secretary general. In 1892 they both stood for election as party candidates, Hardy was successful in West Ham, London however RBCG lost in the Camlachie constituency in Glasgow, thus ending his parliamentary career.
That setback did not change his political views, which even led him to criticise Labour MPs for not presenting a radical challenge to the government. He had always advocated home rule for Scotland becoming president of the Scottish Home Rule Association and in 1928 president of the newly formed National Party of Scotland. Six years later the Scottish National Party was created when the National Party joined with the Scottish Party, RBCG being appointed president of the new organisation.[74]
Being freed of his formal involvement with politics allowed him and his wife to travel more often. He also wrote prolifically about his travels, his politics and his concerns about the disappearance of local cultures and ways of life he had experienced in his travels. He had a large number of friends and acquaintances from all walks of life, including George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, artist John Lavery who painted portraits of him and his wife, Whistler, Epstein and Augustus John. From his early visits to South America his writings refer to gauchos he befriended in particular Exaltacion Medina and Raimundo Barragan. He had also become friendly with the author Joseph Conrad from about 1897 with the writer in a letter to RBCG commenting on his wide experiences and the people he had met by saying:
‘What don’t you know? From the outside of a sail to the inside of a prison!’
In 1900 due to the level of debt, including death duties, he was forced to sell his Gartmore estate to Sir Charles Cayzer, a cause of great disappointment and sorrow to him.[75]
Figure 5. Gabriela photographed in 1890 by Frederick Hollyer. Victoria and Albert Museum.
More was to follow with the death of his wife in 1906 in France. Her true name was Carrie or Caroline Horsefall born in 1858 to a Yorkshire surgeon. Why she chose her assumed name is not clear however it seems she was rebelling against her strict upbringing and took herself to Paris which may have been the reason. Another, perhaps the more plausible, is that she assumed her chosen name on her marriage to RBCG to be more acceptable to his social circle. Presumably close family members knew of the deception but that is not clear.
She was an accomplished writer contributing to The Yellow Book and writing, amongst others a life of St Teresa of Avila, had artistic and musical skills, and wrote poetry.[76]
She died on the 8th September at Hendaye in France, her name registered as Gabriela Chideock (where did that come from?) Cunninghame Grahame.[77] As she had wished she was interred in the Inchmahome Priory on the Lake of Menteith.[78]
RBCG’s writings covered over thirty books which included 200 short stories and sketches. He also wrote Doughty Deeds a history of his great great grandfather Robert Cunninghame Graham. As may be expected during his life-time he had a very good reputation as a writer, his writings often being full of exotic individuals and adventure in faraway places. That has not fared very well since his death. A number of his stories also indicated the sadness he felt about the changes that occurred in some of the places he had visited such as the Pampas. His political reputation was also well established, particularly in the labour and Scottish Independence movements although with his privileged background it may have seemed strange but welcome to some and perhaps traitorous, to his class, to others. Again as for his writings his political activity is not well remembered today.
Figure 5. John Lavery (1856-1941). Don Pedro on Pampa.
He had one other passion and that was horses. He owned several throughout his life but his favourite was Pampa, an Argentinian stallion he saw pulling a tram-car in Glasgow. He bought it from the tram company and rode it at every opportunity until it died in 1911.
When he went to buy horses for the British Army in Uruguay during the Great War he had two opposing emotions. He was happy to be riding again in the Pampas, but was saddened to think of their likely fate in Flanders. He wrote a book about his experience in Uruguay entitled ‘Bopicua’. The book ends with the words, to the horses, ‘eat well there is no grass like that of La Pileta , to where you go across the sea. The grass in Europe all must smell of blood’.[79]
His made one last trip to Argentina in 1936, dying there in the Plaza Hotel in Buenos Aries on the 20 March. He lay in state in the Casa del Teatro his strong affinity with the country being recognised by the attendance of the Argentinian President at his funeral. His body was subsequently returned home and buried beside his wife in the Inchmahome Priory.[80] The last of the family estates, Ardoch, was inherited by his brother Charles’ son Angus.[81]
[1] Marriages. (OPR) Scotland. Edinburgh. 23 April 1732. GRAHAME, Nicol and CUNNINGHAME, Margaret. 685/1 470 74. www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
[16] University of Glasgow. Slavery, Abolition and the University of Glasgow, report, and recommendations of the University of Glasgow History of Slavery Steering Committee.https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_607547_smxx.pdf
[17] Shaw, Samuel (1784). An Accurate Alphabetical Index of the Registered Entails in Scotland. Edinburgh. p. 14. https://books.google.co.uk/books AND Graham, op.cit. p. 76.
[41] Births (OPR) Scotland. Port of Menteith. 14 September 1799. GRAHAM, Robert + Anna + William John + Douglas + Charlotte Maria Elizabeth. 388/ 10 385. www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
[47] Marriages (OPR) Scotland. Port of Monteith 20 June 1824. BUNTIN, Robert Cunninghame and SPEIRS, Frances Laura. 388/ 20 120. www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk
[57] Marriage Announcements. (1851) Morning Post London. 14 June. BONTINE, William Cunninghame and Fleeming, Anne Elizabeth Elphinstone. p. 8. https://www.nls.uk/
[62] Testamentary Records. England. 19 January 1886. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, Malise Archibald. England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1995. https://www.ancestry.co.uk
[81] Testamentary Records. Scotland. 17 July 1936. Cunninghame Grahame, Robert Bontine. Scottish National Probate Index (Calendar of Confirmations and Inventories), 1876-1936. p. G63. https://www.ancestry.co.uk
On 21 November 1944, an oil painting of Provost Robert Donald by an unknown artist was presented to Glasgow Corporation by Mr T. W. Donald, 172 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow. C.2.
(Thomas Walter Donald was the 3x great grandnephew of Robert Donald).
There was submitted a letter from Mr T.W. Donald, Writer, 172 St. Vincent Street, offering to present to the Corporation a portrait of Robert Donald, who was provost of Glasgow from 1776 to 1777, and the committee, after hearing a report from the Director, agreed that the gift be accepted and that a letter of thanks be sent to the donor.1
Thomas Walter Donald was born on 5 January 1878 at The Baths, Helensburgh. (This was an extension of the Baths’ Hotel – later the Queen`s Hotel – built for Henry Bell who ferried customers from Glasgow in his steamship TheComet to the hotel). His parents were Ellen Mary Jane Brown and Colin Dunlop Donald jr., a writer in the family firm of McGrigor, Donald & Co., (later C.D. Donald & Sons) of 172 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow. Colin`s address at the time was North Cottage, Wemyss Bay. Colin and Ellen had married on 16 January 1877 in Helensburgh and Thomas was their first child. 2 Thomas` brother, Colin Dunlop Donald was born on 11 September 1879. 3
Figure 2. Colin Dunlop Donald jr. By kind permission of Frank and Colin Donald.
Figure 3. Ellen Mary Jane Donald. By kind permission of Frank and Colin Donald.
In the 1881 census, the family was at 72 East Clyde Street, Helensburgh.4 This was the home of Thomas`s great grandfather Walter Buchanan of Shandon who had been an MP for Glasgow between 1857 and 1865. A third brother, William Frances Maxwell Donald (Frank) was born on 3 June 1881, and a sister Helen (Nelly) on 16 July 1882. Thomas later wrote a memoir of his childhood in Helensburgh recalling some of his earliest memories.5
Thomas`s mother died suddenly of a chill on 20 August 1882 shortly after the birth of her daughter. A memorial window to her was placed in St. Michaels`s Church in Helensburgh in 1889. 6
Figure 4. Memorial Window to Ellen Mary Jane Brown (Donald) (Photographs by the author)
In the year following Ellen Donald’s death, the family left Helensburgh and moved to Glasgow, first to Westbourne Gardens where they remained for a year, and then to 14 Huntly Gardens, Hillhead. 7,8
Figure 5. Four Siblings (about 1887?) By kind permission of Frank and Colin Donald.
The boys were later sent to boarding schools in England. In the 1891 Census, Thomas, aged 13, was a pupil at Bilton Grange School in Warwickshire. 9 In January of the following year he entered Rugby School boarding at Michell House. At Rugby he seems to have kept a low profile as there is no record of him participating in any of the school teams or winning any major prizes. 10 He left in the summer of 1895 to go to Glasgow University.
(His two younger brothers also attended Rugby School. Both boarded at Mitchell; Colin Dunlop Donald from 1893-1895 and William Francis Maxwell Donald from 1895-1898.11 William later studied engineering at Glasgow University).
