Emily Shore in Manuscript
A reader recently alerted me to news of the 2022 New York Antiquarian Book Fair having shown TWO manuscript volumes of the Journal of young Emily Shore Born in 1819, Emily died of consumption in 1839. The Shores were related to the Mackworth Praeds, which family included Susannah Smith, herself a diarist, and the politician and poet Winthrop Mackworth Praed. “Sue” Smith (as I call her) was the wife of Thomas Smith of New Norfolk Street, London and Bersted Lodge (in Sussex), and the great aunt of Emma Smith / Emma Austen Leigh (one of my Two Teens). The bookseller had, back in April 2022, called the re-emerged journals their “star item” at the Fair. INDEED!
Emily Shore’s journals were published by her sisters, twice, in the 19th century. The 1891 edition and 1898 edition differ, especially in the inclusion of family images (Emily was an accomplished artist). The newest edition came out in 1991, edited by Barbara Timm Gates.
Published to celebrate the centenary of its first publication, Timm Gates’ introduction speaks to her search for the ORIGINAL Handwritten Manuscripts. One of Emily’s sisters had actually willed the manuscripts to the British Museum. Says Timm Gates, “My jubilant friend writes, ‘Arabella Shore died 9 Jan. 1901 and left a will dated 5 Aug. 1899 with a codicil including these welcome words, “I bequeath the manuscripts and drawings of my sisters Emily and Louisa Shore to the Trustees of the British Museum to be preserved in the department of manuscripts”.'”
Alas! The British Museum had no record of the bequest. Dead End!
Of course, the loss of Emily’s materials is compounded, in my mind, by the loss of sister Louisa’s material as well.
Timm Gates had little choice but to republish the material as presented in the 19th century – but she also found, as her book went to press, that original volumes did EXIST. In the collection of the University of Delaware, (the link is their Finding Aid), are THREE manuscript Volumes. Out of twelve volumes, Delaware holds Nos. 7, 10, and 12: VII (6 Oct 1836-10 Apr 1837); X (14 Apr 1838-5 Jul 1838); and XII (16 Dec 1838-1 Jul 1839). Emily died six days later, on July 7th.
The University of Virginia, publisher of Timm Gates’ edition of the journals, now has updated their website offering to include free OPEN ACCESS to the Journal of Emily Shore. They also provide an up-dated transcription of two of the three Delaware volumes (Nos. 7 and 12); a “combined edition,” which incorporates the manuscripts of Nos. 7 & 12, as well as the “Centenary Edition” complete; some illustrations from the manuscripts are also included.
The most thrilling to see, as an owner of the 1991 book edition (thanks to a gift) are the new transcriptions. Which, now that two more volumes have appeared, begs the questions: Where have the “new found” volumes gone to? and Will Virginia be able to transcribe them (and the Delaware vol. 10)? The University of Delaware has a lengthy biographical offering for those who have not yet discovered Emily Shore.
Jarndyce Books, the UK bookseller at the NY Antiquarian Book Fair in April of 2022, had up-for-sale volume 1 (5 Jul 1831-31 Dec 1832) and volume 2 (1 Jan 1833-7 May 1833). “Entirely written in Shore’s distinctive small, neat, and easily readable hand, these volumes are a remarkable rediscovery more than thirty years after the only other known surviving volumes were sold. …. [H]er wit and intelligence – even in these early volumes – shines through each page.”
BUT the diary is not the sole item to have resurfaced. Part of a Shore novel came up for sale at Bonhams in 2004. Delaware has it in its collection! The manuscript, purchased in 2008, presents chapters 10 to 22 of Emily Shore’s novel “Devereux.”
Of course, one wonders why the University of Delaware didn’t purchase the two volumes (to join their three volumes) – was it the cost? Asking price at the book fair was advertised as $85,000.
So where, oh where, have Emily Shore’s Journals vols 1 & 2 gone?
