Saturday 3 September 2022
Saturday 14 May 2022
THE HAUNTED RUINS OF THE OLD DOWER HOUSE
THE HAUNTED RUINS OF THE OLD DOWER HOUSE
FAWSLEY, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
Saturday 23 April 2022
ERNLE JOHNSON
‘OUR FRIENDSHIP DARK’ERNLE SACHEVERELL WILBERFORCE JOHNSONBYBARRY VAN-ASTEN
‘The ghost of him, only the ghost, abidesSad by the table when the feast is done,With yearning gleam of melting eye, and moanOf sick desire through the pale myrtle glides.’ (1)
Most of what we know about the poet, Ernle Johnson, is due to his friendship with the politician and historian, Reginald Baliol Brett (1852-1930), the 2nd Viscount Esher, whose journals were published in four volumes (vols I-II 1934, vols III-IV 1938). Brett, is one of those charming figures who seem to stride through history, mingling with the great and the good, making valuable friendships and promoting them into offices of power. As a young boy at Eton (1865-70), he was taught by the great educator and poet, William Johnson [later Cory] (1823-92) of Eton and King’s College, Cambridge; Johnson, or ‘Tute’ as he became affectionately known, published his influential volume of poems, ‘Ionica’ in 1858 (Smith, Elder & Co.) and wrote the lyrics to the Eton Boating Song. He is also remembered for cultivating ‘romantic’ friendships at Eton (although probably not of the physical kind) they were deemed too intimate and he was famously dismissed from Eton in Easter 1872 by the Headmaster, the staunch traditionalist James Hornby, who also went on to dismiss the schoolmaster Oscar Browning (1837-1923), the ‘O.B.’ (another pupil of Johnson at Eton) for similar ‘romantic friendship’ offences and ‘unorthodox’ approaches to teaching in 1875. Reginald Brett and William Johnson were fond of each other, a friendship which remained throughout Johnson’s life (Brett published his biographical tribute to Johnson, ‘Ionicus’ in 1924). It is worth noting that prior to Reginald Brett’s infatuation with Ernle he formed a deep romantic attachment to his friend at Eton known as ‘Chat’ (short for ‘Chatterbox’); Chat, whose name is Charles David Robertson Williamson (1853-1943) became Roman Catholic in 1875 at the age of 21 and later entered the priesthood. Regy was very sad to leave Eton and especially sad to leave ‘Chat’ (who went up to Baliol College, Oxford with a testimonial from William Johnson), for whom he developed an overpowering devotion – Ernle, would help to fill that void!
Ernle Sacheverell Wilberforce Johnson was born in Oxford on 19th December 1858, the second son of Reverend George Henry Sacheverell Johnson (1808-1881), who was the Dean of Wells from 1854-81 and Lucy O’Brien, youngest daughter of Rear Admiral Robert O’Brien (1776-1838) and Anne O’Brien (Robert O’Brien is the brother of Sir Edward O’Brien (1773-1837), 4th Baronet and M.P. for Dromoland, County Clare); George and Lucy were married on 20th April 1854 at the Abbey Church, Romsey, Hampshire. Ernle was baptised at Christ Church, Oxford on 13th January 1859. Ernle and elder brother George (2) lived with their parents at 64, High Street, Oxford. At the time of his younger brother, Arthur’s birth in 1861 (3), young Ernle and five year old George were staying nearby at number 18 High Street, the home of Elizabeth Dommney, a 33 year old single nurse from Wells. Ten years later, the three brothers, George 15, Ernle 12 and Arthur 9, are boarders at 10, Ellenborough Crescent, Weston Super Mare, the home and schoolhouse of 36 year old school Master, Sholto Middleton M.A., his wife Georgina and their children and other pupils (4). Two years later in January 1873, Ernle enters Malvern College as a House Scholar, (Class – Shell-VIth). He becomes Senior Chapel Prefect and President of the Debating Society (5).
It is during Ernle’s time as a pupil at Malvern that he meets Reginald Baliol Brett (2nd Viscount Esher) (1852-1930). The momentous occasion occurred while Brett and his father, William Baliol Brett (1815-1899) the 1st Viscount Esher, were on a four week tour of the West Country, during July to August 1874; having spent 4th August at Axminster, they travel to and stay at the Bishop’s Palace, Wells and it was here on Saturday 8th August that the encounter took place – ‘Ernle was brought by his younger brother Basil, a promising pianist, from the Deanery to the Palace. The two boys listened ravished by Regy’s rendering on the episcopal piano of Bach preludes and the Louis XIII gavotte.’ Ernle and Basil sang for Regy and he was reduced to tears by the beauty of Ernle’s voice, and so it was that ‘the susceptible postgraduate’s heart was smitten.’ (6) Reginald records in his journal for Saturday 8th August [1874]: ‘…I played some scraps including Bach’s “My heart ever faithful”. Basil played three of Mendelssohn’s “Lieder”, quite perfectly, and he and Ernle sang “O wert thou in the cauld blast” and my accompaniment was full of tears…’ (7). Ernle is described as having an ‘oval face, not strictly handsome; but he had fair, wavy hair and raised eyebrows which gave him a questioning aspect. He was small and rather delicate. Tormented, like so many sons of Victorian ecclesiastics, by problems of original sin and lack of response to prayer, he looked to Regy, as an older, experienced man of the world, for help and guidance. Yet he had a mind of his own. Strongly Tory and monarchist, he would not be converted to Whiggery by his friend.’ (8) The following day, Sunday 9th August, Brett and his father are at Longleat as a guest of Lord Bath; but Regy is simply devoted to Ernle and they fell into an almost daily correspondence and they meet at every opportunity during the holidays and even walk together in term-time at Malvern and Regy considers himself to be an influential teacher of social graces, ideas upon the nature of art and an instructor of virtues. In his journal for 16th February 1875, he writes – ‘I try to make him [Ernle] a patriot: and to bring him up, young as he is, with a fixed love of England and of freedom.’ And again, in another entry dated 6th March [1875] he says that ‘He [Ernle] has learned, young as he is, to love Italy, to glory in her liberties, and to hope for Greece. Is there another boy in England aged 16 who cares for those two things.’ (9) Ernle looked towards Regy as some sort of saviour, disclosing his problems and fears that he was not liked by his fellow school pupils due mostly to his strong Tory convictions and concerned that his ill health, he believed may be hereditary. Regy recognises Ernle’s poetic soul and nurtures it – ‘Ernle’s fair hair haunts me, and his voice modulated as it is almost into a theme… I could write a symphony upon the melody of Ernle’s expression, poor dear little fellow.’ (10) A year later the secrecy of the older man’s romance is on his mind as he writes in his journal – ‘I pray Ernle to keep our friendship dark from the world which contaminates and destroys. Let us live in the world as though we were not of the world, and so shall we keep our lives fresh and unwithered.’ (17th November 1875) By New Year’s Eve he confesses to his journal that the final memories of the year 1875 are kept for his dear Ernle, writing ‘it is essentially his year’. (31st December 1875) Ernle shows a deep interest in poetry and Reginald encourages this, providing a gentle and guiding hand through the delights of verse and verse-making; in his journal for 26th January 1876, Reginald writes an interesting entry: ‘I tell Ernle that the Excursion ought to help him to see the weaknesses of these professional doctors of souls who think that they have science and philosophy on their side. It is a poem by which a man can regulate his mind; so much of it fits in with every line of belief or disbelief…’ He goes on to say that ‘Wordsworth taught me this: that a man can soften his heart by steady contemplation of beautiful things in Nature, and that beautiful things in Science, which are more accessible to many, will do as well.’ In the same entry he says that ‘If there is a Platonic element I love in him [Wordsworth], there is a Wordsworthian element I worship in Keats and Tennyson. Wordsworth instinctively got hold of the high Hellenic idea that the purest source of beauty lies in the common path of every day life.’ (11)
Brett writes in his journal at Carlisle on Thursday 2nd March 1876 – ‘I tell Ernle how glad I am he likes Wordsworth, though many people think it unhealthy in a boy like him, who ought to be revelling in Byron and Scott.’ (12) During this spring of 1876 Reginald visited Grassmere and ‘walked down to the village church, and saw Wordsworth’s simple grave’, all the time thinking of his young friend: ‘I have plucked some of the yew tree that overhangs it for Ernle…’ (13)
While at Malvern, Brett introduces Ernle to his friend Howard Overing Sturgis (1855-1920), the novelist, and like Brett, Sturgis is one of Johnson’s Eton favourites. We are informed by James Lees-Milne in his fascinating book, ‘The Enigmatic Edwardian: The Life of Reginald, 2nd Viscount Esher’ (1986) that young Ernle’s affections had drifted from Brett towards ‘a schoolfellow of his own age who was, however, to prove a disappointment.’ (p. 36) He goes on to say that ‘by the end of the summer term, the unrequited passion was over – and the schoolfellow had left the school.’ (p. 39)
After the midsummer term of 1877, Ernle read his ‘Prologue’ and winning Prize Poem ‘Constantinople (A Conquest of Greece by Rome)’ at the Malvern School Speech Day:
‘And O thy fair curls, king Apollo; and ah! that
Sped shaft from thy hand, -
Ye are fled, ye are perished, bright choir of them
That defended the land!’
The poem ‘was among the best, if not the very best, of such school performances, and showed a degree of facility rarely found in prize poems, much less in those which are the forced product of a schoolboy’s brain.’ (14) It is a particularly lyrical poem which shows great promise containing many ‘sweet and rhythmical lines’ where ‘mourners move slow in the twilight that rests / on a land of the dead.’ (15) There are some fine moments, as when the body of Constantine is borne through the city –
‘But from far a gathering murmur strikes upon the wandering ear;
List! the march of many legions; lo! the people’s pride is near!
Bear him to his lofty palace, there the monarch’s eye may view
All the city’s girth of beauty girdled by the shimmering blue;
Hark! they raise the chants before him as his chariot rolls along,
And the city’s lovely places ring with echoes caught from song. –
The sun casts his glory,
The temples their shade,
On the glittering pride
Of the long cavalcade;
Arabia’s swift horses
Are drawing his car,
And slaves left behind it
Rich spoils from the war.
The fishers of Thera
Sought pearls in their caves,
Where the height of Eleusis
Looks o’er the blue waves
And goldsmiths have wreathed them,
With gems from the mine,
To deck the tiara
Of great Constantine.
Raise higher your voices,
Your music raise higher,
O hymn the rich folds
Of the purple from Tyre,
Marpessa’s clear marble,
The swarm of white sails
Borne up from Perinthus
What time the day fails,
The white maiden city,
The hills of our home,
The daughter of Ocean,
The heiress of Rome,
The walls bathed in sunlight,
The towers that shine,
The temples made lovely
For great Constantine!’
Ernle left Malvern in 1877 and went up to Christ Church, Oxford on a Classical Studentship on 12th October [1877] (B.A. 1881. Third Class Lit. Hum.) (16) He had rooms in Peckwater Quad and at Oxford wrote to Regy, ‘thought of him every day, dreamed of him when he dreamed at all and slept with his letter under his pillow, kissing it often in the night.’ (17) Reginald confided to his journal on 19th October 1879 that ‘Ernle growls at being misunderstood by his teachers at Oxford. As if any life worth living ever was understood by contemporary critics.’ (18)
Reginald surprised his friend in July 1879 by the announcement of his engagement to Eleanor Frances Weston Van der Weyer (they were married on 24th September 1879 at Winkfield Church). Ernle seems to have taken the news lightly and ‘wrote congratulating his friend, full of speculation about the bride and whether she could possibly be good enough for Regy. The news had taken Ernle by surprise, and he could not help feeling jealous of her. A few days later he wrote again. He had had a sort of breakdown: the news had been a greater shock to him than he had first supposed.’ (19) A month after being informed of the engagement Ernle writes to Reginald and one can sense the loss within his heart as he puts his pain into a poem:
‘O love, it haunts me the old pain!
And since I may no more caress
Those graceful curls of your dear head
To live in grief, to die were gain,
And, if I may not love you less,
But still must sorrow for love fled,
I pray harsh love to strike me dead…’ (20)
We find Ernle, a 22 year old single undergraduate in the 1881 census, taken in April that year. He is visiting the home of William Strudwick, a 47 year old bricklayer and his wife Ann and child Alfred, 11, in Guildford, Surrey. Also with Ernle are two friends, both undergraduates, Francis G. A. Phillips (born Ludlow 1860) and Robert L. Ottley (born Richmond, Yorkshire 1857) (21).
