Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805 (part 3)
One of the most difficult parts of researching the family of Emma Austen is the fact that Emma’s parents were BOTH named “Smith”. Hard to winnow out relations and non-relations, with so common an English name as SMITH.
Mrs. Charles Smith – Augusta Smith, senior – “Mamma”. She has, from the beginning, been easy to track, because her father, Joshua Smith, was a Member of Parliament (for Devizes) and a landowner. The estate itself causes problems. Spelled Erle Stoke Park; Erlestoke Park; as well as Earl Stoke Park. Alas, the estate exists, and yet doesn’t. The fabric of the building sustained a fire. The estate is now known as HMP – His Majesty’s Prison – Earlstoke (Wiltshire).
Mr. Charles Smith of Suttons – “Papa”. He had one living sister. The Smith of Suttons children called her “Aunt”. This simple appellation has caused others to mistake her for one of several other aunts. But Aunt Northampton, Aunt Chute, Aunt Emma (all are Mamma’s sisters) are accounted for. It is JUDITH SMITH who is forever and always called, simply “Aunt“.
And it is Aunt, who, by 1805, had a quartet of three nieces and a nephew: Augusta (junior), Charles Joshua, Emma, and Fanny, all of whom visited the Smiths at Stratford, Essex. Judith’s mother was still alive, and the two lived together. Mamma sometimes denotes them as “Old Mrs. Smith” and “Miss Smith,” and they are usually noted together. Aunt remained a “Maiden Aunt” all her life. Judith was born in 1754 and was two years older than her brother, who was significantly older than his (second) wife. Augusta, senior had been born in 1772, and was 26 years old at the time of her 1798 marriage; Charles would turn 44 in September of that year. He welcomed his first child – Augusta, junior – in February 1799.
Mamma – who was super close to her own sisters, Maria (born 1767) [Lady Northampton]; Eliza (born 1769) [Mrs. Chute of The Vyne]; and Emma (born 1774) – took a while to cozy up to her sister-in-law.
But Judith had relatives of her own, more SMITHS, of course!
One family, mentioned in Augusta Smith’s 1805 diary, is the Smiths of Malling. Always denoted by the designation “of Malling,” their matriarch is a third portrait in artist John Downman’s albums, “First Sketches of Portraits of distinguished persons,” held at the British Museum. You can see them online, digitally presented. The “Study for Mrs. Smith of West Malling, Kent, 1805” can also be viewed on the BM website.
Mrs. Smith of Malling presents an interesting case of a young woman, eventually the sole heir of her parents, who seemingly married “for love”. Her full inheritance came through the death of her brother. The Monument Inscription in Meopham gives the unfortunate particulars:
Hither soon followed them
their son WILLIAM, the heir of their fortunes
and their virtues; a fair inheritance:
but alas of their mortality too.
which lot befel him at the early age of 28
April the 12th 1761
‘He died of the small pox
unhappily procured by
inoculation’
Known as “the heiress of Camer,” Katherine (or Catherine) MASTERS married William SMITH of Croydon. Through her came her father’s estate of Camer.
And with her came a slot in the family vault for her husband.
As Downman noted, Mrs. Smith of West Mallling was a widow with numerous children. Her husband died in 1764, aged only 44. He (and his family) are buried at Meopham (in Kent). I have found two sons and two daughters of the reported six children (three of each sex), “all in their infancy,” who remained at the time of their father’s death.
- Rebecca: born 1750, she died in 1802. Mamma mentioned her death in her diary – it was Rebecca’s obituary that enabled me to find more information on the family as a whole. Her obituary says she died after a lengthy illness (which could indicate cancer);
- Catherine: born 1752, she died in 1777;
- George [of Camer]: born 1757; he died in 1831;
- William [of Fairy Hall, Kent]: born 1759; he died in 1830.
William Smith (senior) was related to Charles Smith’s father – Charles Smith of Stratford (Essex), who wrote on the Corn Laws (he died in 1777). His widow, “Old” Mrs. Smith of Stratford, lived until 1808. From Augusta Smith’s diaries, including this one of 1805, “Aunt” (Judith Smith) often visited the Smiths of Malling, and she must have lost a good friend in “Miss Smith of Malling” (Rebecca), when she died.