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In pulling up LINKS for this article, I found a reader who has posted YouTube videos connected to the Journal of Emily Shore:
- February to May 1833 (28:26 minutes)
- May 1833 (11.28 minutes)
- May and June 1833 (12.36 minutes)
- June & July 1833 – Pet Birds & Memories (17.46 minutes)
- Emily becomes an Authoress – January 1838 (8:23 minutes)
- I leave you to find MORE Emily Shore readings at Amy’s Dusty Bookshelf
Happy International Women’s Day (March 8th) and welcome to Women’s History MONTH!
Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805 (part 2)
Since I was a bit long-winded yesterday, I now continue with the Smith portraits by John Downman (1749-1824), digitized at The British Museum. For Part 1, click link and read how & why I was looking through these images.
In 1805, Mamma Smith (Augusta Smith, senior) was a young bride (married 1798), with four children. Her fifth – Spencer, would be born in March of the next year. Few letters exist, but Mamma’s diary for that year DOES exist. I love her diaries; she always summed up the year (personal as well as “public” news) at the end of the volume – and sometimes one learned what she did NOT write in the journal area. For instance, at the summation of 1805 we learn that Mrs. Smith miscarried in March. When noted within the journal, she would always express such delicate thoughts in French. The “fausse couche” is found, noted on 17 March, a Sunday.
March is filled – since everyone was, as always, in London – with Card Parties and Concerts. Her parents are both alive and active. The children are in good health. Her very good friends, Mrs. Gosling, neighbor next door at No. 5 Portland Place, and Mrs. G’s sister Mrs. Drummond Smith (technically Mamma’s Aunt), are both in their graves – December 1803 and February 1804, respectively. These were daughters of Lady Cunliffe. Widower William Gosling (with his own clutch of little children) is found as a frequent visitor – or host of small dinners. Mr. Charles Smith (her husband) is the one she shows attending just such a dinner and a concert at the END of MARCH. She must therefore be convalescing. On the 29th a new milestone is mentioned: The Smiths marked being married seven years, “very happy ones”.
The evening before, Mr. Smith attended an Assembly hosted by his Aunt by marriage. The widowed Lady Burges went by SEVERAL names in her lifetime. Her birth-name was Margaret Burges (daughter and heiress of Ynyr Burges). When she married Augusta senior’s uncle John, she became yet another “Mrs. Smith” (has to be one of the hardest names to trace correctly, or even differentiate within such a vast family – with, it must be said, SMITHS on both sides!). The couple had married in 1771. In June 1790, by Royal License, they took the name Smith-Burges. In May 1793, with a baronetcy, they were now styled Sir John and Lady Smith-Burges. The family, however, seem to have often referred to her as “Lady Burges“, especially after Sir John’s death in 1803.
Margaret, born in 1744, was ten years younger than her husband. With little information to go on, there is too little to speculate whether she was looking for a second husband, or if one simply appeared. In July 1816 she married John 4th Earl Poulett.
Whew! so many names for the SAME woman!
Lord Poulett was a dozen years younger, but even he soon (1819) left her a widow. Poulett’s first countess left him his heirs; he and Margaret had no children – nor did she have any with John Smith.
In Downman’s albums, volumes entitled “First Sketches of Portraits of distinguished persons,” there is one portrait denoted “Study for a portrait of Mrs Smith, 1787“.
As usual, the “Mrs. Smith” would be tough to identify any given sitter. There were too many, related and unrelated to each other.
But it is Margaret Smith-Burges’ last appellation – by which she went for nearly another twenty years (she died in 1838) – that catches my eye and and fires my imagination.
I swear, there are times that the handwritten name, in Smith-related letters or diaries, often LOOKS “Paulet”. Trouble is, this was a familial name – of Lord Bolton’s family, and often spelled POWLETT. For instance, Thomas Orde-Powlett, 1st Baron Bolton – mixed up with the Dukes of Bolton (and even Jane Austen’s Hampshire family), but I leave you to “google” the family. I’ve not looked very hard, but I do not believe any “Mrs. Smith” held the title “Lady Paulet”.
The “Lady Paulet”, in association with the name Mrs. Smith — not, as the Curator Notes seem to posit, a “re-attribution,” but a true secondary attribution, to my eyes, leads me to believe I’ve the answer to THIS sitter’s identify.