In 1881 Ernle entered the Home Service; the Malvern College Register, 1865-1904 (1905. p. 66) states that he was then appointed to the General Post Office before being transferred to the Home Office, in May 1882, according to the London Gazette, he was appointed to Clerk in the Home Office.
In early 1884 his volume of poetry – ‘Ilaria and Other Poems’ is published by Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. London. Ernle dedicates the volume of poetry to the Reverend Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) Senior Student of Christ Church, Oxford, himself, a dabbler in poetry and like Reginald Brett, he was taught at Eton by William Johnson [Cory]. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, he was ordained in 1872 and became a priest two years later; in 1910 he became Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford University, a position he kept for the remainder of his life.
The volume contains 16 poems and the opening title poem, ‘Ilaria’, which I consider one of his finest and shows Johnson’s extensive study of the great poets such as Spenser, Keats and Tennyson, is set in Italy, where the Duke’s daughter, Ilaria, heiress to his estate and fortune; a young girl whose parents ‘loved pale antiquity, and held / their way apart from all the growth of change’ (IV) wanders the lonely castle, a ‘place with large halls and wide terraces, / and galleries which love light feet, and bowers / where one may quit the state of palaces, / and by the window sit, and count the showers, / or wake the secret spirit hid away / in an old harp, or dream on Dante’s lay.’ (II) There are some strangely melodious lines throughout its 59 stanzas which ring with all the dark clarity of Browning and lyrical depth of Tennyson –
‘Old longings, fearings; sacred memories;
In rooms untenanted a presence strange;
A beckoning ghost which still before us flies,
A voice which calls and, ere we follow, dies.’ (XII)
And again:
‘This wonder followed her into her sleep,
And all night long in a deserted wood
She seemed to chase a wandering song, and leap
O’er desperate ravine and boiling flood
Io-like, stung by unexplained desire
Banishing her from sleep and homelike things,’ (XLI)
And the peculiarly bewitching – ‘secure at last to find / seclusion, and cool rest, and grateful gloom / such as the mind’s sprites love to revel in.’ (XXX)
Within the confines of the castle, ‘in the pale kingdom of the dead, / youth like a wild flower raised its perfect head.’ (XIII) and Ilaria, ‘stately as an old-world grace, / free as green leaves’ (XIV) sees the inconsistency around her, yet ‘how could she look and keep a sorry heart?’ (XXIX) ‘But the old world dreams in which the castle slept find no response in Ilaria’s heart. She longs to be up and doing, redressing poor men’s wrongs and breaking down the iron rule of tyranny.’ (22) She wants to change the way the world is –
‘And there will spring a garden in the low
Lush meads where once was swamp and reedy waste,’ (LIV)
Ilaria falls in love and weds the low-born Caspar in secret and they flee into the night, ‘amid the farewell-whispering trees’.
There are some fine poems amongst the collection such as ‘Daphnis’, the Sicilian shepherd-boy; ‘Cephalus & Aurora’, ‘Bertram’, ‘Puerilia’, ‘The Sybil’ and ‘The Quest of Psyche’, a 40 stanza Spenserian study. Johnson shows that he is proficient with the sonnet form:
SONNET
In the ripe heyday of the summer’s height
A blighting sadness falls from cloudless skies,
And souls which inward peer with curious eyes
Find fairest dreams the prey of foulest night.
Allurement cheats, and like a bubble breaks,
Unstable even in memory, though in sight
How far out-matching absent fancy’s might
To paint the contour of her roseate cheeks.
What broken work is this, which breaks the hearts
Of poets in their early manhood? Doom
For generous breath how hard, to leave the bloom
Of fond enticing charm eye youth departs,
From Juliet’s garden through sad Elsinore
Driven to Cordelia’s tomb on the lone moor. (Ilaria. p. 86)
‘O bleak and chill o’er plain and vale and mountain-slope’ has elements of Hardy’s dark romantic mood:
O bleak and chill o’er plain and vale and mountain-slope
The east wind goes:
The trees stand joyless, skies are cheerless, without hope,
Deep, deep the snows:
The sheep are crowded by the hedge; no living thing
Moves anywhere:
Folded away sleeps hope with buried seeds till Spring
Bid her rise fair.
O, draw the curtain, love, shut out the waste of wold
So dim, so drear;
Come to the fire and let me hold that head of gold
As near as dear,
And let the snows heap o’er our roof a silent grave,
So we may prove
Safe from the cold which bites, the winds which rave,
One hour of love. (Ilaria. p. 77)
Perhaps the most beautiful poem in the volume, in my opinion, is ‘Often when the benign moon with her beams’, a rather melancholy little piece:
Often when the benign moon with her beams
The face of night with tremulous beauty takes,
Touched through the tangled veil of midnight dreams
My heart unto itself low music makes.
Dawn comes, but whence the unwonted peace of mind
Supplanting morn’s too common meed of care,
Quiet and joy, a temper all resigned,
Indwelling where fierce pangs too often are?
Son! on your mother’s breast last night you lay,
Nature bent over you, wondering and mild,
Breathed on you, kissed you softly, and to-day
Your flesh returns as that of a young child.
Not without pangs has she beheld you grow
To works and thoughts and woes beyond her ken,
Not without yearning did she see you go
To mix in the unrestful life of men.
And though you scorn, neglect her, yet when most
Baffled in strife, belated in the race,
With hot ambition fevered, tempest-tost –
‘Tis all her love can do – she turns a face
Upon your inward soul, fair still and full
Of a strong patient peace which salves all sores,
In hushed communion, deep and wonderful,
Imparting her heart’s inner peace to yours;
In hours of rest, in lonely lovely places,
In the wood’s voices or the speech of streams,
In tender memories, in chastened faces,
Or, as last night, in the deep vale of dreams. (Ilaria. p. 75-76)
And finally the quite profound ‘Love’s Evolution’ which begins: ‘Can Love, high Love, with mocking glamour shine?’ and seems to answer that ‘Love is true Love; nought can my strong creed shake’ –
‘He, the complete, the world’s perfected soul,
(O happy ye, who grow into the grace
Of his new spell, and find his fairer face!)