Figure 6. The Donald Family on holiday at the Coul Estate, Auchterarder in 1892. It was here that Thomas shot his first rabbit! Thomas is in the middle of the back row. By kind permission of Frank and Colin Donald.
Thomas`s father, Colin Dunlop Donald III wrote articles on archaeology and a history of The Board of Green Cloth which provided ‘a social history of Glasgow at the turn of the nineteenth century’. He was Hon. Secretary of the Regality Club which published books on the buildings of Glasgow. These were illustrated by etchings by D. Y. Cameron who used to call at 14 Huntly Gardens with the proofs.12 (These etchings were left to Thomas and subsequently passed to his grandson Frank Donald who donated them to Glasgow. These are catalogued as PR.2004.5).
When their father died suddenly (of a chill) in 1895, Thomas`s unmarried uncle Thomas F. Donald (TFD) took over the care of the four orphans.
(Thomas F. Donald was an accountant and stockbroker. As a young apprentice his firm had been engaged by one of the Directors of the City of Glasgow Bank to see if he had any defence after the bank failed in 1878. TFD saw the balance sheet which had been presented to a meeting of the board, and when he examined the same balance sheet afterwards it had fictitious amendments in red ink! TFD was secretary of the Royal Northern Yacht Club in Rhu for 24 years and was presented with 200 guineas when he retired in 1910. He was also a donor to Glasgow gifting The Clyde from Dalnottar by John Knox in 1921. This is displayed in the Kelvingrove Art Galleries and Museum).
Figure 7. Thomas F. Donald By kind permission of Frank and Colin Donald.
At university Thomas Walter Donald continued the study of Latin and Greek which he had begun at school. He also attended classes in Mathematics, English, Logic and Roman Law for fees of £5.5.0 per year. He graduated MA on 3 November 1898. Thereafter, he began a course leading to the degree of LLB. He gained a ‘Highly Distinguished’ award in History in 1898-99. In 1899-1900 he studied Scots Law under Professor Alexander Moody Stuart and was awarded a prize for ‘Eminence in Class Examinations’. He matriculated as ‘Thomas Walter Donald MA’ for session 1900-1901 taking classes in Jurisprudence, and Constitutional Law and History. In the latter class he was awarded first prize and he graduated LLB in 1901.13
Figure 8. Page from Matriculation Album 1901-2. Glasgow University Records.
In the 1901 Census, Thomas was a ‘lawyer`s apprentice’, aged 23, living with his uncle, Thomas F. Donald, 47, at 14 Huntly Gardens, Glasgow. His brothers, Colin aged 21 and William, 19, were also living there.14
After serving an apprenticeship with the Glasgow legal firm of Maclay, Murray and Spens, Thomas was admitted a solicitor in 1902.
On 20 September 1902, Thomas married Sarah Gertrude Newstead, at St. Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square, Westminster, London.15 She was 28, the daughter of a retired surgeon from Bristol. The couple moved to Glasgow to a flat at 8 Clarence Drive, Hillhead, where their son Colin George Walter Donald was born on 7July 1904. 16,17 Soon after the birth they moved to Grendon Lodge in Helensburgh. 18 It was here that their daughters Monica Mary Louise (1910) and Barbara Gertrude (1912) were born.19 Apparently, the children later became close friends of the Blackie children who lived in the ‘Hill House’. Barbara later reported that ‘while the window seats in the Hill House were great fun, the famous Charles Rennie Mackintosh chairs were terribly uncomfortable’. 20
About 1905, Thomas joined McGrigor, Donald and Co., Glasgow a law firm which had been part founded by his great-grandfather, Colin Dunlop Donald.21 He remained with this firm for the rest of his life eventually becoming senior partner. He also became the senior member of the Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow. He seems to have specialized in lawsuits involving shipping and shipwrecks and often acted on behalf of the Board of Trade at which time, ‘all other work in the office ceased!’ The firm also acted for the family of Madeleine Smith.22
Thomas had a keen interest in his family history and outlined some of its main points in a letter to the Glasgow Herald in 1909 23. This was in response to a previous letter requesting information about the father, grandfather and great grandfather of Robert Donald – the subject of the donated portrait. (Appendix 1)
Due to a pre-existing medical condition, Thomas was not required to do active service in WW1. However, he did undertake a course of training in the Glasgow Citizen Training force which he completed in 1915 before transferring to the corresponding company in Helensburgh. (In WW2 his duties involved a stint of fire watching at 172 St Vincent Street).
Figure 9. Thomas Walter Donald. By kind permission of Frank and Colin Donald.
After living for eighteen years in Helensburgh the family moved to Stirling in 1922, to a house at 9 Snowdon Place which they also named Grendon. 24 (This is still called Grendon House but has been converted to flats)
Thomas and his brother Colin Dunlop Donald became members of the Merchants’ House of Glasgow in 1928. 25
Figure 10. The Merchant`s House Matriculation Album
(The page shows, Matriculation Number; Date, 13th Sept. 1928; Name; Occupation; Address of Firm; Father`s Name and Designation; Entry Fee (21 guineas) and date when paid).
Thomas was fond of ‘cruising in other peoples’ yachts’ but he also undertook some more far-flung voyages. On 19 June 1931, he arrived in London via Plymouth from Bombay, India. He was 53 and had travelled on the P & O ship ‘Malwa’.
On 21 February 1938 he arrived at Bristol from Kingston, Jamaica following a visit to his son and daughter-in-law.26
Figure 11. T.W.D. at chess. By kind permission of Frank and Colin Donald.
Gertrude Donald died from cancer at 9 Snowdon Place, Stirling on 13 April 1942. She was 68.27
In 1952 Thomas moved to 44 Kelvin Court on Great Western Road, Glasgow. In 1969 he gave an interview to Jack Webster of the Scottish Daily Express in which he talks about his connection with the West India Association.28 This had been set up in 1807 to facilitate trade with the West Indies. He had become treasurer of the association in the 1930s and had presided over their last meeting in 1969. (Appendix)
Thomas Walter Donald died on 23December 1970 at 44 Kelvin Court, Glasgow. He was 92. The cause of death was hypostatic pneumonia and myocardial degeneration. The death was registered by his nephew Colin Dunlop Donald.29
According to the writer of his obituary, Thomas Walter Donald ‘was a man of great charm and wide culture, and in his extensive legal practice his humanity found full scope’.
He played his part in public work as a director of the Merchants` House and the Elder Hospital, and as representative of the Glasgow Faculty on the Joint Committee of Legal Societies from which the Law Society of Scotland developed. He was a director of the British Linen Bank and the Scottish Provident Institution.30 He was also a Trustee of Provands Lordship.
Thomas`s daughter-in-law was Russian and a good friend of the painter Eric Prehn and his wife Irina, whom she had known in Riga. When Eric and Irina moved to Edinburgh Thomas used to stay with them when he attended British Linen Bank board meetings. As a result of their friendship Thomas was encouraged to take up painting himself. Unfortunately, not much of his work has survived. Thomas does not appear to have been a collector of art but owned the following paintings which have family connections.
Portrait of Robert Donald, Provost of Glasgow 1776-7. Donated to Glasgow.
Portrait of Colin Dunlop of Carmyle, Provost of Glasgow and one of the founders of the ‘Ship Bank’. This was donated to the British Linen Bank to celebrate the bicentenary of the Ship Bank. It passed to the Bank of Scotland and was subsequently returned to the family.
Portrait of Kathrine Donald, wife of Robert. This remains in the family.
Portrait of James Donald painted in1757. This remains in the family. It was shown as part of the Old Glasgow Exhibition.
The Sitter
Robert Donald (1724 – 1803)
Robert Donald was a ‘Virginia Merchant’ – one of the Glasgow ‘Tobacco Lords’ – and a Provost of the City. He was born in 1724 the fourth son of Thomas Donald of Lyleston (also a tobacco merchant) and Janet Cumming of Baremann. 31
He formed a partnership with his older brother James. (James Donald, also a tobacco merchant, acquired the lands of Geilston in Cardross in 1757 and was subsequently styled, James Donald of Geilston). Robert married his first cousin Katherine Donald, daughter of Robert Donald of Greenock.
When James Donald died in 1760 his estate passed to his eldest son Thomas who maintained the partnership with his uncle Robert, and they traded as Robert Donald and Co. They had their own fleet of ships which they operated in conjunction with their cousins in Greenock. They maintained a network of Company Stores in the back country of Virginia and dealt with the small tobacco growers.
Both Robert and James appear to have spent time in Virginia, and had a house in Pages a township in Hanover County where they were visited by George Washington in 1752. Robert left America to return to Scotland in 1758.