A 1940 article by Edward Croft Murray from The British Museum Quarterly (vol. 14, no. 3; pp. 60-66) describes these Downmen albums – and gives their background history. The albums, “not sketch-books in the strict sense of the word,” are where “the artist mounted his delicately drawn ‘First Studies’ … with their dates, the names of the sitters, and usually some comments on them, all in his [Downman’s] own handwriting.” Anyone looking at the BM images can see the truth of that statement, but it is mind-blowing to learn:
- “These albums were originally arranged by Downman in four series, more or less in chronological sequence, each series containing four to eight volumes, and each volume between about twenty-five and thirty-five drawings“;
- “Series i is said to have been sold previously [before 1825-1827] and the original eight volumes belonging to it dispersed, some of them having been broken up and their contents scattered even further among various collections”;
- “Vols 1 and 3 of this Series [Series i] however, are still intact, and were sold .. at Sotheby’s on 15 February 1922, passing eventually to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, in 1938″.
The Fitzwilliam provides a physical description of an album in their collection as, “Red leather coverboards with gold tooling. Green end papers and boards. 61 sheets in total including 26 protection papers [these are usually “tissue-like], bound in. Pages are gold edged. Contained 30 drawings, each laid onto the recto of a folio sheet.”
Downman himself said the albums denoted his “pleasant Employment of many Years; and in this assemblage of Portraits, you will see how different Fashions change ….” He admitted that he had “no Idea of a Collection ’till I found insensibly the Accumulation.” Indeed! Can you imagine the ENTIRE collection as he and his daughter Isabella Chloe (later Mrs. Benjamin) knew it???
Ah, the “lost” portraits! I second the author’s wish for a publication of ALL extant drawings.
Further information, related to the Quarterly article:
- “How Downman drew ‘The Larking Family’” (The Connoisseur, Sept 1926)
- G.C. Williamson’s book, John Downman A.R.A.: His Life and Works (1907)
- Lady Northampton, 1779; by Downman [Jane Compton, née Lawton, the 8th Countess; Uncle Northampton’s mother]
- Other Downman images from the Fitzwilliam Museum
By the way, the Sir Robert Cunliffe of Acton Hall, Wrexham, mentioned in the articles, was a relation to Mary Gosling – with Emma my “Two Teens in the Time of Austen” – through her maternal grandfather, Sir Ellis Cunliffe.
For the woman born Katherine Manners, Mrs Smith of West Malling: her heirs “founded” the familial line of “Smith Masters” and “Masters”. Downman painted in 1805, and Katherine Masters Smith died on 6 February 1814, aged 86 – meaning she had been born circa 1728. No wonder Mamma Smith thought of her as “Old Mrs. Smith of Malling.”
The family who outlived Katherine called her “their excellent mother.” Downman, a West Malling neighbor, must have agreed with that assessment. He wrote below her portrait that she “well managed” her family.
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Part 1 of the series Illustrating Mamma’s Diary, 1805
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 Portrait: Percy Gore (1794)
Emma writes much of her Currie cousin, little Percy-Gore Currie. Sister Fanny Smith stayed at East Horsley with the William Curries during part of the long illness of patriarch Charles Smith in 1814.
So today it was thrilling to see an image of Mrs. William Currie, (née Gore), people with whom Fanny passed several weeks, not knowing (she was only 10 years old), that she had seen the last of her dear father.
An early letter, written in October 1813 from Horsley was a JOINT letter, semt to Fanny by Papa as well as Mamma. While all the siblings kept various letters of Mamma, few letters survive from Papa Smith. The few that do, written to his children, present a doting, loving father. Unfortunately, he never met nor saw his youngest child, Maria — born days after his death.
In October, 1813, Papa tells Fanny that the countryside around East Horsley (Surrey), the Curries estate, is “delightful” and that Mamma is particularly drawn to it, having spent “the early part of her life” hereabouts. He equates the age of Mamma then as being about the age of Fanny now. So a young girl indeed. Mamma was born, the third daughter of her parents (Joshua and Sarah Smith, of Erlestoke Park, Devizes) in 1772. So the time would be around 1782, a good twelve years before Miss Gore joined the family.