Admits such limitation, yet being whole
He wasteth not his breath on any flower,
Nor lingereth on a lady’s pearly hand,
The dreamy pastures of his old Life’s land
He has foregone for realms of wider power;’ (Ilaria. p. 103)
It’s true to say that some of the poems are indeed juvenile yet on the whole the volume was well received and praised, particularly the title poem, The Graphic, even suggesting that Ilaria, in wedding her ‘low-born lover’, she was ‘selfishly deserting her proper duties for the sake of personal gratification’, (23) something perhaps contemporary readers can relate to in the wake of the present monarchy.
Two years after the publication of ‘Ilaria’, Ernle is appointed private secretary to Mr. Charles Beilby Stuart-Wortley (1851-1926) the English statesman educated at Rugby and Baliol College, Oxford who was admitted to the Bar, Inner Temple in 1876 and became Under Secretary of State for the Home Office. (24)
In 1890 Ernle, who became a member of the Clifton Society, is living at 94 Chelsea Gardens, St George’s, Hanover Square, London and in April 1891, we find him on the census, a ‘Clerk in Home Office’, aged 32 and single, and he is boarding at a house in Welbeck Street, St Marylebone, London (25). A year later in1892 he is living at 7 Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial Street, Whitechapel.
His mother Lucy died on 24th December 1893 and also in 1893 Reginald Brett anonymously published his volume of poetry ‘Foam’ (Macmillan. London. 1893).
In 1895 Ernle published a 42 page volume entitled ‘A Day on the March’ (David Stott. 370 Oxford Street, London) but unfortunately I can find no information concerning this publication.
On 9th April 1896 Ernle married Minnie Wilson at All Saints Church, Fulham. Minnie is 13 years his junior, born in London in 1871. A few months later, on Friday 25th September [1896] Ernle, along with fellow speaker, Mr. Robert Crawford Hawkin (1871-1939), give a talk on ‘Armenia’ at Queen’s Park Hall, Harrow Road, London. (26)
In July 1898 Ernle and his family are living at Headley Lodge, 45 Croydon Road, Anerley, Surrey. (27)
In March 1901 Ernle and Minnie are living in Chalfont Road, Croydon, Surrey – Ernle is 42 years old and a ‘retired civil servant’; Minnie is 30 years old (born in Sydenham, London in 1871) and their daughter, Clarissa M is 9 years old (born in 1892, Windsor, Berkshire). They have a domestic servant living with them named Kate Killick who is 22 years old and born in Tadworth, Surrey. (28)
In April 1911 Ernle, aged 53, Minnie aged 40 and daughter Clarissa May aged 17 (born in London in 1894) are living with the Simmons family at Hillsea House, Westhamptnett, Bognor, Sussex (29). Strangely, under ‘years married’ Minnie gives 19 – she and Ernle were married in 1896 which would only be 15 years (and daughter Clarrisa being born in 1894 is born two years before the marriage of Ernle and Minnie) but perhaps this is a transcription error; however, it is not the only inconsistency connected to Minnie Johnson and her inaccuracy with dates! Ten years later in the 1921 census taken on 19th June, we find Minnie Johnson, aged 45 and born in London in 1876 (she seems to be getting younger!), a ‘wife’ with no occupation and her daughter, Clarissa, aged 22 (and 1 month which would give her birth as May, hence her middle name) and born in London in 1899 (also distinctly decreasing in age!), living at 24, Vicar’s Close, St. Andrew, Wells, Somerset (30). Ernle is not on the record and it is possible that prior to this he suffered some sort of mental breakdown. I can only deduce that Clarissa moves away, possibly to marry because in 1926 Minnie places an advert in the Wells Journal (Friday 11th June 1926. p. 4) – ‘Girl required to help in the house. Apply Johnson, 24 Vicar’s Close, Wells’, and a year later, also in the Wells Journal (Friday 22nd April 1927. p. 4) under situations vacant we find: ‘Girl wanted to help with housework – Apply Mrs Johnson, 24 Vicar’s Close, Wells. Another ad appeared in the Wells Journal in 1932 under the title ‘Lost’ – ‘10/- Reward – Lost about 4 weeks ago, an 18 carat Gold Crest Ring (Tiger’s Head). The above reward will be given if finder returns to Mrs. Ernle Johnson, 24 Vicar’s Close, Wells (Wells Journal. Friday 26 February 1932. p. 8)
In 1935 Ernle and Minnie are named as beneficiaries (Ernle as 2nd beneficiary) upon the death of Martha Sophia Roberts who died on 8th November 1935 aged 79; the probate was held on 18th December in Wells.