Robert became a Burgess of Glasgow (by right of his wife) in 1759. He was elected a Baillie in 1765 and 1773. In 1767, he feued the 24-acre Mountblow estate near Clydebank from George Buchanan of Auchentoshan and built Mountblow House on this estate.
Figure 12. Mountblow House photographed in 1870 by Thomas Annan. National Galleries Scotland. Creative Commons – CC by NC
He was elected Provost of Glasgow on 1 October 1776 and retained that position until 30September 1777. In 1778 he took an active part in raising a regiment to serve against the Americans in the War of Independence. However, he later lost most of his fortune when Thomas Donald & Son became bankrupt in 1787. (Presumably Thomas was now senior partner hence the name change.) Robert remained at Mountblow and, until 1798, was employed by the city to supervise the deepening of the River Clyde at a salary of £50 per annum later increased to £60.
On 6 June 1793, Robert wrote a letter from Mountblow to George Washington asking him to look favourably on the bearer who was his nephew.
Katherine Donald died in 1798 and five years later, on 22 February 1803 Robert Donald died at Mountblow. 32 He was buried in the Ramshorn Churchyard in Glasgow. Having no children of his own he seems to have left the bulk of his estate to his nephew Alexander Donald.
The Mountblow estate was acquired by Henry Bowie and then by William Dunn of Duntocher (1770-1849). It was inherited by Dunn’s nephew, the Advocate Alexander Dunn Pattison. He sold it to Glasgow Corporation in 1877 and they in turn rented it to James Rodger Thomson of the Clydebank Shipyard until 1893 when it was leased to the Seamen’s Orphans’ Institute. It became Mountblow Children’s Home in 1922.33 The house probably suffered damage in the Clydebank Blitz of 1941 although was not hit directly by bombs. The remains were demolished to make way for housing after the war.
The Painting
The painting was completed in London in 1762 when Robert Donald was 38. The artist is unknown. The painting did not remain in the family and may have been sold either when Robert`s business collapsed or when he died. In 1868, the portrait was on loan at an Exhibition of Portraits held in the New Galleries of Art in Sauchiehall Street. It was lent by Thomas Carlisle Esq.* It was loaned to the ‘Old Glasgow Exhibition’ held under the auspices of the Glasgow Institute for Fine Arts in 1894. This time the lender was a Miss Carlisle.
*Thomas Carlisle was a manufacturing chemist and a partner in the firm of Stevenson, Carlisle and Co. with works at Millburn Street, Townhead, Glasgow and an office at 23 West Nile Street. He had a house at 2 Lancaster Terrace, Great Western Road. He died in 1917. It seems he was also in possession of a portrait of Katherine Donald, wife of Robert at the time of the 1868 exhibition. Perhaps Thomas Walter Donald purchased both portraits from the Carlisles?
Figure 13. Portrait of Katherine Donald. By kind permission of Frank and Colin Donald.
Appendix
An article written by Jack Webster which appeared in the Scottish Daily Express.
‘When the tax on rum was a farthing a gallon’
Thomas Walter Donald nods towards a portrait above his lounge mantelpiece and tell you that the robust gentleman in question, his great-great-grandfather, was born in 1745 and became one of Glasgow`s tobacco lords trading with the American colonies.
But Mr. Donald, quiet and cultured, does not require a portrait to give his visitor a sense of history. For he himself has lived through 92 years in which he has been, and remains, an active city lawyer. He was a trustee of the estate of Mr. Smith of Blythswood Square, father of Madeleine Smith, the Glasgow girl accused in 1857 of poisoning her secret French lover, a charge which was found “not proven”.
The other day, Mr. Donald brought another reminder of an age that is all but forgotten when he called a rather special meeting of the West India Association. The association was founded in 1807 to help those eager businessmen who were trading with the West Indies during last century to bring home the rum, sugar and tobacco. “My family has turned from trading to law, however”, says Mr. Donald, “and I was never a trader myself. I merely became treasurer of the West India Association in the 1930s, by which time there was not much business being done”.
“The emancipation of the slaves had knocked a considerable hole in the profits. But there was a time in the heyday of these tobacco, rum and sugar lords when the association was very active. In 1840 for example, it appointed a delegation to go to Parliament to protest against an increase on the duty on rum from ¼ d to ½ d per gallon. Glasgow was doing a tremendous overseas trade at that time. By the time the Second World War came, more and more trade was being done from London”.
“Those in Glasgow still interested began to die off and the association became moribund. We met again in 1946 – but not again until 1969, when I thought it was perhaps about time that we had another meeting”.
“This time it was to see about disposing of stock and cash totaling around £730 – and eight remaining members of a once flourishing organisation agreed that the remaining surplus funds will be handed over to “the West India Committee” in London. This is a non-profit making body founded in 1750, which promotes Commonwealth, Caribbean/UK trade and stimulates investment in the Commonwealth and Caribbean and the improvement of the standard of living there”.
In his luxury flat in Glasgow`s west end, Mr. Donald showed me the massive tomes of minutes stretching back to 1807 – which are now being handed over to the Mitchell Library. He had known nearly half of that period from his own experience. To talk to him was to absorb history itself. At 92, he is still senior partner in one of the Scotland`s biggest legal practices. He pops down to the Western Club in the city centre, or off on a cruise to Madeira.
Jack Webster
References
Glasgow Corporation, Minutes of Art Galleries and Museums Committee, 21 November 1944, page 165. Held in The Mitchell Library, Glasgow
Scotland`s People, Birth Certificate
ibid
ancestry.co.uk, 1881 Census, Scotland
Memoir written by T.W. Donald. Excerpts from this memoir were supplied by Frank Donald, grandson of the donor. I am most grateful to Frank and his cousins Colin and James Donald for supplying photographs and information contained in this report. Any un-attributed material in this report is due to them.
Stained Glass Window in St. Michael`s Church, Helensburgh. Made by Charles Eamer Kempe, 1889. (Mary Magdalene anointing the feet of Christ), St Michael’s Church — a short history Penny Johnston, 30 March 2010, Helensburgh Heritage
T. W. Donald Memoir
Glasgow Post Office Directory, 1884-5
Ancestry.co.uk, 1891 Census for England
Information from Rusty MacLean, archivist, Rugby School
ibid
T.W. Donald Memoir
Archives of the University of Glasgow
Ancestry.co.uk, 1901 Census, Scotland
Ancestry.com, London Marriages
Glasgow Post Office Directories for 1903-4, 1904-5 and 1905-6
Scotland`s People, Birth Certificate
Scotland`s People, Census 1911
Scotland’s People, Birth Certificates
T.W. Donald Memoir
Glasgow Post Office Directories for 1903-4, 1904-5 and 1905-6
Glasgow Herald, 25 December 1970, page 11.
Letter initialed “T. W. D.”, Glasgow Herald, 16 April 1909, page 14
Post Office Directory, Stirling, 1922
Merchants` House of Glasgow Archive, Mitchell Library, Glasgow
Ancestry.com, UK Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960
Scotland`s People, Death Certificate
Scottish Daily Express, 31 July 1969
Scotland`s People, Death Certificate
Glasgow Herald, 25 December 1970, page 11
Marwick, J.D. ed., Provosts of Glasgow, in Charters and Documents Relating To the City of Glasgow 1175-1649 Part 1, Glasgow, 1897
The Scots Magazine, Vol 65, 1803, (‘At Mountblow, in the 79th year of his age, Robert D(onald) Mountblow, Esq formerly Lord Provost’)
Glasgow University Library, Special Collections, Dougan Add. 73
Robert Brough (1872-1905) was born in Invergordon, Ross-shire and brought up in Aberdeen. He was a student at the Royal Scottish Academy Life School in 1891. He was a close friend of J.D. Peploe with whom he spent a few months in Paris, returning to Aberdeen for three years where he earned his living as a portrait painter. He moved to London in 1897 and became a friend and neighbour of J.S Sergeant who influenced his technique.1 This portrait is of our donor aged about twenty one and was painted before her marriage. Brough died at the age of 33 in a railway accident in Yorkshire in 1905. This portrait of Maud Beatrice Lawrence was one of the exhibits at a memorial exhibition of Brough’s work held at the Burlington Gallery in London in 1907. It was reported in the Scotsman that, ”the pink satin and flowing chiffon of the dress are painted with wonderful cleverness”.2
We do not know why this painting was donated to Glasgow as there does not seem to be any link between Glasgow and Mrs Pollen except perhaps ,as we shall see, Lord Kelvin was a friend and business associate of her father Joseph Lawrence. Maud donated the portrait in 1951 while she was living at Cranleigh Gardens in Kensington. Perhaps she was downsizing? There is some evidence that she offered it first of all to Aberdeen Art Gallery, possibly because Robert Brough came from Aberdeen. It appears that for some reason the offer was declined and the portrait was presented to Glasgow instead but there is no information as to the reasoning behind this.3
Maud Beatrice Pollen (or Lawrence) 1877-1962
Our donor was born on 28 April 1877 at Urmston, Lancashire. She was the only child of Joseph Lawrence (1847-1919) and Margaret Alice Jackson.4 There is little information about her early life but as according to a later comment, “they travelled a lot for some years”5,we can perhaps presume that wherever her father went to work she and her mother went too.
