Lady Pigott's album

Lady Pigott's album (in front) and sketchbook, August 2018

David and I love going to auctions and bidding on job lots of stuff, mainly ceramics and glass. We take our boxes of heaped-up objects home and then really enjoy sorting through it to see what's of interest. Cleaning dusty old things until they sparkle again is very gratifying.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a box of bits and pieces because I had spied two interesting-looking books in it. They are both heavy, leather-bound albums, tooled in gold leaf. The dark-brown one has silk panels on the inside of the covers and a bookseller's sticker (above) from Carl Lehmann's shop in Gertruderstrasse, Berlin.
     The red book is a sketchbook. Most of the pages have been torn out or the sketches taken out of their mounts and only two pencil sketches remain, neither of very much interest. But the other book, a scrapbook of prints which has also had many items removed from it, still has lots of lovely things in it. Both belonged to Georgina Pigott. Her name is written in both of them in her own hand (the sketchbook has her signature in it twice (once her maiden name and once her married name -- helpfully!) and the scrapbook has an inscription in the same handwriting):

Inscription in the front of the album

A gift, then, from a friend. Mrs George Pollen was born Elizabeth Primrose Hall in 1797 and married George Pollen Boileau-Pollen in 1824. She died in 1873. But, more importantly, who was Lady Pigott? She turns out to have a fascinating background.
     She was born Georgina Anne Brummell on 8 August 1802 at Donnington Grove house in Berkshire. Donnington Grove is the most exquisite 'Strawberry Hill Gothic' house built in 1763, now a hotel. I would love to go and see what it's like inside. The Brummells moved there in 1783.

Donnington Grove house

The Brummell family were clearly wealthy, but they had come by their money in a very unusual way. Georgina's great grandfather, William Brummell (1709–1770) was a very ordinary man, but he had the good luck to be employed as a valet by Charles Monson, the MP for Lincoln in the mid 18th century. Proving to be a very good servant, by 1746 he was able to marry Jane Garrett. They lived in Mayfair on the corner of Bury Street and Jermyn Street. They had two sons – William (known as ‘Billy’, Georgina's grandfather) and Benjamin – and a daughter Mary. Occupying only the ground floor of their house, they let the floor above to Charles Jenkinson (1729–1808), the MP for Cockermouth, and he gave William’s son Billy a job as a clerk in his office when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then Lord North took over the post in 1767 but kept Billy on as his private secretary, even when he became Prime Minister in 1770. By such a chain of events the family gained prestige and in 1769 Billy married Jane Richardson, the youngest daughter of the Keeper of the Lottery Office.

Lord Frederick North

Billy’s position as Private Secretary to the Prime Minister came with a grace-and-favour apartment in Hampton Court Palace. He and Jane had three children, Maria, William (Georgina's father, born in 1777) and George Bryan (born at No 10 Downing Street in 1778). He moved in smart circles and was friends with the playwright Richard Sheridan (1751-1816) and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds painted this portrait of Billy's sons, William and George, and it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1783:

Georgina's father William Brummell (behind) and younger brother George by Sir Joshua Reynolds

In 1783 Billy bought Donnington Grove, near Newbury, Berkshire, but within a decade both he and Jane died within a year of each other, in 1793 and 1794 -- Billy's legacy was divided equally between his three children and in 1800 his eldest son William married Anne Daniell, who had been born in Cuddalore, India in 1778. Meanwhile Billy's other son, George, Georgina's uncle, was becoming one of the notorious figures in Regency England -- had you already guessed? Having gone to Eton and then to Oxford, he became known as 'Beau' Brummell for his peerless dandyism.

Beau Brummell by Robert Dighton

He is credited with revolutionising men's fashion by dressing in full-length trousers rather than breeches and stockings, setting a trend for tight-fitting jackets and, above all, for making elaborate cravats all the rage. He used his personality to overcome snobbery at his 'vulgar' family roots, rising to the heights of London society -- before tumbling all the way down again after being ruined by gambling debts and syphilis.
     It may have been to distance themselves from Beau Brummell's notoriety that his brother moved his family to Wivenhoe House near Colchester, Essex in 1811. By that date William and Anne had two daughters, Frances Amelia (1801-1862) and Georgina Anne (1802-1886). Georgina Anne is the owner of the album and sketchbook. In the sketchbook there's a page entitled 'Wivenhoe House Feb 10, 1841' but sadly the picture itself is missing. The house itself is no longer standing -- it was dismantled in about 1861 and the land divided into plots for around 80 houses, which now make up the centre of Wivenhoe. It shouldn't be confused with the Wivenhoe House that stands in the grounds of the University of Essex and is run as a hotel. If anyone is interested, this is a very interesting article about the various big houses in Wivenhoe. And Pat Marsden's other articles on Wivenhoe history have also been very helpful for this blogpost.