In the 1939 Register taken on 29th September, Minnie is still living at 24, Vicar’s Close, Wells and she gives her birth as 4th October 1878, she states that she is ‘married’ and under occupation she writes ‘private means’. She is living there with a single woman named Marie Berckey born in July 1886 and also living off her ‘private means’. (31) Just three months later, Ernle died on 19th December 1939 in Barnwood, Gloucester and he was buried in St Lawrence’s Churchyard, Barnwood on 2nd January 1940. It is probable that he died as a patient at Barnwood House Asylum. His obituary appeared on page 9 of the April 1940 edition of The Malvernian: ‘Ernle Sacheverell Wilberforce Johnson (5.77), Eng Verse, West Prize. Senior Chapel Prefect. Scholar Christ Church, Oxford. Home Civil Service. Barrister Inner Temple. Died Jan 1940’ [sic] and a brief mention in the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (Saturday 6th January 1940. p. 15) but on the whole he seems to have passed away quite unnoticed. An inscription upon his gravestone reads:
‘He came out of great tribulation’
During the war his wife, Minnie seems to get in trouble with the authorities, not once, but twice. She is living at 24, Vicar’s Close, Wells, and on the night in question, P. W. K. Harvey, ‘said at 8.30 p.m. he was at the Police Station and received a telephone message of a light showing in the Vicar’s Close. He went there and found that the light came from a bedroom window at No. 24. There was only a thin lace curtain covering the window.’ The witness knocked at the door and rang the bell but there was no reply so the door was broken open and the black-out put up. ‘”Next day”, said the witness, “I interviewed the defendant [Minnie Johnson] and asked her why she didn’t come downstairs in reply to my knocking, and she replied, ‘I heard a noise and thought it was a bomb.’ Defendant wrote that she had forgotten about the black-out. She added ‘that she put the noise made down to a bomb or machine gun firing. A fine of £1 was imposed.’ (32) A year later she is caught again showing a light at Vicar’s Close and was summoned. ‘P.C. Baker said at 8 p.m. he saw lights being displayed from two downstair windows’. She was fined 10 shillings. (33) Minnie Johnson died aged 81 on 5th May 1950 in Wells, Somerset and an auction of her possessions was held by Thomas Wicks & Son: ‘Estate Mrs. M Johnson, decd [deceased] 24, Vicar’s Close, Wells. Important sale of Antiques and other Household Furniture’, the auction took place at 24 Vicar’s Close, Wells on 5th July 1950 (Wells Journal. Friday 23rd June 1950. p. 6). Minnie Johnson’s beneficiary was named as Ernle’s younger brother, Basil, who passes away himself not long after from a fall at his home, Judge’s Lodgings, New Street, Wells on Sunday 10th December 1950, aged 89. (34) Minnie Johnson’s death in 1950 aged 81 would give her birth year as 1868-69 but as she seemed to declare her age upon the whims of vanity the loss of a decade or so for a lady may be quite forgiven but not for historical purposes!
Ernle, not too unlike Reginald Brett, seemed to relinquish the poet within his soul and conform to a different attitude and perhaps it is no coincidence that Ernle married in the wake of the Wilde trial and his imprisonment –
‘Perhaps everyone has always felt the presence of two distinctly different natures, one sometimes standing in a neutral and critical attitude towards the other.’ [Journal of Reginald Brett. 20th October 1875] (35)
NOTES:
1. ‘Love’s Evolution’. Ilaria and Other Poems. Ernle Johnson. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. London. 1884. p. 103.
2. Reverend George Herbert Johnson, M.A., born in Oxford in 1855, the eldest son of the Very Reverend George Henry Sacheverell Johnson, Dean of Wells; aged 19 George went up to Exeter College, Oxford on 16th October 1874; B.A., 1877, M.A., 1882. He became Vicar of Crockham, Kent (1880-1886) and married Amy Caroline Cameron Galton (1858-1939) at Lambeth Palace Chapel 22nd June 1882.
3. Dr. Arthur Basil Noel Johnson (1861-1942), 3rd son of the Very Reverend George Henry Sacheverell Johnson, Dean of Wells; Arthur attended Malvern College as an Exhibitioner; Class, Upper IVth-VIth; School Prefect; House Eleven Cricket. Latin Prose, Greek Prose. Organist to the School 1876-79. Aged 19 Arthur went up to Magdalen College, Oxford on 16th October 1880; Second Class Mods. B.A., 1884. Clerk 1880-83. He spent 2 years at the Royal College of Music; Stanford (composition); Organist and Music Master at Rugby School in 1886 and Precentor and Organist at Eton College. He married Elizabeth Anne Percival (only daughter of Rev. Dr. John Percival (1834-1918), first Headmaster of Clifton College [1862-78], President of Trinity College, Oxford [1879-87], Headmaster of Rugby School [1887-95] and Bishop of Hereford) in Rugby on 29th December 1891 and died on 10th December 1950, aged 89 at Judge’s Lodgings, New Street, Wells. His wife, Anne, died in Wells on 10th June 1941. [1861 Census for England and Wales. RG09. 893/87. p. 17]
4. 1871 Census for England and Wales. RG10. Piece: 2460, folio: 15, schedule: 89, p. 22.
5. Ernle was put forward for membership of the Debating Society in October 1873, [The Malvernian (School magazine) October 1873. p. 78] appointed to Secretary in February 1875 and was made President by October 1876. see Malvern College Register, 1865-1904. (1905).
6. The Enigmatic Edwardian: The Life of Reginald, 2nd Viscount Esher. James Lees-Milne. Sidgwick & Jackson. London. 1986. p. 29.
7. Journals and Letters of Reginald Viscount Esher, volume I, 1870-1903. edited by Maurice V. Brett. Ivor Nicholson & Watson Limited. London. 1934. p. 15.
8. Lees-Milne. P. 29.
9. Journal entries quoted from ‘Sodom on the Thames: Sex, Love, and Scandal in Wilde Times’. Morris B. Kaplan. Cornell University Press. 2005. p. 140.
10. Reginald Brett’s Journal: 6th March 1875, as quoted in Lees-Milne, p. 33.
11. Extracts from Journals, 1872-1881. Reginald Brett. Bowes & Bowes. Cambridge. 1908. p. 127-128. (also quoted in: ‘Alternatives in Biography: Writing lives in Diverse English Language Contexts’. Chapter III Uranian Autobiography. Stephen Hardy, Michael Kaylor, Martina Horakova, Katerina Prajznerova. Masaryk University Press. 2011 [2014 ed. p. 181]).
12. ibid. p. 129.
13. ibid. p. 132.
14. Mr. Johnson’s Poems. The Malvernian. April 1884. p. 26-27.
15. Extracts from the Prize Poem, 1877. The Malvernian. August 1877. p. 479-480.
16. ‘Mr. Ernle S. W. Johnson, of Malvern College, has gained an open Junior Studentship at Christ Church College, Oxford, and comes out head of the list.’ Wells Journal. Thursday 1st March 1877. p. 8.
17. Lees-Milne. P. 39.
18. Extracts from Journals, 1872-1881. p. 201.
19. Lees-Milne. P. 47. The author also tells us that ‘Ernle had been very ill, and his parents had come to Oxford to look after him.’ (p. 50).