Since Mamma’s 1814 letter to Fanny asks her to give “My love to Mrs. Currie,” it is probable that Mrs. Currie received an additional letter (not located, alas!) telling her of Mr. Smith’s death – and asking her to break the news to Fanny.
Percy, Mrs. Currie, would have been twenty years older than the powdered, willowy woman we see. But the face is kindly, and quietly reassuring. Fanny would have had as playmate Percy’s daughter, Percy-Gore, about two years younger than Fanny.
The portrait, by John Russell, is described in its 2015 auction offering, as “pastel with touches of gouache on paper; 35 11/16 x 27 3/4 inch). You can read the description for yourself at Bonhams.
Neil Jeffares’ “Pastellists before 1800” has a short write-up; it seems to intimate that the portrait did not sell in 2015 and was relisted the following year (at a lower estimate), when it evidently sold.
I cannot say ENOUGH about how seeing people from my research project spurs me on to dig deeper. I began – and this was how I found Percy Currie – in looking for information on her daughter Percy-Gore, for I found that she married into a family whose eldest siblings were greatly admired for their musical talents by eldest sibling Augusta Smith. Now I have the task to look up BOTH Mother and Daughter, and to see what the letters and diaries of the Smiths have to say about the Curries. Of interest, too, of course, is finding more about East Horsley, especially as Mamma Smith once knew it so well.
A MYSTERY =>
The British Museum has put up an image of a “Mrs. Currie” by Downman (dated 1791, which would be three years before her marriage), makes me wonder: IS the sitter Percy Gore?
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.
2/2/22 – Mary’s 222 Birthday
I simply could not let today pass without a passing nod at my first diarist, Mary Gosling — also know here as Lady Smith (following her 1826 marriage to Sir Charles Joshua Smith, baronet).
There could be NO harder name to “search” or “research” than a couple called Charles and Mary Smith!
And yet, the research has been GOLDEN.
I first found Mary’s earliest diary – a set of six trips taken between 1814 and 1824 – in 2006, when I was wishing to note down “authentic” sightings of the Ladies of Llangollen, Sarah Ponsonby and Eleanor Butler. I had visited their northern Wales home, Plas Newydd, in 2005. Mary Gosling met them! And she left her impressions of them. Well… less her impressions than notes of what others always said of them. I was QUITE disappointed, especially in the brevity of her thoughts — for, within a page, the family had DEPARTED Llangollen!
BUT: Mary herself began to intrigue me. Mainly, because the family members were shown around Plas Newydd and they spent about four hours with the Ladies, in their home. THAT one premise began EVERYTHING that has gone on since — from all the research into the Smiths of Suttons, as well as my interest in the Ladies of Llangollen themselves.
The results of all this early research:
- Two Teens in the Time of Austen – this blog, so named because Mary’s sister-in-law, Emma Smith, my second diarist, married James Edward Austen. And Edward was the nephew of writer Jane Austen.
- Ladies of Llangollen – a blog whose information, based on a website I created circa 2006, still needs additional work, but it currently hosts interesting artwork, book excerpts, and information on people who visited Plas Newydd — the GOSLINGS included — during the tenancy of Ponsonby and Butler, as well as after.
The Smiths took over my life – buried me under diaries and stacks of letters, stocked my brain with tidbits of personal and national (England) history, squinted my eyes in deciphering a myriad of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century “hands,” and made me spend my money and my time (not sure WHICH is more costly, in the end), in a never-ending pursuit after more knowledge. The nosing-around their lives has made and still makes me HAPPY.
by Frenchie (Photobucket)
With that thought, I wish Mary Gosling the HAPPIEST 222nd Anniversary of her 2 February 1800 birth. She graced the earth for only 42 years, leaving three youthful children, whose faint faces I have now unearthed. And she opened the door for a true glimpse into the past.
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.
Mystery of the 1794 Stock & Pudding (fashion)
There was a time when I hastened to find the solution to this mystery. Only, nothing much turned up. Things ‘cooled’; time passed.