Thus we can say that she probably lived in Urmston until c1878 as her father was deputy secretary to the Manchester, Sheffield and Liverpool Railway Company.6 They then moved to Kingston-upon-Hull when her father went to work for the Hull Dock Company 7 and then briefly for the Hull, Barnsley and West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company.8 Neither Maud or her parents appear in the 1881 UK Census so they probably accompanied Joseph to South Africa in early 1881 when Joseph went to work for a railway company in the Cape of Good Hope travelling on the Royal Mail packet, SS Balmoral Castle.9
1882 sees the Lawrence family back in Manchester, presumably with Maud and her mother, when Joseph Lawrence began working for the company which supported the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal.10
The only information about Maud in her early years is a report in 1884 of her attendance aged seven at a “Character Ball” for “juveniles” held by M.D Adamson, JP at The Towers, Didsbury. Maud was among fifty children attending and was dressed as “Folly”.11 M. D. Adamson was an old friend and colleague of her father.12 Maud was educated at various private schools including in the USA and Dresden but there are no further details available about travelling to the USA and Dresden except a reference, “ up till 1889 one year in Dresden at a pension.”13
According to the 1891 UK census the Lawrence’s family home was a house called Oaklands, Park Road, Kenley in Surrey. The house was set in two acres of land and had, “three reception rooms,10 bedrooms, bath and dressing rooms, servants hall (or library), excellent cellarage”.14. The 1891 census also states that Joseph Lawrence’s occupation was now that of ‘newspaper proprietor. It is thought that Joseph Lawrence first became involved in the newspaper world during his time working for the Manchester Ship Canal Project when he produced a weekly newspaper The Ship Canal Gazette as part of the campaign to influence public opinion in favour of the Manchester Ship Canal Project.15
Then in the late1880s Joseph Lawrence became involved in the production of a railway staff magazine The Railway Herald16 where he complained that the cost of typesetting ”was draining my purse”.17 Possibly as a result of this experience Joseph Lawrence played a large part in the revolutionising of the printing industry both at home and abroad and which, as we shall see later , indirectly influenced his daughter’s future. On a trip to America Lawrence had come across the Linotype machine which had been invented by a German watchmaker Ottmar Mergenthaler. These machines cut the cost of typesetting by 60% ,thus making newspapers, magazines and books available to a wider public. In 1895 Lawrence set up The Linotype Company in Manchester and then in Broadheath, Altringham to manufacture the typesetting machines which were soon adopted by newspaper and book publishers all over the world.18
The new machines were used by Lawrence when, in July 1897, along with another railway enthusiast Frank Cornwall, he produced the first issue of TheRailway Magazine which was aimed at all railway enthusiasts and which is still in production today.19
As well as being a newspaper proprietor Joseph Lawrence became the Member of Parliament for Monmouth in 1901 and was knighted in 1903 for his services to the printing industry.20
After all the moving from place to place according to where her father’s career took him by the early 1890s the family appear to have settled at Oaklands.
At some point between 1891 and 1895 Maud became a pupil at The Cliff, St John’s Road, Eastbourne which was a private boarding school for girls run by Mrs Emma Powers.21 Mrs Powers was the wife of the Reverend Philip Bennett Powers(1822-1899) a Church of England minister who held several appointments until around 1865 when his health forced him to retire from his post as vicar of Christ Church, Worthing in Sussex.22 By this time there were seven children in the family.23 The Reverend Bennett then took up writing and between 1864 and 1894 produced over one hundred short religious tracts and individual longer tracts.24 The 1881 census tells us that Mrs Powers was the “Principal of a Ladies School” in Ham which was a suburb of Richmond in Surrey. Perhaps Mrs Powers had taken up this profession to supplement the family income, though this is speculation. The school had fifty-four pupils in 1881 ranging in age from thirteen to eighteen.25 By 1892 the Powers had moved to Eastbourne and opened The Cliff in St Johns Road. We do not know exactly when this school was opened as there is no trace of Philip or Emma Powers in the 1891 census . However in 1892 The Gentlewoman magazine reported in an article which gave advice and recommendations of schools entitled, ”Our Children and How to Educate them” which stated that if a reader chose to send a daughter to school in Eastbourne, ”The training, discipline and education she will receive with Mrs Power, The Cliff, St Johns Road is incomparable.”26 Of course this article might well have been merely advertising but at least we know the school was there by 1892.
We do not know exactly when Maud began at The Cliff but she had certainly left by the end of the summer term in 1895 as in the autumn of that year she entered Girton College, Cambridge as a student. At the time of entry her home address was 24,Cranley Gardens London SW7 probably the Lawrence’s London home. She did not sit the entrance examinations known as the Previous Parts 1and 2 which meant she was “allowed” them because of examinations taken while at school.27
In 1858 the first public examinations for schools had been introduced . The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge had been approached by headmasters of many schools to produce these examinations as a way of marking their pupils’ attainment and enabling boys to take the “locals”, as they were known, where they lived. Girls were allowed to take these examinations from 1867. There were two stages, the Junior for under sixteens and the Senior for under eighteens, which would eventually also be allowed for university entrance. From 1860 examiners from Cambridge travelled by train to village and church halls all over the country wearing full academic dress and carrying the examination papers in a locked box. The examinations took place over six or seven days. Most schools made a point of advertising the fact that they prepared pupils for these “locals”. The exemptions had been introduced in 1893 and this is probably how Maud gained her place at Girton.28 Mrs Emma Powers gave a standard character reference to support Maud’s application for entry, though we have no details of this.29
Maud appears to have studied languages . German was available for study from 1886 and in 1896 Maud studied for and passed what were known as Additional Papers in German. In her first year these papers covered translation into English from selected books and questions on grammar. According to the Girton College Archives in her second year 1896-1897 Maud would have moved on to what was known as Tripos study30, perhaps in MML(Medieval and Modern Languages) ,”as she was clearly good at languages”. However there is no record of which Tripos she was studying. Maud did not complete three years at Girton but left in the Easter term of 1897 for what the College noted were ”family reasons” but with no further information.31
The next we hear of Maud is the announcement of her engagement to Arthur Hungerford Pollen in April 1898 .Perhaps this was Maud’s reason for leaving Girton. Her address at the time was given as Oaklands, Kenley, the family home. 32 To celebrate her engagement and her coming of age as well as their silver wedding anniversary Maud’s parents held a reception at Oaklands. The famous contralto Clara Butt performed at the event along with Whitney Mockridge, a Canadian tenor and the Royal Welsh Ladies Choir.33
Arthur Hungerford Pollen (1866-1937) was the sixth son of a family of eight children born to John Hungerford Pollen and his wife Maria. Arthur’s grandfather was Sir Richard Hungerford Pollen(1786-1838), third Baronet of Redenham in Hampshire.34 In 1852 Arthur’s father had been one of the prominent converts to Catholicism influenced by his friend and former fellow student John Henry Newman later Cardinal Newman. John H Pollen was an Anglican clergyman by training but gave up holy orders in 1852 on his conversion to Catholicism and turned to art and architecture in which career he was greatly assisted by Cardinal Newman.35
Arthur Hungerford Pollen was born in London on 13 September 1866. He attended Birmingham Oratory School which had been founded by Cardinal Newman in 1859.36 Arthur then went to Trinity College, Oxford where he graduated with a BA Honours in History. He became a barrister-at-law at Lincolns Inn in 1893.In 1895 he stood as Liberal candidate for Walthamstow but was never elected.37Arthur’s interests appear to have gone beyond the law and politics as he was at the time of his engagement also the Saturday reviewer and art critic of the Westminster Gazette and ”late acting editor of the Daily Mail”.38
Arthur’s leisure interests before his marriage were those of the rich such as racing, polo and hunting both at home and abroad. In 1893 while hunting big game in the Canadian Rockies he and his party were lost for two weeks and had to resort to shooting and eating some of their horses. The party was led by Lord Henry Somerset, son of Lady Henry Somerset ,”England’s famous apostle of temperance”.39 There is evidence that Arthur was also a supporter of temperance.40 In September 1897 we find Arthur hunting deer in the Highlands on the Lochrosque Estate of Arthur Bignold, owner of the Norwich Union Fire Insurance Company, and attending balls associated with The Northern Meetings in Inverness.41 The year before Francis Pollen, a brother of Arthur, also attended the hunting at Lochrosque so perhaps the Bignolds were family friends.42 Maud appears to have become engaged to a man with as much energy and as many interests as her father.