20. Letter: Ernle to Reginald. 27th August 1879. Lees-Milne. p. 48.
21. 1881 Census for England and Wales. RG11. 775/66. p. 21. Both of Ernle’s visiting friends entered the church. Rev. Francis George Anderson Phillips (1857-1943) M.A. Christ Church, Oxford. Vicar of Holy Trinity, Northwich; vicar of Highmore, Henley-on-Thames (1893), vicar of Clovelly Church (resigned 1899), vicar of Bloxham, Oxford (1899). Rev. Robert Lawrence Ottley (1856-1933) of Pembroke College, Oxford; Senior Student and Tutor of Christ Church, Oxford (1881), Vice Principle of Cuddesdon Theological College (1886), Dean of Divinity at St Mary Magdalen, Oxford (1890) and Principle of Pusey House, Oxford (1893). He is also the author of many theological volumes.
22. Mr. Johnson’s Poems. The Malvernian. April 1884. p. 26-27.
23. ‘Recent Poetry and Verse’. The Graphic. 7th June 1884. p. 562.
24. Morning Post. Saturday 11th September 1886. p. 5.
25. 1891 Census for England and Wales. RG12. 92/127. p. 9.
26. The Daily News. Friday 25th September 1896. p. 2.
27. The London Gazette. 19th July 1898.
28. 1901 Census for England and Wales. RG13. 28/127. p. 6.
29. 1911 Census for England and Wales. RG14. 451/216. p. 1.
30. 1921 Census for England and Wales. RG15. Piece: 11374, schedule: 46 (schedule type E).
31. 1939 Register. RG101/70441/007/43.
32. ‘Thought it was bombs’. Wells Journal. Friday 11th October 1940. p. 3.
33. Wells Journal. Friday 12th December 1941. p. 1.
34. ‘A Recent Will – In the will of Dr. Arthur Basil Noel Johnson which appeared in our issue of June 1st it was stated that £200 was left to Miss Minnie Johnson, of 24, Vicar’s Close, Wells. This should have been Mrs. Minnie Johnson.’ Wells Journal. Friday 15th June 1951. p. 5.
35. Lees-Milne. p. 36.
Sunday 6 February 2022
RICHARD GEOFFREY WORSLEY
THE DEATH OF A DANCING FAUNRICHARD GEOFFREY WORSLEY 1912-1928BYBARRY VAN-ASTEN ‘I am sure you are devoted to music, you
have the musical physiognomy.’[The Dancing Faun. Florence
Thomas Cuthbert
Worsley (1907-1977), schoolmaster and critic, is the son of the eccentric Dean
of Llandaff, a man who ‘disliked and distrusted the Welsh’ and a man whose life
reads like a series of Pickwickian misadventures. In Thomas Cuthbert’s
autobiographical volume, ‘Flannelled Fool: a Slice of Life in the Thirties’,
published in 1967, he paints a vivid portrait of his rather strange upbringing
as the son of the wayward Dean and describes with psychological precision his
time at Cambridge where ‘the years had slipped by under the shadow of a
wasteful attachment to a friend’; he also writes about his complete and utter
ignorance of sex, knowing nothing of masturbation at the age of nineteen; his
own sexual awakenings during his time as a schoolmaster and of his time at
Gordonstoun school at the invitation of its founder, Kurt Hahn (1886-1974)
where they ending up throwing books at each others’ heads! But most poignant of
all is his astonishing remarks as to the death of his younger brother Richard
Geoffrey Worsley, whom he names ‘Benjamin’ (‘Bengy’) in the book, by drowning
in 1928.
Born in Durham in
1907, Thomas Cuthbert Worsley was the fourth of five children (1) born
to Frederick William Worsley (1873-1956) who was born in Singapore and
Catherine Ethel Payne (1874-1956), born Calcutta, West Bengal, who were married
in 1901; his father, Frederick, D.D. (Durham University), M.A. (Cambridge) a
man who thought his children were just a distraction and didn’t even bother to
visit Cuthbert at Marlborough College where he was ‘always cold and usually
hungry’ for the first four years (although he did write once a year on his
birthday) is a peculiar sort of man, easily bored by achievements whose
‘remoteness seemed part of his superiority’.
Cuthbert attended the Cathedral School Brightlands
Preparatory School Severn in Gloucestershire which
opened as a boys’ boarding school in 1908. Here, Cuthbert won his scholarship
to Marlborough
At Cambridge St John’s College Frederick Durham Durham 10th December 1907 .
Still unhappy, Frederick Clare
College Cambridge Cambridge Cavendish Avenue
Most of his childhood
he seemed to spend dancing, dressed up in bright clothes from the acting box,
made-up to the eyes, improvising to the music of the old gramophone which the
willing women worked for him as they sat in their admitting circle at his feet.
It can be imagined how
we other boys of the family, grossly conventional in our outlook, viewed this,
as it seemed to us, revolting cissy spectacle. Yet it was this boy-girl with
his painted lips and mascara-ed eyes, his interchange between male and female
dress, who at last, and just by being that, had succeeded in drawing my mother
out of the self-absorption of her private grief, in taming the tough Miss
Maclaren and occasionally – wonder of wonders – delaying my father on his way
to the golf course.
Was it somehow with
this pretty androgynous creature that my own emotions had got stuck? For I
wasn’t yet sufficiently emotionally clear of the tragedy which overtook him to
analyse the effect of that on myself.’ (5)
Meanwhile, their
father, Frederick, failed his examinations and had to take a third year of
study becomes Assistant Warden at the Theological College in Llandaff before he
surprised the family and took off to war; he was interviewed on 29th
October 1915 and declared medically fit for service and posted to France the
following month attached to a Casualty Clearing Station. He served as an Army
Chaplain in France Italy Genoa England London
As for ‘Benjamin’,
Cuthbert tells us that ‘James [Cuthbert’s older brother, William Lister
Worsley] and I paid scant attention to Bengy during our growing years. As
children we had had him dumped on us all too often when the grown-ups were
busy. He was so much younger at that stage that he couldn’t join in our rough
nine or ten year old scrambles. Being thoroughly spoiled, though, he wasn’t
content to tag along, and would soon be off sneaking to the adults that we
weren’t including him in our play.