This morning, I read from a book I bought long ago, when the diary-keeping of Elizabeth Porter Phelps, in Hadley, Massachusetts, initially caught my attention, called, Earthbound and Heavenbent: Elizabeth Porter Phelps and Life at Forty Acres, 1747-1817, by Elizabeth Pendergast Carlisle (Scribner, 2004).
Back in September, I mentioned in my blog Isadore Albee’s Civil War, (based on a series of diaries relating to the Albees of Springfield, Vermont; a future project), an earlier Vermont-related item, a Friendship Album dating from the late 1830s-early 1840s. This “Window into the Past” opened upon a different family, the wife and children of Charles Phelps of West Townshend, Vermont during a period of intense correspondence between the three young daughters – Eliza (named after her mother, Eliza Houghton), Fanny, and Jane. A main topic of conversation was of going away to school, for Eliza – who attended Mrs. Willard’s Troy Female Seminary (Troy, New York), and then Fanny – who, by dint of more numerous letters, went to schools in Chester and Brattleboro, Vermont; before leaving for the Misses Edwards’ School in New Haven, Connecticut. Isadore Albee’s early diaries frequently comment upon her desire to attend school, in order to teach. Coming approximately 20-25 years later, the Albee diaries found a ready companion in the album and batches of letters from the Phelps family because of the similarity in major topics, and how one generation would have *inspired* a future generation.
It was in looking for the duration of Eliza Phelps’ “tenure” as a scholar at Mrs. Willard’s school, and in finding only mention of the similarly-named Elizabeth Phelps Huntington (Elizabeth Porter Phelps’ daughter), that I re-plucked off the shelf Earthbound and Heavenbent. Elizabeth Porter had married an earlier Charles Phelps – in fact, the paternal uncle of “my” Charles Phelps of West Townshend. There is much in the book about Charles Phelps (of Hadley, MA), his brothers Solomon and Timothy (my Charles Phelps’ father), and their father Charles Phelps, Senior, who was living in Marlboro – and struggling hard AGAINST statehood for Vermont (admitted into the Union, as the 14th State, in 1791).
By this morning’s read, the children of the Hadley branch of the Phelps family had passed through the Revolutionary War and into the late 1790s. The only son, Porter, is in Boston, and his sister Betsy is evidently thanking him for a fashionable purchase made on her behalf:
“my pudding or neck-cloth, was not disliked tho’ ma said I should frighten some out of the house of worship — however I believe they withstood the shock — for I heard no disturbance.” [p 131; dated 18 Dec 1797]
PUDDING!
The word immediately made me scramble for the file of Smith & Gosling letters.
In a letter dated 1 February 1794, Sarah Smith (my diarist Emma’s maternal grandmother) mentions the London fashions to her daughter Eliza Chute, who always elected to remain at The Vyne, in Hampshire, despite her husband being a Member of Parliament (with one brief hiatus, William John CHUTE sat in the Commons from 1790 to 1820). While Sarah clearly describes something around the neck, I was uncertain what a PUDDING constituted in the fashionable circles of London circa 1794. Was it a fashion coming into being? Was it something fading out? The month of February would have seen the majority of country families just settled back in London. Whether related to MPs or merely moving to Town for the Season, now the parties and soirées increased in numerical intensity until Easter, and quietly wound down by June, when people left again for the country (though not necessarily their own estates).
Mrs. Smith’s letter claims as the latest fashion,
“for the Ladies either a very full Muslin plain Stock with a large Pudding, or the long cravats like your old one twisted round the neck & fastened behind”.
Words like STOCK and CRAVAT everyone knows and everyone can conjure up images – but even google got stumped over a correct description for a PUDDING. Look for it in ‘fashion’ and it is usually described as a toddler’s head-wrap, to guard against striking the head in a fall.
See, for instance, this write-up and photograph of a Pudding Cap.
Yet the idea of it being constructed of stuffed ROLLS is something to be remembered in a few moments….