The pencil, although it mistakes “a” for “o” and omits one “t,” misspells POULETT, giving, after 1816, Mrs. Smith’s last appellation. I believe BM’s sitter to be Mrs John Smith, AKA Margaret Smith-Burges.
Click the photo to be taken to the full portrait at The British Museum. But compare the face and profile to this profile (c1786):
And this face – an 1805 etching:
Both can be found on the Two Teens in the Time of Austen’s page, PORTRAITS & PEDIGREES.
I don’t think I’m wrong.
Do you ????
(I’d welcome thoughts on both sides of the argument.)
The artist of the etching – at the National Portrait Gallery, London – is Robert Cooper; the work’s artist is “unknown”. Given that Downman’s sketch is profile, it’s unlikely he would have produced a full-face official portrait. So it’s doubtful he produced the original image that the etcher etched. But, I will keep my eyes open.
She can also be seen, at NPG, in a lengthy (literally, it’s over 84-inches long) picture, “The installation-supper as given at the Pantheon, by the Knights of the Bath on the 26th of May 1788.” It’s difficult to identify what she LOOKS like (small image), but the NPG website makes it possible to pop up a little box around her — she appears towards the right end, back to the audience, with a plump bum (blame it on the clothes), dressed in pink with white. The thin stick of a man beside her is ID’ed as Earl Poulett. Which, the more I think about it, probably means the Countess depicted is his first rather than his second wife…. Sophia Pocock married John Poulett in 1782; she died in 1811. Hmmm…., should drop a note to NPG’s website, marking the mis-attribution. The cartoon is by James Gillray.
Of course, in 1788, Margaret’s name was merely “Mrs. Smith,” and not the Countess Poulett.
Goodness! I’ve chatted on – and still have a lengthy discourse to share on my other “Mrs. Smith” *find*. I will make a Part 3…
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Part 1 of the series Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805
Part 3 of the series Illustrating Mamma’s Diary 1805
Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805
After posting news of the portrait of Percy Currie (née Gore) [see “New Portrait: Percy Gore (1794)“], Douglas contacted me and we’ve had a wonderful verbal exchange over portraits of Percy the Mother (Mrs. Currie, in Smith family letters and diaries) and Percy the Daughter, Percy-Gore Currie, (later, the wife of Bishop Horatio Powys).
Percy Gore Currie (by Russell 1794)
Yesterday, Douglas sent me back to the Collections website at the British Museum. He had found a portrait image of Percy’s husband William Currie, 1796 (died, 1829).
See the other two Curries in the same album:
- Miss Currie, 1796 (William’s eldest sister, Magdalen)
- Mrs. Currie, 1791 (William’s wife, Percy Gore)
The artist is John Downman – whose distinctive style is immediately recognized in these swiftly-composed and lightly-colored portraits. There are THREE CURRIES in these albums. But I must say, originally I presumed the Curries had owned an album of drawings by Downman of their family members., which now was to be found in the collections of the British Museum. Indeed, no! The albums (multiple volumes) were Downman’s OWN ALBUMS of preliminary sketches of (as he evidently named them) “First Sketches of Portraits of distinguished persons.” THAT fact changed the way I thought about the works. AND it made me look more closely at the information the British Museum included with each of them.
A few notes about the Downman drawings and the Curator Comments.
William and Percy married in 1794. So her portrait’s identification must have been put in retrospectively (there are further lines, in different hands, but I mean the original pen identification) – it identifies her as “their Sister-in-law” and calls her Mrs. Currie.
(What can “THEIR” mean when one portrait is Percy’s sister-in-law but the other is Percy’s husband? Were there – are there – more family portraits??)
Also, the Curator Notes assume “Miss Currie” to be Elizabeth (born 1774). The Notes are correct in saying there were FIVE Currie daughters, but the title MISS Currie would only have gone to the ELDEST (unmarried) daughter. That honor belongs to Magdalen Currie, who never married. She appears in Emma Smith’s diaries and in family letters as “Miss Currie,” whom the Smiths of Suttons visited often. Brother William (the eldest son) was born in 1756; their parents Magdalen Lefevre and William Currie [died 1781] had married in 1753. Magdalen the daughter, their oldest child, was born September 1754. She retained throughout her life the title of “Miss Currie”.