St Michael's, Berechurch, by Jonathan Greig, 1823

The first print in the album is local to Wivenhoe, it's headed 'Bere Church', but what must have been a village is now subsumed by Colchester. Perhaps this is somewhere the family liked to walk to from their home -- it looks as though there would have been a nice riverside walk to get there.
     Georgina got married in 1831, when she was 29 (relatively old for those days). She married a baronet, Thomas Pigott, and they lived at Denston Hall in Suffolk.

Denston Hall, Suffolk

 I think she may have passed her timing sticking prints into her album before she got married and started having children, because I've been able to date most of the prints to the 1810s and 1820s. Such as this print of the actress Elizabeth Billington.

Mrs Elizabeth Billington as St Cecilia, by Anthony Cardon, from a painting by Joshua Reynolds, 1812

Or this little print of my hometown, Richmond in Yorkshire. I wonder whether she went there?

Georgina seems to have shared the period's interest in exotic expeditions as there are a number of prints of 'primitive' peoples such as these 'Tunguse' priestesses:

I'm not particularly interested in engravings as a rule, but looking at this album it's hard not to be charmed and impressed by the beautifully delicate detail. Here are a few more:

I especially like this page of tiny engravings, which remind me of the miniatures made by Thomas Medland (1765-1833) for Peacock's Polite Repository. I only know about these because I had to look through them for a recent book on Humphry Repton that we published at work.

Here's one closer up:

I'm hazarding a guess that this picture, in such lovely colour, was painted in by Georgina herself:

I feel that something of Georgina's personality comes through the images she so carefully curated in her album. I haven't been able to find a picture of Georgina herself nor very much about her life. Georgina and Thomas had two children, as far as I know -- Charles Robert, born in 1835, and Mary Elizabeth, born in 1837. Unfortunately Georgina's husband Thomas died at the age of 50, in 1847, leaving Georgina with the children to bring up alone. She probably had enough money to live in comfort, though. She remarried in 1855, a John Frederick Baillie, who had gained Ley's Castle in Invernessshire through his previous marriage. I don't know if she ever lived in the castle -- I think there may have been some unhappy circumstances because John died in Flemings Hotel in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly in 1865 and it doesn't seem as though Georgina inherited anything from him. (Flemings is still a hotel!) She lived on into considerable old age and when she died at the age of 84 in 1886 she was living in Richmond, Surrey with her spinster daughter Mary Elizabeth. Georgina only left £652 so had perhaps had to eke out her savings all through her widowhood. Interestingly, even though she had left the Pigott family when she remarried, she was buried at Dullingham near Newmarket, where her nephew Christopher Pigott lived in the big house.
     I've saved the most interesting thing about the album until last. There is a photograph between two of the pages. Georgina lived largely before photography was invented and the photo clearly dates from much later, after Georgina's death:

I should say that the original photo has been scribbled on by a naughty child, so above is my slightly cleaned up version (via Photoshop). The original looks like this:

I believe I've worked out who is in the photo. Georgina's son Charles Robert married and had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was Charles Berkeley Pigott, born in 1859. He married Fanny Ada Pigott (incidentally his cousin) in 1886 and they had two children, Florence Ada Cecile Pigott, born in 1890 and Berkeley Pigott, born in 1894. Charles Berkeley Pigott died prematurely, aged 38, leaving Fanny a widow with fairly young children, just as Georgina had been. I think this photo shows the widow Fanny with Florence and Charles at their home, 'Broadlands' in Brockenhurst, Hampshire, probably around 1905-8, to judge by the children's apparent ages. It looks as though they're having breakfast. Charles Berkeley Pigott never became a baronet, because he died before his father and the title is passed on at death. But the boy in the photo became the fourth Baronet Pigott when his grandfather (Georgina's son) died in 1911.
     I think the album must have stayed in the family for generations but finally found itself in a box of nothing very much in a provincial auction sale -- at least now that I've got it, I will extend its life a little further.

Beautiful backs -- the flipside of old photographs

Because there are often crucial clues to the subject's identity written on the backs of photographs, I've got into the habit of checking the backs of old photos when I'm sifting through boxes of them in junk shops. In fact I've had some funny looks when people have spotted me going through the photos without even looking at the fronts -- if I'm searching for photos to 'investigate', it doesn't really matter how wonderful the image itself is if there's no name or other information written on the back. I always start off looking at both the front and back, but if time's running out, I just look at the backs, much to people's mystification.
     But even while doing that, I haven't always been alive to the beauty of some of the backs in their own right.