Carlisle, in Earthbound and Heavenbent, in citing Betsy Phelps’ quoted letter, goes further in establishing WHAT Betsy’s “pudding” must have been:
“The word ‘pudding’ applied to a type of neck scarf derived from the nautical use of the word”. Carlisle goes on to described the nautical pudding as a “wreath of plaited cordage”. She alludes to its use on a MAST but deletes the word or words immediately after. Could the missing bit speak to the ship’s BOW? For, in googling nautical pudding, the “rope fender” protecting the BOW is the most consistent “hit”. And the subsequent photographs really point to some item that could be adapted and worn around the neck.
In just using the word FENDER in its nautical sense, (instead of Carlisle’s nondescript item for a mast that “prevent[s] chafing”), the image conjured is one of cylindrical bulk. The images found also allude to the fanciful knots that might have decorated any woman’s PUDDING. There is, however, the possibility of a couple of manifestations.
Here is a wonderful depiction, in several photographs, of what is described as a BEARD FENDER.
Mrs. Smith’s “a large pudding” could be a fall of fabric, as in the BEARD. That they were NOT the same piece of fabric is evident by her description of Eliza’s sister (Maria, Lady Compton): “Maria has made her appearance with the plain Stock but no pudding.”
Some fenders, for instance those posted to this Pinterest page, give more ideas to the type of “roll” that might have been worn around the necks of these Fashionables. The plaiting also could take on several forms. The material? Probably muslin, but not necessarily so.
the weave (above) of this bow
pudding is beautiful
this dense weave almost resembles a burlap
it’s easy to imagine:
exposed, a pudding could be decoration around the neck;
hidden under the stock, it could have added
weight or even layers to a manipulated muslin stock
If anyone has further information – especially, whether this was related to the jabot (as I tend to think of the ‘beard fender’), or truly was made of a rope material, I would welcome enlightenment upon the PUDDING as a fashion accessory for the necks of fashionable Georgian-era Ladies in London.
Sister Act – the Culmes of Tothill
While searching one of my favorite searches – John Hobart Culme Seymour, a good search because it’s a long name, an “unusual” name, and does often bring up something about the Rev. Sir John Culme Seymour instead of children or (what’s worse!) junk results – I found a most useful and interesting article.
The name “Culme” turns up a 2017 local history article in the Sid Vale Association‘s journal “Past, Present, Future”.
It seems the Sidmouth Museum has a little sketchbook – something acquired in the 1970s – once belonging to Fanny Culme, the sister of Elizabeth Culme, the first wife of Sir John Seymor, and the 2nd “Lady Seymour” (following John’s own mother).
The article is illustrated by two watercolors (evidently dating to c1819) of the area around Sidmouth; and – most tantalizing – a self-portrait of Frances Goddard Culme, aged 17. The article, by Rab and Christine Barnard, is called, invoking this self-portrait, “The Girl in the Mirror” (see pp. 34-35).
It is most interesting to me, as a researcher trying to track down such items as sketchbooks and portraits, to read that when it was first acquired, the book was thought to belong to someone named “Fanny Coulter.” By the time the book was catalogued the last name had been guessed at as “Culine.” One can readily see in the lumps comprising the “m” of CULME how this could have segued into the odd name of Culine – but thank goodness someone recognized the girl’s real identity!
The opening tale, too, indicates how spread out research items can be. Even local museums getting in on the act, which I hadn’t always anticipated, although I did recently learn of a sketchbook by the Smith sister Charlotte Judith Smith existing in just such a local museum collection in Tring. So, my eyes have been opened – but when fingers have to do the walking, the search is trebly difficult without someone prompting discovery with a well-timed “here’s what we (or I) have . . .”
I can add a bit of clarification to the assumption about Elizabeth Culme’s marriage. She and John Seymour married in April of 1833. I suspect that they performed a marriage visit to her family in May, thus the cry of “For Auld lang syne” from her sister. (Although Fanny also may have visited Elizabeth and John, an opportunity to see where her sister would be living.) I could relay more information if John’s brother Richard Seymour had made comments about their whereabouts, IF there weren’t pages cut out of Richard’s diary about the time of this marriage (mid-April is missing), as well as dates around mid-May.