[Note: alternate spelling: Madaleine, though was it used by the Lefevre or Currie family?]
Further thoughts dawned as I looked more closely at the Trio of Portraits: Percy’s drawing is dated EARLIEST. 1791 versus 1796 for the Currie siblings. Undoubtedly, she (or her family) found Downman first, and others followed her lead. It is always illustrative, when one member (or, in this case, potential member) of a family has their portrait painted, taken, or photographed: WHAT OTHER family then did the same?? is always my first thought. Silvy, the photographer, is one whose studio books illustrate several members of the greater Smith & Gosling family. Edouart, the silhouettist, produced a lengthy list of silhouettes – but his own studio albums for the period were lost. Where HAVE the originals gone? You can peruse the list yourself by looking at “Where are these items?”
So who else might have used the services of John Downman??
Once I realized that, I had incentive to seek more of his sitters. No Goslings (boo!), and no Smiths of Suttons family (boo, too!), but SMITH did pull up a couple of interesting images!
This preamble has grown to such a length that I will make a Part 2 of this post. In the meantime, I will leave you with Williamson’s book on JOHN DOWNMAN – which sets out his sitters, including the three Curries (page 135).
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Part 2 of the series Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805
New Year’s Honours: Helena Whitbread
Looking for information on Helena Whitbread’s biography of Anne Lister, I found notices that she had been honored with an MBE in King Charles’ New Year’s Honours List!
The Halifax Courier’s headlines read, “New Year’s Honours: Historian who uncovered ‘Gentleman Jack’ Diaries.”
Helena Whitbread’s own biography gives researchers like me reasons to hope, and to keep on working towards our goals. Indeed, the article calls her (and two others) “inspiring”. She receives the MBE – Member of the Order of the British Empire – for service to History and Literature.
The 2023 “New Year’s Honours” was the first “Honours List” of King Charles’ reign.
January 2023 also saw Helena awarded an honorary degree (D.Litt.) from the University of Sheffield.
Congratulations, Helena! Well deserved, after all your hard work.
Lots of Anne Lister news
Periodically looking for new books being published — especially with search terms women, biography, England — I recently found Jill Liddington’s As Good as a Marriage: The Anne Lister Diaries, 1836-38. Publication date is scheduled for May 2023 (Manchester University Press).
As Good as a Marriage joins the prior Liddington volumes:
- Nature’s Domain: Anne Lister and the Landscape of Desire – which presents Lister’s 1832 journal entries
- Female Fortune: The Anne Lister Diaries, 1833-36: Land, Gender, and Authority – which fits between the earlier book and the next volume of diaries
Of course Liddington’s publications build upon the Lister diaries published by Helena Whitbread:
- I Know My Own Heart (aka: The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, volume 1) – featuring journal entries from 1816 to 1824
- No Priest But Love (aka The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister, volume 2) – the follow-up features Lister’s journals from Paris in 1824
All Lister fans are patiently awaiting Whitbread’s biography of Anne Lister.
At the very least, the paths of Mary Gosling & family and Anne Lister crossed via visits to the Ladies of Llangollen. Both visited Plas Newydd, the home of Sarah Ponsonby and Lady Eleanor Butler.
The next piece of news concerns the upcoming ANNA LISTER RESEARCH SUMMIT.
This is a three-day extravaganza features topics like “Shew us the archives”; an update on the Transcription Project; studies of Anne Lister’s Reading Habits; “The Lister Moves”; and “Mining Laughs”. Check out the ENTIRE schedule of offerings on the SUMMIT website – where you can also REGISTER for this FREE conference, which runs October 14-16, 2022 (with videos uploaded to YouTube for those sessions that you miss). They meet over ZOOM and are time-zone friendly.