But as all of us grew
up, he learned well enough to amuse himself in his own eccentric way. James and
I were mad on golf, and we had also been given a discarded motor-bike by
brother John [Francis Frederick Worsley]. These pursuits were all absorbing,
and seemed to us, little philistines as we were, altogether more healthy than
the dancing and the messing about with a toy theatre which occupied Bengy’s
time.’ (6)
The Dean of Llandaff
was given an ultimatum and had to remove the ‘little widow woman’ from his
life; it was this which caused the great rift between Frederick and Catherine
Worsley and they hardly spoke a civil word between them for eleven years after
until Warden Worsley was made Dean – ‘now there came into the picture a little
masseuse from Tonypandy’ whom he took to resorts and clerical meetings – it was
a ‘fatal attraction’, but why did Catherine put up with this disgraceful
behaviour? The end was surely in sight, and so it was, the Dean either decided
or was forced to resign on ‘ill health’ in October 1929 and gave up the official
residence of the Dean; by June the following year he was claiming Clerical
Disabilities.
For Cuthbert, who
admits to being a ‘social, intellectual and athletic’ snob’ cricket and other
games supplied a ‘pretence of virility’, but in fact he was hiding his
‘repression of sexual potency. The excessive value placed on the athlete made
my ignorance acceptable both to myself and others. It enabled me to escape
noticing what in fact was missing. The generalised homo-eroticism which I
discovered in the rituals of the playing fields satisfied my inclinations enough
to keep them “pure”.’ (7)
Bearing these
sentiments in mind it is difficult to understand his feelings towards his
younger brother, ‘Benjamin’, for he says that ‘we didn’t dislike him: indeed we
both [Cuthbert and William] grew fond of him as we grew older. But we were – or
I was at least – a good deal ashamed of, and embarrassed by, all that dressing
up in girl’s clothes and that shameless painting of the lips.’ He continues,
saying that, ‘our parents were even more divided and incompetent over what
should be done about their bizarre offspring than they were about us. What sort
of education should he have? Was dancing really a career possible for a boy?
(it must be remembered that in those days there was no Royal Ballet nor
anything like it.) He was taken up for an audition with one of the better known
ballet teachers of the time, Espinoza, (8) who pronounced him a budding
genius, and took him for a time into his classes.
Quite why this
arrangement was abandoned I didn’t bother to discover. Probably it was the
parental situation. Mother was incapable of making decisions: father was too
pre-occupied with himself to do so. As a result Bengy was taken away from the
ballet school and sent back to the Cathedral
School Oxford
Another factor, which
probably played a major part in the Dean’s decision to break-up the family and
in Cuthbert’s development, was the death of the youngest son, Bengy, who had
won a scholarship to St Edward’s College, Oxford
John, I and Bengy were
the bathing party and John was not in the water when it happened. James was
unfortunately not with us, and he was the only member of the family who could
swim.’ (11) Cuthbert goes on to say that ‘on this summer’s day, then, I
couldn’t swim nor could Bengy. We were playing together, chest deep in the
water, in a small cove formed by two rocky points. It wasn’t rough but there
were the kind of waves which it is fun for non-swimmers to play in. Suddenly
without either of us realising it was happening, we were out of our depth.
Swiftly, before we could recover, some current or other had carried us out
further to sea in the direction of one of the points. We clung together, went
down and came up, spluttering, gurgling, choking, out of control.
Now we were down
fighting the green water, now we had a glimpse of sky, a mouthful of air and
salt mixed: now it was only mouthful after mouthful of water. I suppose it
didn’t take long, it seemed an eternity. Soon we were simply fighting for life
and fighting not only for life, but fighting each other. I was the older and
stronger. I got free. I wasn’t any longer at that point a non-swimmer. I made
for the head of the point, and got there. And I lay there fighting to get back
my breath, to get the water out of my lungs.
Bengy was carried right
round the point. Our struggles had been observed. Swimmers had gone in and they
brought him to shore in the next bay. He was dead. Artificial respiration went
on for an hour. But there was no reviving him.
It was particularly
appalling that mother was there on the beach to see the calamity. I revived
pretty quickly.’ Cuthbert had to telephone his father, the Dean (‘why me?’ he
asks), – ‘”You bloody fool, you!” was his comment.’ (12)
Cuthbert goes on to
say that ‘however gentle everyone was with me, I had the facts to face. I was
alive and he was dead. He, the specially beloved of them all, the little
genius, the most precious of any of us, hadn’t survived. I had. And how could I
forget that in the final climax of that deadly crisis, I had cast him off? I
had torn myself free. If I hadn’t, there would, of course, have been two deaths
instead of one. True. But I had, I had actually, physically, deliberately,
wilfully torn his clutching hands away from my thighs.’ (13)
Two days later, an
article in the Western Mail reported on the incident and the inquest:
‘Death Trap to Bathers. The Danger Spot at
Southerndown. Coroner’s Comments. Tribute to Plucky Policeman. – The lack of
notices warning bathers against the dangerous spots on the coast at
Southerndown and Ogmore-by-Sea, where two tragedies occurred on Sunday, was
commented upon by a doctor and the coroner (Mr. S. H. Stockwood) at the inquest
at Bridgend on Monday on Richard Geoffrey Worsley, the fifteen year old son of
Dr. F. W. Worsley, Dean of Llandaff, who was drowned whilst bathing at
Southerndown on Sunday. The coroner said that the only notice was that erected
by the forbears of the Earl of Dunraven, which had been posted on the Dunraven Castle
The story of the drama
was told by Mr. Thomas Cuthbert Worsley, an undergraduate of St. John’s College Cambridge Dunraven Bay
Thought Brother was
Saved.
The Coroner: Were you
conscious that you had drifted towards that point? – No; but I realise now that
we must have been carried to the east.
Can you say whether
you were conscious on the rock? – I think I was.
You went to your
mother thinking your brother had been got out? – Yes.
Can you tell me what
were you conscious of all the time you were slipping about – were you conscious
of currents? – No, but I knew that whereas I had been in my depth I was
suddenly out of it.
Francis Frederick
Worsley said he saw his brothers go in the water and kept them more or less in
view. “The first indication I had of something unusual was when I noticed they
were getting near Witches Point; so I walked to the edge of the water by the
point and shouted to them, but they did not appear to hear.”
“Bobbing Up and Down.”
“I did not really
worry much until I saw that Richard, the younger one, was bobbing up and down
in a curious way,” added witness. “I thought my other brother was also fighting
a bit. As I am unable to swim I ran across to the nearest party, in which was
Dr. Cook, of Cardiff
Doctor’s Experience.