There seems to have been a ‘stall’ in the engagement in early March 1833, but Richard is not specific as to the “obstacle” nor to the nature of Elizabeth’s “promise”. Richard received news, from his sister Dora (who was undergoing her own romantic tribulations…), a few days later that “Miss Culme had set aside her [……]” [=single word cut out here; I think it must be promise]. Since whatever Miss Culme set aside made the marriage ready to move forward, it cannot have been a promise to John. Had there been a promise to another man? (seems doubtful) Maybe Elizabeth had made some promise to her sister, Fanny? Though, according to the article, Fanny had already married in 1823 – and John Seymour surely held “good prospects” for Elizabeth’s future life as a clergyman’s wife.
Private “history” can be so mysterious, especially when trying to piece things together using the remains of secrets left standing in ephemeral items like letters – or (mutilated) diaries.
The article, too, helped to recognize what I had guessed at – the transcription of the word SOLTAU (Fanny’s married name). I especially was unsure of the last letter – “u” or “n”? Richard mentions Fanny Soltau in the period surrounding the death of her sister, in 1841. Elizabeth’s baby survived – and was named after her mother, though called for the rest of her life “Sissy” by her immediate family. Sissy and her two brothers were raised by Maria Smith, my diarist Emma Austen’s youngest sister, after Maria married Elizabeth’s widower in 1844. By then, Sir John had added “Culme” to his own last name of Seymour.
*
A quick note should be made as to the position of the Rev. Seymour as Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. It was a mistake I myself made because of verbiage in certain write-ups about John Seymour. No queen in 1827. Sir John did serve as Chaplain in Ordinary to Queen Victoria, once she ascended the throne, a decade later.
In 1827, John Seymour was named Chaplain in Ordinary to the King, George IV.
Preference within the Church was of great concern for any English family with clergy sons to advance; John’s uncle Sir William Knighton was His Majesty’s Private Secretary. This last link will take you to Charlotte Frost’s website, where you have the ability to download her 2010 biography Sir William Knighton: The Strange Career of a Regency Physician for free. Or, follow the author on Twitter.
By Any Other Name
You might ask, given that I research people with the name of “Smith” – and Christen names like Charles and Mary, what name could possibly give me trouble….
Try: Jane Seymour.
Emma’s sister Fanny Smith was the first to marry a Seymour – the Rev. Richard Seymour the new incumbent to the living of Kinwarton (Warwickshire). They married on 30 October 1834.
The following year, September 1835, brother Spencer Smith married Richard’s sister Frances Seymour.
By 1845, not only had youngest sister Maria Smith married (his 2nd wife) the Rev. Sir John Hobart Culme-Seymour, but the Smith’s widowered brother-in-law Arthur Currie had married the widowed Dora (Seymour) Chester.
It was Maria who gave birth (in January 1851) to the JANE SEYMOUR I thought I was chasing. I had unearthed about a dozen photographs of a little girl and young woman – identified in a couple of albums, plus many more loose cartes-de-visite, which (I thought…) pointed to a certain “future” for the young lady portrayed.
I was wrong!
It’s tough, looking at my photographs of photographs – often done under inauspicious conditions of overhead lighting and cradled bound books – some out of focus; others the best that can be taken of the faded nothingness that now remains. Tough, too, to put together some faces that may be the same person – or some sibling – or someone totally different, just seen from an unusual angle that now has you comparing the straight or down-turned mouth, the curved or shell-like ear, the beak-sharp or the bulbous nose.
Such a one was the picture, only ID’ed on the rear with a date – “1877” – of a mother (presume) and frilly-frocked infant (christening?). The adult sitter looked like Jane Seymour – but cousin Jane never married, had had no children. The nose, here, looked sharper; the hair exhibited an mere half-inch of “fringe” (bangs they cannot be called), when in all other pictures there was only a center part and all hair pulled downwards and back. The face looked thinner, more sculpted, but then the face was bent downward, gazing at the child. The one thing all the adult photos had in comment was a clipped-short “side burn” above the ears – very similar to my own (because the bow of glasses sits right over this area).
Mother-and-Babe remained a “mystery” – for later ‘detection’.
Signature Maria L. Seymour
It was while looking through diaries – predominantly those written by Richard Seymour – for further information on the relationship of Mary Smith and Gaspard Le Marchant Tupper, that I came across mention of Richard’s niece, Jane Seymour.