Recently, though, I've been scrutinizing the backs of the cartes de visite that I already own, looking for where the photographers that took them were based. And in doing so I've woken up to the little works of art that many nineteenth century photographers made of the backs of images produced by their studios. I particularly love the cherub with a camera in the first image above. And the calm visitation from an angel in the second (is it Mary and Elizabeth from the Bible?). The care that photographers took to decorate the backs of their photos suggests that they were well aware of the marketing opportunity the backs offered and that, whatever they were obliged to reproduce on the fronts, they could provide a consistently attractive image on the backs.
     Among the Victorian and Edwardian photographs I inherited from my Mum, there are quite a few from the famous studio of Frank Meadow Sutcliffe in Whitby.

Clearly, the studio would periodically update their back design, to reflect the latest prizes they had won or prestigious clients served. Just from the photos I own, it seems Whitby, as an important nineteenth century tourist destination (and also the centre of the jet industry, Whitby jet being highly valued for mourning jewelry and black beading, big at the time), had many photographic studios vying for custom. I have cartes from three apart from Sutcliffe's.

Of these backs, I adore the one belonging to the studio of George Wallis, with its illustration of Khyber House. At first I thought this might be an imagined house, so perfectly does it represent my fantasy of a perfect Gothic house. Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered that Khyber House is not only real but still standing.

 It's now called Streonshalh (sounds Scottish?) but it still stands opposite Whitby Abbey (which you can just see in the background) on the winding road down to the quayside that's still called the Khyber Pass. This must have been where George Wallis's studio was.
     After this, I got the bit between my teeth and went hunting for another photographer's studio. I have this card, for Robert Gibbs' studio in Middlesbrough.

Again, I absolutely love the illustration of the premises, even though the stamp over the top told me they'd moved from there. To Google StreetView!

First I sought out the Albert Bridge, which is a railway bridge close to Middlesbrough station, in fact I think the platforms must extend over it, judging by the canopies.

Then I pulled back from the bridge to see what was nearby on both sides. On the southern side there's this lovely Victorian building, now a vodka bar. And tucked into the corner of the bridge...

Yes! It's Robert Gibbs' old studio, a bit battered and rather impinged upon by the station roof canopy. But still there. Which is more than can be said for the Wilson Street studio -- that whole area seems to have been opened up and redeveloped, so I didn't find the second Gibbs studio.
     Looking for information about Gibbs, I found some interesting bits in the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette. He was born in Great Yarmouth in 1843 and must have moved up to Middlesbrough when he was quite a young man. His wife, Alice, was from Skelton, quite near Middlesbrough. By 1873 he was apparently a Freemason. He lived until 1921 but photography didn't remain his profession throughout his working life. In the 1901 census he's a 'theatrical agent' and in 1911 (the last available census return), he's a 'house agent'. His son, John, who started out as assistant to his father in the photography studio, was working as a gardener by 1901, so photography doesn't seem to have been all that good an option, perhaps because of the increasing numbers of people who owned their own cameras (or was that a bit later?).

     I bought a lovely book about cartes de visite -- both fronts and backs -- this week, from a small, independent press in Lancaster, Fast Foot Press. It even comes with a reproduction cdv in a glassine envelope glued inside the back flap of the cover ('glassine' is one of my absolute favourite words -- any excuse to use it).

A friend of GBS -- a photo researched and a curious coincidence...

Last weekend I tagged along on a visit to Sussex Uni (for my son) and while he and his Dad toured the campus, I snatched a quick visit to the North Laine. I was with my daughter and it was she who noticed the perfect outfitter's for me as we wandered along Upper Gardner Street market:

 I withstood the ribbing in good part. It was such a lovely day and I was so happy to be back in Brighton.

Best of all, soon we came around to my favourite vintage emporium, Snoopers' Paradise.

Once again I had had to negotiate how much time I was going to be allowed in there. The time before last, on my own, I had crouched on an old pouffe (as one does) for over four hours, going through the old photos at my favourite stall. Last time was with my son and I only got a measly twenty minutes, if that. This time, in an effort to avoid similar frustration, I had already made it a condition of the whole visit that I would get an hour or so on my own in there -- but in the event it was more like forty minutes, and for quite a lot of time I was being 'helped' by an impatient young person flipping through the photos at high speed. It was agonising as I had just zeroed in on a new set of photos -- dispersed throughout the hundreds in the boxes -- from a single family where the owner had very helpfully written dates of birth and all sorts of other details on the backs. My mind was boggling at the thought of the research I could do into that family! But I ended up scrabbling and grabbing at a few more or less random photos that caught my eye before I was marched away.
     I chose one of the photos because it had a name on the back, but it wasn't until a few days later that I worked out what the name was and started to look into it. This is the photo:

On the back is the name 'J Kingston Barton'. The J is for James.