Saying Goodbye to the Queen
In 1818, Emma Smith noted the death of Queen Charlotte on the 17th of November. Emma’s diary tells us that she put on mourning,on the Sunday following (November 22). What stuck in my mind, and was brought to mind today – the day of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral – were Emma’s words written against the date December 1st:
Tuesday, Dec 1 After much consideration whether we should stay as Mrs Gosling proposed & see the Queen’s funeral at Windsor or go home it was settled that Mamma & Augusta should return to Suttons Wednesday & that I should stay at Roehampton till Monday 7th
Wednesday, Dec 2 Mamma & us besides the Goslings stationed ourselves near Hounslow Heath for the purpose of seeing the procession it was very quiet the hearse seven of the Queens carriages some mourners & a troop of lancers. from thence Mama & Augusta returned to Roehampton they slept there & went the next day to Suttons. I went on with the Goslings to Windsor they had secured a room in the Castle Inn we dined there & about 8 o’clock the procession passed us. the road from the Castle to Frogmore was lined with soldiers every sixth man bearing a flambeau besides some of the cavalry & all the mourners the Regent was Chief Mourner the Dukes of York & Sussex were also present the whole sight was very grand. Mr & Mrs Gosling Elizabeth & Mary & I all laid down in a double bedded room. W:m & Bennett returned to Roehampton
Thursday, Dec 3 The Cavalry was reviewed before our windows. We walked into the Castle but they would not show it then to Eton Coll & returned to Roehampton for dinner
To all those who paid respects
(click to watch BBC broadcast – over 9 hours of coverage)
“First the Music”
In Italian, “Prima la musica, et poi le parole” means “First the music and then the words.” Its underlying meaning shouts the primacy of the composer over the librettist. The one-act opera by Antonio Salieri premiered on 7 February 1786, at Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, a commission from Emperor Josef II. Premiered the same evening and venue was Mozart’s comedy in one act, Der Schauspieldirecktor (The Impresario).
It was from this evening’s rivalry – for, long ago (LP’s anyone??) I had purchased a recording of one of Mozart’s better-known operas, and the music from “The Impresario” took up the room on the last side of the set – that I took the title for a chapter in a forthcoming book on “Women and Music,” with a focus on Emma Austen’s eldest sister, Augusta Smith. Born in London in February 1799 – so just thirteen years after that night of music in Schönbrunn’s Orangery – Augusta Smith, to me, seems the epitome of The Accomplished Woman, especially when I focus on her musical skills. But: there were so MANY accomplished women in the Smiths’ circle of family and acquaintance. You meet MANY of the young ladies in the chapter, which is entitled, Prima la musica: Gentry Daughters at Play – Town, Country, and Continent, 1815-1825.
Emma Smith
(1820s silhouette)
see also the Carpenter (attributed) portrait at HRO.
See Smith of Suttons, pedigree 2.
Thanks in no small part to covid, the trail this chapter and the work of other contributors to the book, has been lengthy and circuitous. Yet, the publishers who first showed interest back in 2019 has just this past week given the green light to our project! Bucknell University Press will publish Woman and Music in the Age of Austen. I suspect the book will hit stores in time for Christmas 2023.
Watchers of this blog will notice a slight, and very recent, title change – from “Women and Music in Georgian Britain” to “Women and Music in the Age of Austen.” The prior title will bring up several notices, especially by contributors (including me, through Two Teens in the Time of Austen).
In a next post about the forthcoming book, I’ll include a table of contents & contributors. to whet your appetite for more on Women and music in the age of Jane Austen, which “age” runs, of course, from the late 18th century into the 19th century – but Austen herself reached back into the past, before her birth, and her influence continues into our own decades of the 21st century.
The book runs to over 400 pages in manuscript. The hopes of the editors are to make the volume “affordable”.
Stay tuned!!
Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth & Tring Park
Some exciting news –
A little while ago I found David Shakespeare‘s work on the “Pregnancy Portrait” of Queen Elizabeth I. David has come across a photograph of Tring Park (Hertfordshire) during the Rothschild years — and his sharp eyes spotted, hanging on the Hallway wall, the very portrait I had found in a Smith Sister’s drawing, which quite obviously “copied” this well-known work:
Below is the sketch, enlarged to show only the “Portrait,” in pride of place between two Drawing Room windows — the image’s focal point as well as the room’s focal point, despite the loss of the fourth wall behind the viewer. This interior sketch surely dates to the late 1820s, during the Smiths’ early occupancy of Tring Park, their Uncle Drummond’s [Sir Drummond Smith] former country house, by that time sold out of the family – and yet rented again by his relations:
In my first blog post (written nearly ten years ago) I called this image “Mystery Lady and Deer” and I was seeking further information and had hoped for identification (see post “Have you seen this Lady?“). A few months later, I found the “Elizabeth I” image. As I wrote at the time, it was a “MAJOR Oh-My-Gosh!” moment (see “Mystery Portrait ID’ed“).
From time to time, I’m impelled to revisit old thoughts, old blog posts. I don’t recall what I was looking for — undoubtedly something to do with TRING — when I came across this discussion from David Shakespeare, on the very portrait in question!
- “A Second Pregnancy Portrait” – David Shakespeare’s YouTube channel (35 min)
- “A Second Pregnancy Portrait” – David’s fully-illustrated 29-page PDF
It was the PDF that I came across first. Impressive scholarship! A member of the De Vere Society, David’s hour-long presentation on “The Pregnancy Portrait of Elizabeth I” (2018) is a must watch. I’ll include here a link to David Shakespeare’s entire YouTube channel.
As you might imagine, when I emailed the full sketch (the original is among the Austen Leigh papers at the Hampshire Record Office), David was intrigued enough to visit Winchester with great speed. What intrigued me was the ability to really see, thanks to his detailed photographs, what I have never seen in person. Heightened to darken the faint pencil lines of the original, for the first time, all viewers get a glimpse into Tring Park and the material lives of the Smith Family.
An ASIDE:
Tring was the first marital home for Emma and Edward Austen [the Rev. & Mrs. James Edward Austen Leigh], and the birthplace of their first children.
I have come across three sketch books by Fanny Smith (Bodleian Library, Oxford); one by next youngest sister, Charlotte Smith (Tring Local History Museum); and work of youngest sister Maria Louisa Smith. So there are “contenders” for the artist(s) of the two sketches of Tring Interiors at HRO (Hampshire Record Office). HRO presumes the artist to be either eldest sister Augusta Smith or next eldest Emma Smith. Without in-person study, and other artists’ work as comparison, I make no guesses.
Another ASIDE:
A related sketch book, of ten drawings, sold on eBay in November 2020 – the known contents of which (five drawings) closely mirror the Fanny-Charlotte sketches. Presumably, the sisters were sketching the same places together. Needless to say, I would love to know more about the current whereabouts of this eBay item, as would Tring Local History Museum.
I invite you to view David’s newest video “Update on the Pregnancy Portraits” (there’s a PDF as well) – where he not only tells about Tring’s missing portrait, but also offers fascinating insight, observations, and theories on the “original” portrait. And, yes, the plural word “portraits” is meant literally. For David would DEARLY LOVE to find the painting that used to hang at Tring, last seen during the Rothschild ownership.
- “Update on the Pregnancy Portraits” – video presentation by David Shakespeare (42 min)
- “Update on the Pregnancy Portraits” – fully-illustrated 37-page PDF
Thrilling for me is David’s up-close-and-personal dissection of the Tring Drawing Room!! Including fascinating new information on the pianoforte seen on the left edge of the sketch. He will walk you around the room, before informing you about the “painting” seen in the drawing and the portraits – found and yet-to-be-discovered.
Join us!
Thin End of the Wedge? Online Security and Research “overseas”
Today, wishing to look up a citation for a drawing done, surely by one of the Smith sisters during their occupation of Tring Park (so, late 1820s most likely, but, depending on WHICH of the six sisters, perhaps into the early 1830s), I could not make the Hampshire Record Office catalogue actually SEARCH.
Was/Is it down?