According to the Western Mail Arthur was also managing director of the Linotype Company of which Maud’s father was chairman.43 There is no information at this point which states how he came to be appointed though at the AGM of the Linotype Company in March 1898 Joseph Lawrence had suggested to the Board ,”that someone from the newspaper trade should be added to the Board who could give them more advice and assistance.”44 Whether Arthur was appointed as managing director of Linotype through his being the prospective son-in-law of Joseph Lawrence or whether he met Maud after that appointment we do not know but the consensus of opinion is that he proved himself to be a shrewd businessman and intelligent technical innovator.45
One example of Arthur’s talents and initiative and which confirmed that he was involved in the management of the Linotype Company before his marriage was demonstrated at what was thought at the time to be the biggest society event of 1898 . This was The Press Bazaar held on 28th and 29th June 1898 at the Cecil Hotel in London. There had been an appeal in the press in March 1898 by the board of the London Hospital which catered for the poor of the East End of London for £100,000 funding from the government.46 Led primarily by Mrs J.A. Spender, wife of the editor of the Westminster Gazette around thirty-four prominent newspapers decided to hold a charity event to raise funds for the hospital by holding The Press Bazaar where each newspaper or a group of newspapers would manage stalls selling a range of objects to the public who would pay an entry fee to the bazaar of 5/- or 2/6d.
Arthur hit upon the idea of writing, editing,” setting up” a newspaper in the hotel over the two days of the event using a Linotype machine and printing the newspaper on the premises. News Agencies such as Reuters installed their communication equipment in the hotel and the proprietors and editors of the all the prominent newspapers joined the “staff” of the Press Bazaar News. Arthur was the “managing editor” of what was possibly the shortest lifespan of a newspaper ever of two days during which numerous editions were produced and sold for 1/- each. The bazaar was opened by the Princess of Wales and the stalls were run by as many duchesses and countesses as well as a multitude of high society ladies as one would see at a coronation. Around 10,000 visitors attended the event, though those with the cheaper tickets were not allowed in until the Princess of Wales had left the building.47 The Press Bazaar raised £12,000 for the London Hospital.48 Of course as well as raising money for the London Hospital the use of the Linotype equipment and the carrying of the total financial responsibility for the production of Press Bazaar News would have been brilliant publicity for the Linotype Company.
The Lawrence-Pollen wedding took place on 7th September 1898 at Brompton Oratory as Arthur was a Catholic. Presumably Maud converted to Catholicism before her wedding. The wedding service was conducted by one of Arthur’s brothers the Reverend Anthony Hungerford Pollen. The bridegroom ”did a very effective setting of Tantum Ergo”.49
The wedding was a big social event and was reported in many newspapers. The report in the Croyden Chronicle of 10th September 1898 covered four columns. Among the hundreds of guests was the Duke of Norfolk and the American Ambassador Colonel Hay as well as numerous members of the aristocracy, journalists, diplomats, politicians and commercial friends. The reception was held in the Empress Rooms, Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington Gardens. Fifty or so of the staff of Oaklands, the Lawrence country home in Kenley, also attended the ceremony. However they dined at a West End café with the head gardener Mr Bannerman in the chair. Maud and Arthur spent their honeymoon at Elmwood in Kent which was the country home of Alfred Harmsworth the proprietor of the Daily Mail.50
As is often the situation with female donors there is little information available about the donor herself. There is no trace of the family in the 1901 census, but by 1911 Maud and Arthur were living at New Cottage ,Walton-on-the-Hill, Epsom51 but also had a London address at 69, Elmpark Gardens London SW .52
During the first four years of marriage Maud and Arthur had three children. Arthur Joseph Lawrence Pollen was born in 1899 at Oaklands, the Lawrence family home.53 Arthur went on to become a sculptor.54 John Anthony Pollen was born in Chelsea in September 1900 55 and Margaret Mary Pollen was born in Chelsea in September 1901.56 Sadly Margaret died at the age of almost five in August 1905.57 There were no more children after that.
The little we know about Maud is from newspaper reports which tells us they were considered newsworthy by the press. In May 1903 she and Arthur went on a trip to the Mediterranean to help Arthur recover from an attack of “articular rheumatism”.58 The couple attended several society weddings during the next few years, for example in January 1904 they attended the wedding of Lady Marjorie Greville ,daughter of Lord and Lady Warwick, to Viscount Helmsley.59
Although we hear little of Maud her husband is mentioned frequently in the press. He continued as managing director of the Linotype Company for ten years and was elected to the board of directors in 1899 along with Lord Kelvin.60 He travelled frequently to the USA for the next 30 years including the war years but there is no evidence that Maud accompanied him.61
To add to Arthur’s portfolio of interests in 1900 he witnessed a naval gunnery practice in Malta through a relative, Commander William Goodenough and was disturbed by the inaccuracy of the naval guns even at a range of less than a mile. With the help and advice of scientist and mathematician Lord Kelvin and his brother James Thomson Arthur used the resources of Linotype and especially a designer named Harold Isherwood to develop an “Aim Correction” system which used an analogue computer to improve the fire control of naval guns by enabling the calculation of the range of the guns when the ships and the targets were in motion. He set up the Argo Company in 1909 to develop and produce the equipment. The Argo system was not adopted for use by the Royal Navy during WW1 for political reasons however after the war it was confirmed that many aspects of the Argo system had been used in the Dreyer System which was used and Arthur Pollen was paid £30,000 compensation in 1926. Arthur also published books and articles on naval warfare which often criticised the conduct of the war at sea.62
It is after the war that Maud’s father died suddenly. It is one of life’s sad ironies that Joseph Lawrence died in a railway station, having spent a large part of his working life involved in railways. The Surrey Mirror and County Post of 31 October 1919 reported that while travelling back to his home in Kenley after attending a dinner in London he had a heart attack and was taken from the train at East Croyden station where he died. He was buried in Coulsden Churchyard with a memorial service shortly afterwards at St Margarets in Westminster.
After the war Arthur continued as part-time director of Linotype and joined the board of The Birmingham Small arms Company (BSA), Daimler and several others.63 We do know from the press that Maud was supplied with a new Daimler car in1931 possible a benefit of being married to one of the directors.64 He became vice-president of the Council of the Federation of British Industries and chairman of the British Commonwealth Union. He believed in the role of the entrepreneur in the growth of industry and campaigned against the growth of socialism. In 1926 he resumed the role as managing director of Linotype and hired one of the first management consultants T. Gerald Rose to reorganise the company. In 1936 he was part of a group of Catholics who acquired the Catholic magazine The Tablet serving as its chairman for a year while its fortunes were restored.65
The couple lived at various addresses in Kensington and Chelsea such as Elmpark Gardens, Wilton Place and St James Court while maintaining a country home at Walton-on-the Hill near Reigate.66 Arthur Hungerford Pollen died at his London home in St James Court on January 28 1937 aged 71.67
After her husband’s death Maud continued to live in London’s West End. In 1939 she was living at 24 Cranleigh Gardens, Kensington which is the same address as her parents’ London home so perhaps she inherited this but this is speculation. There is no information as to her activities during WW2 at the end of which she was sixty -eight years old.
Maud remained at 24 Cranleigh Gardens until 195668 when she became a resident of St Johns Convent, Kiln Green ,Twyford in Berkshire. She was seventy -six by this time. As well as being a convent St Johns appears to have been a residential home for the elderly.69 Maud Beatrice Pollen died at St Johns Convent on 12th May 1962.70
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Hannah Westall of Girton College Archives, Michelle Owen, Archives Officer with Manchester Central Library, Lisa Olrichs, Rights and Images Office, National Portrait Gallery, London and Emma Boyd of the National Library of Scotland for all their help in the production of this report.