Mary and Gaspard had married in 1861 – but the engagement was so fraught with angst and doubt, that I had to find out more. What I found out was that they initially had become engaged in 1858. I haven’t found out if they stayed engaged the whole time, or if it was on-off-on again. Although other diaries exist, some I don’t have access to, and Richard’s I have to take painstaking reads through microfilmed handwriting. Letters of the period can be hit or miss – and more have tantalizing hints than full-length histories.
But back to Jane Seymour.
This Jane was not the first “Jane” in the family. Of course – OF COURSE! – there were several, over many generations. Maria’s daughter was a “CULME-SEYMOUR” – the “Culme” coming from Sir John’s first wife. For a while, I thought only Sir John’s “Culme” children used the “Culme” name. Maria’s mail always seemed addressed to “Lady Seymour” (see a letter I’m desperately seeking – and from 1861!). BUT: If I looked closely, Maria and her daughters inserted “C” as part of their signature. But who else could the girl called Jenny Seymour and the young woman identified as Jane Seymour or Miss Seymour have been?
Remember I said that Richard mentioned JANE SEYMOUR in his diary…
In 1858’s diary.
The section that caught my eye mentioned Richard’s “Australian niece Jane Seymour”. She arrived in mid-December, having left Sidney, Australia on September 1st. – Dora (née Seymour) and Arthur Currie picked her up at Gravesend! The very Curries who inhabited High Elms, the estate *now* (June 2021) up for sale.
High Elms, estate of the Arthur Curries.
“Australian Jane” was the only child of Richard’s youngest brother, William (Willy) Seymour, who had emigrated, married an Australian girl in 1849, and died in 1857. I had presumed that she had stay Down-Under.
Nope…
Jane had a convoluted history. Her mother had remarried – at some unknown point – in 1858. This poor mother, born Sarah Avory and now Mrs. Pleydell-Bouverie, died in February 1859. Jane’s step-father died two years later, in February 1861.
But none of that mattered: little Jane Seymour had already sailed for England, arriving hardly two months before her mother’s death – which she could never have known about for another six or eight months.
What I do not know is the WHY Jane Seymour sailed from Sidney that September 1st of 1858!
Had the patriarchal arm reached across the globe, and over her father’s grave, to pluck the little girl from the bosom of her Australian family? Had the mother, stricken by some fatal illness (? – it’s a guess) already, made plans for her soon-to-be-orphaned child, plans that did not involve that child’s step-father? Or, had the Pleydell-Bouveries sought out this change for a child they no longer cared to care for?
Such a mystery remains to be solved, awaiting more information, other diaries, more letters.
One mystery that has been SOLVED involves the BIRTH DATE of Aussie Jane. I have found her baptismal information, which gives her date of birth. Given an 1849 marriage, I had presumed the birth of a first child in 1850. Jane Seymour, however, was born in MAY 1852 – which makes our little passenger a mere SIX YEARS OLD when she sailed from Sidney Harbor to Gravesend – and into the arms and the seemingly eternal care of an aunt she had never set eyes upon before: Dora Currie.
Dora’s step-children, Arthur’s children with his first wife, Charlotte Smith, were growing up – the youngest, Drummond Arthur Currie, had been born in 1840 and would attain his majority in a couple of years. Dora had married – after a long-fought-for marriage to the Rev. William H. Clinton Chester (her family disapproved of his slender means). They had married in August 1837, but by April 1841 Dora was burying her husband. They had had no children. Little Orphan Aussie Jane might have provided an opportunity too good for Dora to pass up. A small child to call her own.
The Curries are a branch of the family with very little archival resources. Charlotte had not lived to old age, but she had daughters – and the Smiths, as a group, seem a family that held very tightly on to items like letters and diaries, portraits and memories. So what happened to the items that Charlotte produced or received, and could figure to have been given over to any or all of her daughters – akin to the family letters amassed by Emma Austen, Fanny Seymour, and Maria Lady Seymour.
As you might guess, anyone with further information, please do contact me!
Richard’s 1859 diary speaks to his meeting the child. He was enchanted with his Australian niece, Jane Seymour.
Two Teens in the Time of Austen 