It's unfortunately rather difficult to read the date because it goes over the right-hand emblem but I believe it says Mar[ch] 17 1879. James Kingston Barton was born in Hong Kong in 1855 so would have been a young man of twenty-four at the time. Do you think he looks twenty-four? It's sometimes difficult to tell with old photos. I also believe that his name is written by his own hand: if you compare it to his signature on his marriage banns, from 1891, almost twenty years later -- although the capital letters are a little more flamboyant (amateur graphology bit coming up here), perhaps hinting at his more secure position in society, the other letters are formed in exactly the same way:

James Kingston Barton's father was an Irishman and a medical doctor who had taken his wife Rhoda out to China in the mid 19th century. Their first four children were born in Hong Kong before they returned, first to Ireland and then to London. The family lived at Chester Villa, 14 Lansdowne Rd, Kensington for a while, then seem to have had a spell in Bedford. James was already training to be a doctor himself by the age of 16 and in 1876, aged 22, he went to Australia. But he did not emigrate permanently  (See addendum at end of post): he was having his photograph taken in Baker Street by 1879 (if I have the date correct) and at the next census, in 1881, he was a visitor at 88 Gloucester Road, London.
     J Kingston Barton, as he styled himself, seems to have had a very inquiring mind. His name pops up on late Victorian papers about 'puerperal sepsis in cattle' and 'congenital anaemia' and he is often to be found debating the issues of the day at the Royal College of Medicine. His particular claim to fame seems to have been a close study of the digestive habits of 'kelts' -- salmon or sea trout that are weak and emaciated after spawning.
     The most interesting thing about JKB is his close friendship with GBS -- George Bernard Shaw.

G Bernard Shaw in 1879

Shaw was in the habit of dining at Kingston Barton's home every Saturday evening in the late 1870s and into the 1880s where no doubt the discussion was piquant and wide-ranging. According to Michael Holroyd's biography of Shaw, when Shaw's lover became pregnant she went to see Dr Kingston Barton, perhaps as he would be discreet. And when Shaw wrote an alarmingly frank account of the alcoholism in his own family he sent a copy to Kingston Barton. 
     In 1891 JKB married Georgina Graves, nee Marshall, a woman who had been widowed just a year earlier. She was Irish and he seems to have been back in Ireland for a time, or at least visiting regularly. They lived for many years at 14 Ashburn Place, Kensington. JKB outlived his wife by 17 years and died at the age of 86. His last home was in a very pleasant private road in Wimbledon. He seems to have left all his money to the Public Purse.

When I discovered that the photograph I had picked up more or less at random on an antique stall was of a man who had been a close friend of George Bernard Shaw I was pleased. What are the chances that a random person will have any claim to fame at all? But there's a further twist to the story...
     Today I have been sorting out the old photographs I inherited from my Mum. These are not my family's photographs but a large stash of very old photos that I found in her outside shed when I had to clear her house. They were not kept in ideal conditions, far from it, but were a little damp and covered in gritty dirt. I think Mum must have bought them in a job lot at an auction and perhaps lost interest in them. There were so many of them and I just threw them into a drawer without sorting through them. It was because I've become so interested in old photos that it finally occurred to me that it was stupid to hanker after photos on the stall in Snooper's Paradise, which I can only visit very occasionally, when I had a whole drawer of old photos just waiting for me to look at them. So this weekend I did. There are so many and I have no idea who they belonged to or who they're of. They seem to come from a number of different families. So far I have just sorted them into postcards of places and photos of people and a few other subsets. The numbers are overwhelming and it makes me feel sad to think that I have no way of finding out who they're of (barely any have names attached to them). But I was just putting them away more neatly in boxes when I spotted one of a gentleman. No, it couldn't be... I think it is. It's James Kingston Barton again!

 
The fact that the photo was taken at an address just five minutes' walk from 14 Ashburn Place clinches it for me. And of course the similarity of his moustache, collar and tie, hair, sideburns. It's him! But what on earth is the probability of my already having (unknowingly) a photo of this chap who I discovered in Brighton? Infinitesimally small! I feel all a-flutter with the wonderful serendipity of it.

ADDENDUM
I mentioned above that James Kingston Barton went to Australia in 1876. Two new things have come to light since I first wrote this post. Firstly, on scrutinising the handwritten manifest of the SS Osyth on which James sailed to Australia, I see that he was not a passenger but rather the ship's surgeon. What an excellent way to see the world!
The other thing I've discovered is that on this trip JKB also went to New Zealand. I know this because, on going through my Mum's old photos, I found a second photo of him in the pile! This one is by the well-known Christchurch photographer Nelson K Cherrill, who in fact had only arrived in New Zealand himself in 1876, having emigrated from Tunbridge Wells (see this very interesting biography of him).

 So someone whose photo collection I now own knew JKB well enough to have more than one photo of him. I wonder if it could possibly be Reverend Bott?