Notes and References
1. Halsby, Julian and Harris ,Paul Dictionary Of Scottish Painters 1600-1990 p21. Canongate, 1990.
The Town Clerk reported that the late Rev. Humphrey Gordon Roberts Hay Boyd, Townend-of-Symington, Ayrshire, had by his Trust Disposition and Settlement*, directed his Trustees to convey and deliver free of legacy duty certain pictures from his art collection to the Kelvingrove Art Galleries. The Director reported that the said bequest consisted of the following pictures viz:
1. Oil painting of roses in a gilt frame by S.J. Peploe. (This painting was not subsequently given to Glasgow).
2. Small oil painting The Fisherman by J. Weissenbruch. (This painting was ascribed to Jan Hendrick Weissenbruch (1824-1903) Dutch but is probably by his son Willem Johannes (1864 – 1941). Its title is now An Artist Sketching from a Boat – early 1900s (Accession number 2231).
3. Oil painting on panel A River Scene by Charles-Francois Daubigny (1817 – 1898). Now titled River Scene Sunset – 2230.
4. Watercolour Drawing Sunset Brise (Briare) by the French master Henri Harpignes (1819 – 1916) – 2235.
5.Water Colour Drawing, Barge in Dry Dock by Robert Purves Flint, R.S.W. (1883 – 1947) – 2234. This is an oil painting not a watercolour.
6. Oil painting Ploughing by the French master Leon L’Hermitte (1844 – 1925). Now called Ploughing with Oxen, Evening, 1871 – 2229
This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1872 with title Oxen Ploughing. 1 It was purchased by H.G.R. Hay-Boyd after 1918, probably from Eugene Cremetti, London.
7. Small oil painting River Scene by Frank Brissot – (Active 1879 – 1881) – 2233
The committee agreed the bequest be accepted’.2
*His will stated that the pictures should remain in his wife`s possession till her death. Hence, although he died in 1931 the date of the donation was 1941.
Humphrey Gordon Roberts was born in September 1866 in Waterloo, Liverpool. He was the son of Humphrey Roberts Esq., a merchant in Liverpool, and Margaret Thomson. 3 Between 1871 and 1881, the family moved to London, firstly to 10 Ashburn Place (by which time Humphrey`s father was a retired merchant ‘living on his own means’) and then to 8 Queen`s Gate Place, Kensington.4 Having attended Uppingham School, Humphrey entered Jesus College, Cambridge in October 1884, aged 17, graduated BA in 1887 and MA in 1891.5,6 He also attended Ridley Hall Theological College in Cambridge. According to the 1891 census he was a theology student, living in Kensington, London with his widowed father and four sisters. 7 He was ordained Deacon (Canterbury) in 1891 by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Maidstone Parish Church 8 and was Deacon of Sandgate in Kent from 1891 to 1894 after which he moved to a similar post at Spratton, Northants. 9 He was Vicar and Patron of Spratton between 1897 and 1905. 10 On moving there, he opted not to occupy the early eighteenth century vicarage, which was probably in need of updating, but moved to a much grander residence which he renamed The Manor House.11
Figure 1. The Manor House, Spratton, Northants. From Enid Jarvis, Chair, Spratton Local History Society
Figure 2. Humphrey Gordon Roberts late 1890s. From Enid Jarvis, Chair, Spratton Local History Society
On 23 March 1901, Humphrey married Mary Elizabeth Hay-Boyd at St. George’s Chapel, Albemarle Street, London. 12 She was born in 1865 at Symington, Ayrshire the only child of Lieut-Col. James George Hay-Boyd, JP DL of Townend of Symington and Mary Adeline McAlester. (Mary Adeline was the daughter of Lieut-Col. Charles Somerville McAlester of Loup and Kennox, Ayrshire). Their son, George Edward Humphrey Roberts, was born in Spratton on 3 July 1902. (He died in 1983, at East Dereham, Norfolk). 13 The family moved in 1905 to Townend of Symington and at this point changed their name to Roberts-Hay-Boyd. Before leaving Spratton, the couple arranged for the donation of a stained-glass window to Spratton Parish Church.
Figure 3. Stained Glass Window. From Enid Jarvis, Chair, Spratton Local History Society
Figure 4. Spratton Church from an old engraving. From Enid Jarvis, Chair, Spratton Local History Society
The window carries the inscription ‘To the Glory of God this window was donated by the Rev. and Mrs. H.G. Roberts Hay-Boyd, A.D.1906, in thanks for eleven years ministry, A.D. 1894-1905, which he served as curate and vicar of this parish.’14
Soon after arriving in Ayrshire, Humphrey acquired at least two racehorses one of which ran in the Adamhill Cup at Ayr Racecourse as part of the Scottish Grand National Festival in 1907.15 The other ran in the Motherwell Plate at Hamilton Park in the same year. It was not a successful outing as his horse was defeated by fifty lengths! 16
In retirement in Ayrshire the Hay-Boyds seem to have enthusiastically embraced the local music and amateur dramatics scene. (Before her marriage, Miss Hay-Boyd had appeared as ‘a most dignified Lady Somerford’ in a performance of The Jacobite in the Oddfellows Hall, Kilmarnock.17) A ‘Historical Masque – Men of the Westland’ was given in Ayr Town Hall in March 1910. This portrayed the ‘progress of civilisation in Carrick, Cunninghame and Kyle from pagan to modern times.’ It appears to have been a lavish affair, help with costumes being given by Fra Newberry and the governors of the Glasgow School of Art. The Rev. Hay-Boyd played John Knox and Mrs Hay-Boyd was the personification of the Town of Ayr.18
In the 1911 census Humphrey was at the Rutland Hotel, Edinburgh with his son. He was described as a ‘retired clergyman’, aged 44.19 Later that year he travelled back to Spratton to help raise funds for the lighting of Spratton’s streets. This took the form of two variety entertainments in the school at which Humphrey performed two songs, Love’s Coronation and Three for Jack ‘sung in rousing style’.20 In the same year (possibly at the same time?), Mrs Hay-Boyd also returned to Spratton;
The Sunday School treat was held in the field and garden of Mr and Mrs R. GILBY of Olde House Farm, Yew Tree Lane. The prizes were distributed by Mrs ROBERTS HAY-BOYD and the tea was organised by Miss Letitia GILBY. 21
In December 1913, Humphrey boarded the S.S. Otway in London bound for Naples.22 In May 1925, the Roberts-Hay-Boyds hosted a coming-of-age ball for their son George in Ayr Town Hall which was, according to reports, attended by the cream of local society including the Marchioness of Ailsa and Major Hastings Montgomerie. 23
Both the Rev. and Mrs. Hay-Boyd had a great interest in music and were heavily involved in the musical affairs of Ayrshire. He was president of the Ayr Choral Union from 1916 till his death, and both subscribed to the staging of The Messiah in the Town Hall, Ayr on 26 December 1930. He was a Vice-President and a member of the council of the Ayrshire Musical Festival ‘and took his fair share of the work associated with that annual event’.24,25In describing one of the Ayr Art exhibitions a local newspaper states that Mrs Roberts-Hay-Boyd had ‘provided a splendid concert’ in connection with the event and that one of the ‘principal artistes’ was the Rev. Mr. Hay-Boyd. Unfortunately, there is no mention of what his special talent was. 26
The Hay-Boyds were also in possession of several works of art of outstanding quality and from 1909 to 1919 they regularly lent paintings to various exhibitions in the Carnegie Library in Ayr.27
1909 Exhibition of Old Engravings Milking Time C. Troyon, engraved by V. Girarchet (Line Engraving – Steel) (Lent by Rev H. Roberts Hay-Boyd)
1910 Ayr Fine Art Exhibition Conway Castle J.M.W. Turner R.A., (Was this the picture which was sold in 2010 by Christie`s for £325,250?)
The Ferry Boat C. F. Daubigny On the Oise C. F. Daubigny Resting Alexander Nasmyth (Lent by Rev. H. Roberts-Hay-Boyd, Esq.,)
George Douglas of Rodinghead, Sir Henry Raeburn (Lent by Mrs Roberts Hay-Boyd). This was probably a family heirloom as Mrs Hay-Boyd`s grandmother was Elizabeth Douglas of Rodinghead. (Was this the painting which was sold at Sotheby`s in 1993?)
1919 Ayr Sketch Club Carting Timber Anton Mauve (Lent by Rev. H. Roberts-Hay-Boyd, Symington).
Humphrey Gordon Roberts-Hay-Boyd died on 25 October 1931, aged 64, in Greystones Nursing Home, Prestwick, Ayrshire. His occupation was ‘minister of religion’ but with no charge.28 He was buried in Symington Churchyard with other members of the Hay-Boyd family.