I wasn’t sure that it wasn’t MY internet connection; me or them; or whatever??
I now searched rather than use my “book-marked” link, just in case there had been an update (although the SITE came up; it just didn’t actually SEARCH).
I clicked on the Hampshire Archives and Local Studies link on google – and got a “This site can’t be reached” error message. Again, was it my connection??
I clicked on the link for their Facebook page. And was ASTONISHED to see the following “pinned” to the site since March 16 (2022):
* * * * *
“As part of our current online security measures, connections are blocked to Hampshire County Council webpages from countries outside the UK, EU, and European Economic Area (EEA).”
* * * * *
The link, by the way, they supply does bring up the catalogue – but it still wasn’t searching for me.
My great fear, of course, is that “Online Security Measures” of THIS sort will bring my research to a screeching halt. The Hampshire Record Office is one of “the” biggest stash of Smith & Gosling-related stuff! And any collapse of online access really closes down my ability to find further items relating to my research, which (lately) has been done by a locum whenever I’ve located something I absolutely had to CONSULT and couldn’t do in person.
I have located, to date, items like diaries, drawings, and letters in countries as far apart as the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Australia. If I can’t SEARCH, I cannot FIND.
I won’t be alone… I will be in good company, I’m sure.
I haven’t looked to see what other archives this same directive affects – I’m sure HRO is not alone (so many use the same “Calm” catalogue structure).
Believe me, I _know_ about security vulnerability – but closing ACCESS from countries NOT in “your neighbourhood” cannot be the solution! Not for archives, especially.
I might say, given past access denied, this is NOT the first time that the likes of the U.S. has come in for such denial to freely available data. Obviously, those few (I can think of access to Queen Victoria’s Diaries), will now be joined by the likes of PUBLIC Archives.
Thin end of the wedge, indeed. Especially for those of us who use the nomenclature of “Independent” researcher. Some sites cannot even be “purchased” for use by individuals (I think especially of the GALE databases).
It has been said before, Two Countries DIVIDED by a common language. The UK really has shut “US” out with this move.
I hope that in the future there will be access at least through a “sign in” registration. But for now, I’m waiting to get home to look at my downloaded Austen Leigh archive information – and waiting for a sign that the catalogue was actually DOWN today (about 5 PM UK time) [I will update this, should that be the case]. I rather have my doubts, but would LOVE to be pleasantly surprised.
UPDATE: 90-minutes later and the SEARCH is actually working. And I found the citation for the drawing of Tring Park’s room. Lessens, a bit, the block of items beyond the HRO online catalogue, but I fear it’s just a matter of time…
further UPDATE (July 2022): I’ve been able, still, to access the full catalogue.
The After-Life of Ann Jackson, Servant
Quite some time ago, I found reference to “Bennett Gosling, Esq.” at the Old Bailey Online. His valet, Thomas Wenlock, was giving testimony in a theft case that had occurred in July 1839. I made mention of both Thomas Wenlock and Ann Jackson as having been part of Bennett’s household on the page “Servants-Clerks-Governesses.” For Ann Jackson, her employment seemed in the past.
Given that I have, (I think), ONE letter penned by Bennett Gosling – a brief note. Given that, among the Goslings, only Mary Gosling, Bennett’s younger sister, has left diaries – which, except for travels, are all daily diaries written after her marriage in 1826 to Sir Charles Joshua Smith, baronet (Emma Austen’s brother). AND given that only a handful of a household’s servant population manage to gain more than one mention in a person’s diaries (ie, there might be at least the hiring and/or the dismissal mentioned), SERVANTS are the hardest to construct any kind of roster. The early 19th century census, unlike our common “every ten years” really comes down to the 1840 census — and people were not always at home on Census Day. I once searched the census for Mary, Lady Smith – I had her birthday — Ancestry could NOT find her. I looked up her diary — she was in town (London) and staying at the Curries’ home (sister-in-law Charlotte and husband Arthur Currie).
Little did I know, at the time, that the age for Mary was incorrectly approximated in the census. In essence, I knew (and searched) too-specific information!