Dr. Herbert George
Graham Cook said Mr. Worsley came up and asked him whether he could swim. “I am
not a strong swimmer, and not very young,” said the doctor; “so I shouted to my
son up the beach, who is a strong swimmer, and I went off myself. I went into
the water, and near Witches Point I went into a deep pool, which I got through,
and scrambled out the sand the other side of the point. Then I saw Mr. Worsley
and another man wading out, and they got hold of the boy.” Dr. Ralph Downing
and Dr. Leigh helped in the work of artificial respiration with Major Budd. The
doctor added that it was very dangerous at this spot. The holes there were very
steep – nothing to a strong swimmer, but rather terrifying for a poor one.
The Coroner: I am
afraid the currents are there even at the lowest tide, and the most dangerous
time is when the tide is full up.
Police-Constable
Joseph Sansom said it was quite easy to see several currents working. They
would be extremely dangerous to anyone who was not a strong swimmer. It was
notorious that Witches Point was dangerous.
Dr. Cook referring to
the coroner’s remarks, said that if a warning notice was put up in a prominent
place, where it could not fail to be seen by visitors, lives might be saved. A
verdict of “Accidental death” was returned.
Requiem for Son of
Dean of Llandaff.
In connection with the
funeral of Richard Geoffrey Worsley, son of the Dean of Llandaff, we are asked
to state that a requiem will be sang in the Cathedral to-day (Tuesday) at 10.15
a.m., and the Burial will follow immediately. (14)
When Cuthbert left
Cambridge he was at a loss as to his future prospects and so he fell into what
all apathetic undergraduates fall into – teaching; he became an assistant
master at Wellington College (simply known as ‘College’ in ‘Flannelled Fool’)
and having failed to keep control of the History class had to resort to the
administering of a ‘beating’ with the cane; five trouble-makers were
‘massacred’ in this way and the discipline problem was solved! ‘Cuthie’ reveals
some frank sexual feelings and activities such as his first memorable erection
as a schoolboy at Brightlands
School
Later, we hear that
his father, four years after walking out on the family is asking for £500 or he
will be in jail – apparently he tried to set himself up as an Estate Agent in
Portsmouth and his partner went off with the deposits – the money was sent to
him, ‘twice’; eventually he was ‘pensioned off’ if he ‘promised to stay put in
Bath and not attempt any more business ventures’. (15) And here he
remained, taking up bowls (during the war he became a clerk in the Admiralty
Administrative Branch, in Bath
A former Dean of
Llandaff, the Very Rev. Frederick William Worsley aged 83, has died at Bath London Durham University Clare College Cambridge Cardiff
Cuthbert, like his
father, feels the boredom of his profession and wants adventure and time to
write (he had several poems and articles published in various periodicals and
papers), and so, aged 26 and feeling alone, he left Wellington College and
became a private tutor. With the beginnings of a novel he is enticed to
Gordonstoun school for a term by its Headmaster (and founder in 1934), Kurt
Hahn to give a report on conditions and teaching practices there while working
on his novel and playing a little cricket which sounds idyllic – the report is
not favourable to Hahn and the comic scene of books being thrown at each others
heads ensues. The novel is abandoned and discarded and through his friendship
with the poet Stephen Spender they go to Spain in 1937 and during the Civil War
works as part of an ambulance unit; in the second World War he joins the RAF
and finds it all ‘drill and bull’ before suffering a nervous breakdown and
being discharged; he eventually finds his place among the staff of the New
Statesman. He knew some fascinating people during his lifetime: Cyril Connolly,
who introduced Cuthbert to Enid Bagnold (Cuthbert and his partner, John Anthony
Luscombe, lived four years at Bagnold’s 19th century ‘ravishing
little cottage’ in Rottingdean; John and Cuthy used to visit Sir Laurence
Olivier in Brighton), John Lehmann, W. H. Auden (they published ‘Education
Today and Tomorrow’ together in 1939) and poet Gavin Ewart, who was a pupil of
his. Cuthbert wrote several works under the name T. C. Worsley, such as ‘Behind
the Battle’ (1939), ‘The Fugitive Art: Dramatic Commentaries 1947-1951’ (1952),
‘Television: The Ephemeral Art’ (1970) and ‘Fellow Travellers’ (1971). He
became ill with emphysema in 1964 and had to retire due to ill health in 1972;
in increasing pain, he too an overdose at his home in Brighton
on 23rd February
1977 . He lived a very varied and interesting life, yet Cuthbert
seems to have been haunted by the ghost of his younger brother, Richard, who
died before the promise of a successful life was fulfilled; perhaps Cuthbert
left this life with the image of young ‘Bengy’, the dancing faun, still
clinging to him just before he tore himself away and left him to the waves!
NOTES:
1. Francis Frederick
Worsley, born 2nd
June 1902 , Kensington, London Brighton
College Balliol College Oxford Cardiff Cardiff Thursday 15th September 1949 at Mile End
Hospital London Cardiff Friday 22nd
February 1935 the BBC aired a ‘Programme of Old Fashioned Dances’
at 8.15 p.m. given by The
Llandaff School of Dancing arranged by Betty Worsley and Christine Wheatley
with the Western Studio Orchestra, leader Frank Thomas. The programme devised
and produced by John N. Lampson. William Lister Worsley, born 18th July 1906 , Lincolnshire Brighton College 30th April 1934
(daughter Priscilla born Greenwich 1st October
1949 in Kensington, London London 20th August 1912 , died 15th July 1928 .
2. Flannelled Fool: A
Slice of Life in the Thirties. 1967 (1985 ed.).
T. C. Worsley. p. 41.
3. ibid. p. 56.
4. ibid. p. 141.
5. ibid. p75-76.
6. ibid. p. 108.
7. ibid. p. 89.
8. Edouard Espinosa
(1871-1950). British ballet dancer and teacher.
9. Flannelled Fool. p. 108.
10. ibid. p. 109.
11. ibid. p. 108.
12. ibid. p. 110.
13. ibid. p. 111.
14. Western Mail. Tuesday 17th July 1928 .
p. 10.
15. Flannelled Fool.
p. 138-9.
16. The Western Mail
and South Wales News. Thursday 1st March 1956 . p.
5.
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