Figure 5 Hay-Boyd family grave in Symington Churchyard (photo by author)
In Memory Of MARY ADELINE HAY BOYD Died 13th Novr. 1894 wife of Colonel JAMES GEORGE HAY BOYD of Townend of Symington and daughter of the late Col. CHARLES SOMERVILLE McALESTER of Kennox
Also of Colonel JAMES GEORGE HAY BOYD of Townend of Symington Late XXth Regt. Died 21st November 1904 Son of Capt. FRANCIS HAY XXXIVth Regt. & Mrs ELIZABETH DOUGLAS or HAY Of Rodinghead
To the Beloved Memory of the Revd. HUMPHREY GORDON ROBERTS, M.A. and husband of MARY ELIZABETH HAY BOYD of Townend Obit 25th October 1931 Also the above MARY ELIZABETH ROBERTS-HAY-BOYD who died at Townend 25th February 1941.
He was survived by his wife and son. An obituary in the Ayrshire Post contained the following information: ‘Mr and Mrs Roberts-Hay-Boyd resided part of the time in the former home in Wellington Square of Colonel Hay-Boyd, one of the few remaining residences in the square, and at the picturesque home in Townend, embowered among trees near Symington Village. Mr Roberts-Hay-Boyd was of a quiet and unobtrusive nature and was held in high esteem in the district’.29 An obituary was also published in the London Times30and his death was reported in the NorthamptonMercury.31
As well as the pictures given to Glasgow, He also bequeathed paintings to the Town Council of Ayr and to the National Gallery of Scotland (NGS).
‘In terms of deceased`s trust disposition and settlement, the legacy was not to take effect until the death of his widow, but Mrs. Hay-Boyd desires now to deliver the following four pictures:
Roses in a white frame S. J. Peploe Oil
Sunset, Kilbrannan Sound Sir J. Lawton Wingate, P.R.S.A. Oil
The Four Master R. Burns (!) Flint Watercolour
View of Haarlem J. H. Weissenbruch Watercolour’ 32
Bequests were also made to the NGS and were presented in 1941.
Roses S. J. Peploe Oil Peaches on a Dish Henri Fantin-Latour Oil
References
Graves, Algernon, F.S.A., The Royal Academy of Arts A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their work from its foundation in 1769 to 1904, Vol III, Henry Graves and Co. Ltd., London and George Bell and Sons, 1905
Glasgow Corporation Minutes – Committee on Art Galleries and Museums, Mitchell Library, Glasgow 25.4.1941.
Births, Deaths and Marriages Index, England and
ancestry.co.uk, Census England, 1871, 1881.
ancestry.co.uk, Cambridge University Alumni (1261 – 1900)
London Evening Standard 15 May 1891 p3
ancestry.co.uk, Census England 1891.
Folkstone Herald, 30 May 1891
Northampton Mercury 24 November 1905
Ayrshire Post, 30 October 1931
From Enid Jarvis, Chair, Spratton Local History Society
The Globe, March 25, 1901 p7; The Queen 30 March 1901 p43
Burke`s Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th Edition, 2003, www.thepeerage.com
From Enid Jarvis, Chair, Spratton Local History Society.
Scotsman 12 April 1907 p4
Sporting Life, 15 July 1907, p5
Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald, 12 March 1897, p4
Queen, 26 March 1910, p563
Scotland’s People, 1911 Census, Scotland
Northampton Mercury, 14 July 1911, p5
Spratton Parish Magazine 1911.
Homeward Mail from India, China and the East, December 22, 1913 p27
Gentlewoman, 9 May 1925, p16
Ayrshire Post, Oct. 30 1931, p8.
Catalogues of Exhibitions of Ayr Sketch Club, Ayr Fine Arts Society, Ayr Art Union
The oil painting Adam’s First Sight of Eve (2570) by John Martin was presented to Glasgow on 4 October 1946 by the Imperial Chemical Company, Ardeer, through Lord McGowan and the Local Secretary Ms. Pitceathly. 1 It had been discovered in the Kilmeny Hotel in Ardrossan by Evelyn Waugh when he was stationed there during WW2.
Since the donor’s history is well documented it seemed more interesting to research the provenance of the painting and how it came to be in a hotel in Ardrossan, Ayrshire.
What Was Known?
Adam`s First Sight of Eve was completed in 1812 by John Martin. It is signed J. Martin, 1812. He sent it to the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1813 where to his delight it was displayed in the Great Room. It was accompanied by a quote from Milton’s Paradise Lost,
‘Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought, Wrought on her so, that, seeing me, she turned’.
It was purchased, probably from the exhibition, by ‘Spong, a rich Kentish collector’ for seventy guineas. 2, 3, 4
What Is New?
A search of the census records suggested that the ‘Spong’ in question was Thomas Spong who was born in Aylesford, Kent in 1780/81. He was christened on 6 January 1781. 5 He is recorded in three census records where he is described as a ‘merchant’ aged 60 (1841), a ‘coal merchant’ aged 69 (1851) and a ‘retired gentleman’ aged 80 (1861). In 1861 he was living at 2 Albion Terrace, Faversham next door to his son William. 6
The painting seems to have remained in the possession of Thomas Spong for forty years as the next we hear of it is when it was advertised for sale by Christie and Manson in a collection of English pictures which was held at their Great Room, 8 King Street, London on 30 June 1853. 7 The sale catalogue listed
‘Lot 81, Adam’s first sight of Eve. The celebrated work, exhibited at Somerset House about 1813’.
Unfortunately, the painting failed to sell. (No buyer to take the story forward!) The reserve on it was £50 and the bidding went up to £47. The seller, whose name was not disclosed at the time of the sale was a Mr. Walter Tebbitt, of 3 Union Crescent, Wandsworth Road, London. 8 Walter Tebbitt was born in 1827/8 in Surrey. On 5 February 1850 he was elected to the Linnean Society. Their records give his address as Cottage House, Clapham Common, London. His main interest was botany. On 5 May 1850 he co-presented a portrait of Edward Stanley (1779-1849) to the Society. 9 In the 1851 census for St. Giles in the Fields he is listed as aged 23, unmarried with his occupation ‘Mother of Pearl Works Ornamental’, born Surrey and employing one servant. His address was 4 North Crescent. 10On 28 April 1852, in Aylesford, Kent, Walter Tebbitt married Grace Nash Spong who was 19 and the daughter of Thomas Spong. 11
Walter Tebbitt left the Linnean Society on 1 November 1860. On the 1861 census he and Grace and their two children were living at Martinhoe, North Devon, Wooda Bay. He was now a ‘fundholder’. 12 Thomas Spong died at Canterbury on 15 August 1865. He was survived by his wife, Mary Eliza Spong who inherited most of his effects. There was no mention of the painting in his will. 13 Walter Tebbitt died on 24 March 1893 at Marlborough House, Tunbridge Wells. The painting is not mentioned in his will, but he did leave his pictures to his widow. 14 Grace Tebbitt died on 4 December 1924 in Tunbridge Wells. 15 It seems that she did not leave a will. From 1853 to 1942 the whereabouts of the painting are unknown.
In April 1942 Evelyn Waugh, then a captain in the Royal Marines, was posted to Glasgow and then to the Special Services Brigade in Ardrossan. He had earlier undertaken commando training on the Isle of Arran. Later in the year, on 28 September, when visiting Diana Cooper in Bognor Regis he told her that there was a small painting by John Martin in the Kilmeny Hotel in Ardrossan. 16
Kilmeny Hotel
Kilmeny* House (later the Kilmeny Hotel) was built in South Crescent, Ardrossan for John Galloway between 1885 and 1888. John Galloway was born in Glasgow in 1829. In the census of 1861, he was aged 31 and living at 55 Clarence Street, Glasgow with his wife Margaret and two daughters. He was a ‘Clerk Cashier in a Shipping Insurance Broker’s Office’. 17 He moved to Ardrossan shortly after and in 1865 was the tenant occupier of a house in Countess Street. 18 He was employed by the firm of Patrick (Paddy) Henderson ship owners and eventually was appointed its managing director. In 1874 he became a member of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. The following year he was the proprietor/occupier of a house and offices in South Crescent and the occupier of a house in Raise Street, Ardrossan. 19 In 1885 he was elected a Director of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. The first mention of Kilmeny appears on 22 September 1888 when an article in the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald notes that ‘Mr. John Galloway (of Messrs P. Henderson Ltd.) who resided at Kilmeny, Ardrossan, placed a memorial stone in the Free Church’. In the 1895 Valuation Roll for Ardrossan, he is listed as Proprietor, Kilmeny House Offices and Garden, South Crescent. He was also a tenant at 2 Manse Street, Church Place suggesting that he may have been using Kilmeny House as offices only. He was re-elected Chairman of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce in January 1899. In the census of 1901, he is listed as a ‘retired shipowner’. John Galloway passed away on 25 September 1904.