Anyway…
I was happy to find mention of Ann Jackson a few days ago. She turned up in an Australian database because she received a sentence of TRANSPORTATION at her 9 July 1839 trial. This *find* of a new-to-me website made me revisit what I had previously found at the Old Bailey.
The transcript of Ann Jackson’s trial can be read online. She was found to have in her possession disparate items from two households – the stays of Mrs. Pearse, for example, valued at 30 shillings; and two coats (valued at £4) of Bennett Gosling, Esq.
Arrest and trial records of the period tend to be rather sketchily transmitted. The policeman, Andrew Wyness, for instance, according to his testimony, follows the young woman, pushes open a door, and then confronts Jackson, demanding to know what’s in her bundle.
Was Wyness entering a residence? a rear yard? What had made him suspicious of Jackson, other than that he spotted her at “Four in the Morning”…
Wyness could not have known at the time that Ann Jackson would be found to have an alias – Maria Donaldson – though WHAT NAME she was using at the time of her employment with the Pearses (or Bennett Gosling) is not quite noted. Surely Wenlock had not known her under one name and come across her at the Pearses’ (where he lodged) under another, but which name she used when is anyone’s guess.
That she was indicted under the name ANN JACKSON leads me to believe this was her legal name.
Wenlock’s testimony that he and Bennett (“his master”) “went into the country” can only mean they spent the weekend at Roehampton Grove, before returning to banking duties on Monday. Sister Mary’s diary does not indicate a visit to Suttons that July weekend.
The Prisoner at the Bar was summarily sentenced after a brief self-defense. She was given Ten Years and Transported to Van Diemen’s Land. Ann Jackson was 23-year-old at the time of trial.
Jackson’s Australian history is picked up by the website “Edges of Empire Biographical Dictionary of Convict Women from Beyond the British Isles“, edited by Lucy Frost and Collette McAlpine.
Jackson sailed on the Gilbert Henderson, reaching Van Diemen’s Land on 24 April 1840. Steve Rhodes, in his write-up of her biography, supplies interesting details missing from the curt Old Bailey transcript. Born in South America, she had been raised in London. Rhodes believes her legal name to have been MARIA DONALDSON, and promotes a marriage to one Robert Donaldson with a marital home at 1 Tavistock Street, London. The marriage had produced at least one (living?) child.
Surely it is convict records that accounts for the fascinating PHYSICAL details:
Jackson “was a short woman at 4 feet 9 1/2 inches (146.05 cm) tall, had dark brown hair, hazel eyes and fair complexion, and her freckled nose was inclined to the right.”
Records record only a few personal details of her time in Australia. There’s a “case of misconduct” (no information) on 16 April 1842. The delivery of an illegitimate child a few months later, on 28 July 1842. She married John Sykes, “a free man”, in Hobart on 26 December 1843. Evidently in the marriage registry Sykes is described as a 25-year-old mounted policeman. Given the earlier indication of a marriage, Jackson is incorrectly described as a 26-year-old “spinster”. “There were three children known to be born to Ann Jackson”, writes Rhodes, though I am unsure if this includes the two prior children he had already established or not.
Also produced online is the BOOK, Women Transported: Life in Australia’s Convict Female Factories – a tie-in with a (2008) exhibition. Access the PDF catalogue and its essays by clicking on the picture (above). Essays include Gay Hendricksen’s WOMEN TRANSPORTED – MYTH AND REALITY; Carol Liston’s CONVICT WOMEN – IN THE FEMALE FACTORIES OF NEW SOUTH WALES; and Trudy Cowley’s FEMALE FACTORIES OF VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.
PLEASE NOTE: the website listed on the title page goes to a blog. The correct website address evidently is a “dot org”: https://femalefactory.org.au/ which will take you to the website for Cascades Female Factory (currently – early 2022 – closed for construction of a new History & Interpretation Centre).
Interesting reading in their evocative Brochure. There were five such “factories” in Van Diemen’s Land. And, yes, Ann Jackson’s name appears in the catalogue’s list of names.
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 