‘John Galloway, Homehill, Bridge of Allan, (formerly of Kilmeny Ardrossan), died. He was head of Patrick Henderson shipowners before his retirement. His estate was valued at £53,613, 16s. 6d.’20, 21
His death and an appreciation of his service was noted in the minutes of the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. 22
From his death certificate his father George Galloway was an artist. Could he have acquired the painting?
The next proprietor of Kilmeny House in 1905 was James Cant, a timber broker with premises at 52 St. Enoch Square, Glasgow. 23 On 4 October 1907 he was elected president of the local branch of the National Bible Society. 24 He was still proprietor in 1915 but by 1920 ownership had passed to Major Frederick Charles Gavin. On 12 April 1922 North Ayrshire Licensing Court granted a certificate by 7 votes to 3, for an inn and hotel for Kilmeny House, South Crescent, Ardrossan. The licensee was Charles F.O. Lee the keeper of the nearby Eglinton Arms Hotel. ‘Kilmeny House is a private residence, containing 30 apartments, and had not previously been licensed, and objections were stated against granting a licence, on behalf of a number of persons owning and occupying property in the vicinity’. 25
ICI
Following his invention of ‘dynamite’, Alfred Nobel formed the British Dynamite Company Ltd. In 1870. He purchased land on the Ardeer Peninsula in Ayrshire to set up a plant to manufacture dynamite. Its relative remoteness and substantial sand dunes made it suitable from a safety point of view. The company, renamed as Nobel’s Explosives Company Ltd. In 1877, became the largest explosives factory in the world. 26
Harry Duncan McGowan was born in Glasgow on 3 June 1874. He attended Hutchesons’ Grammar School and Allan Glen’s School, Glasgow but left at age fifteen to join Nobel’s Explosives Company eventually becoming manager. During the First World War he was able to merge most of the British explosives industry, and by 1920 he had become Chairman and Managing Director of the resulting Nobel Industries Ltd. In 1926 this company merged with other chemicals-based industries to become Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). McGowan became Chairman and Managing Director in 1930 and remained Chairman until 1950. He was made Baron McGowan of Ardeer in 1937. Ardeer, which is about three miles from Ardrossan, became the Nobel Division of ICI after the merger in 1926. 27
ICI began using the Kilmeny Hotel to entertain and accommodate guests from 1929 28 and Charles Lee remained the proprietor until at least 1940 and probably till 1945 when it was taken over by ICI. The painting was found in a dirty state and was cleaned and restored under the supervision of Mr. F. C. Speyer who was the Controller of the Industrial Ammonia Division at ICI. 29 On 4 October 1946, the painting was donated to Glasgow. When ICI moved out of Kilmeny in 1949 a report in a local newspaper opined that ‘in the last twenty years it has looked more like a mausoleum than a hotel’. 30 This might account for the state of the painting.
(In the Object File there are two references purporting to be referring to the sale of the painting.
A Christie’s sale on 7 August 1855. Christie’s could find no trace of this sale. In fact, the date in incorrect. It should be 7 August 1875 – The Hooton Hall Sale.
Lot 850 – Adam and Eve Praying at Sunset by John Martin- sold by Naylor and bought by Fitzhenry
On 3 May 1879 – Nield Sale – lot 59 – Adam and Eve with an angel in the Garden of Eden by John Martin, bought by Fraser.
Both refer to different John Martin paintings).
* Kilmeny may derive from a poem by James Hogg.
.. Bonnie Kilmeny gaed up the glen; But it wasna to meet Duneira’s men, Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. It was only to hear the yorlin sing, And pu’ the cress-flower round the spring; The scarlet hypp and the hindberrye, And the nut that hung frae the hazel tree;
etc.
Figure 2. Bonnie Kilmeny by John Faed. Public Domain.
References
Glasgow Museums, List of Donors, Glasgow Museums Resource Centre
Equivalent to about £5,500 today
Pendered, Mary, John Martin, Painter – His Life and Times, Hurst & Blackett, London, 1923 pp 61, 77, 79,
Balston, Thomas, John Martin 1789 – 1854: His Life and Works, Gerald Duckworth, London, 1947 p36,
Old Parish Registers, Kent, Family Search
Ancestry.co.uk, Census Records, England
The Morning Post, 20 June 1853
Information from Lynda McLeod, Archivist, Christie’s Archives, transcribed from sales’ catalogue and sellers’ list
Information from Luke Thorne, Assistant Archivist, Linnean Society
Ancestry.co.uk, Census Records, England
Old Parish Registers, Family Search
Ancestry.co.uk, Census Records, England
Will proved at HM Court of Probate, Canterbury, 8 September 1865
Will probate granted to his widow and three other executors. 27 May 1893
Ancestry.co.uk, Grace Nash Spong family tree
Page, Norman, An Evelyn Waugh Chronology (Author Chronologies), Palgrave Macmillan, London, September 1997 (also on Google Books)
Thomas Ranken was born on the 18 May 1875 to Robert Burt Ranken and his wife Mary nee Dunlop in Edinburgh . His father was a Writer to the Signet. (1) It was a prosperous household. In the 1881 census he lived at 8 Learmonth Terrace, Edinburgh with father, mother, 2 siblings and household staff which included a cook, 2 housemaids, laundress, 3 nurses and a kitchen maid. (2) His brother, William Bruce Ellis Ranken (3) was to become an artist and his sister, Janette Mary Fernie Ranken was to become a well known actress and socialite, marrying Ernest Thesiger. (4) Their father rented a country house in the Borders, Cringletie Manor and in the census of 1891 (5) two of the children are there but not Thomas. This was because he was educated at Eton and then at Balliol College. (6) In 1896 , when he was 21 years of age and had reached his majority, The Edinburgh Evening News reported that the tenants and employees of the Cringletie Estate had presented him with a rose bowl to mark the occasion. (7)
He graduated BA in 1899. During his time at Balliol he was a Lieutenant in the 1st Oxford University V.B. Oxford Light Infantry and it was there that he began a lifelong involvement with rifle shooting. He was president of the University shooting committee and of the Small- Bore Club. (8)
He returned to Edinburgh and was apprenticed to his father in1899. The apprenticeship was for two/three years because he had graduated from Balliol. In 1902 (9) Thomas was accepted as a Writer to the Signet and in the same year his father died. (10) This was the beginning of his professional life and he continued to practise until his death.
He had another interest which continued successfully for many years and this was small-bore rifle shooting. There are many references in the press about his success in his chosen pastime. Indeed when he died his obituary in the Scotsman (11) is headed ‘Champion Rifle shot . Death of Major T Ranken’. He competed in the 1908 Summer Olympic Games. (12) He won a silver medal in the Single Shot Running Deer event and in the Double Shot Running Deer event (both now discontinued) and came fifth in the 1000 yards free rifle event. He was also in the team which won the silver medal for the team prize. He took part in the 1924 Olympic Games but won no prizes. (13)
He served as a member of the council of the National Rifle Association and was a member and sometime Captain, of the Scottish Twenty. Among the many prizes he won were the Prince of Wales Prize, The Association Cup for Match Rifles and the Scottish Champion Cup at Barnley in 1906. He was often in the final stages of the Queen’s and Kings Prize at Bisley. (14)
He served in the First World War, rejoining the 8th Royal Scots from the T.F. reserve in 1915. He acted as a Musketry Officer from April 1915 to June 1915 and then Brigade Major to 2/1 Lothian Infantry Brigade. He was thereafter attached to the General Staff Scottish Northern Command until 1919. (15)
In 1920 he married Marion Bruce, daughter of the Hon F J Bruce of Seaton House, Arbroath. (16) They had two sons. (17) He died on 27 April 1950 and is buried in the Dean cemetery in Edinburgh (18) (19) and his gravestone reads:
Maj. THOMAS “TED” RANKEN
Remember TOM RANKEN a large lovable personality.
18 V 1875 -27 IV 1950
Acknowedgement
I have to thank the Archivist of the Library of the Signet in Edinburgh for his help with my researches. It was much appreciated.
Paintings
In 1948 Thomas Ranken wrote to the keeper of the Art Galleries in Kelvingrove offering several paintings. The following were accepted: (20)
Glasgow Museums Art Donors Group 
