JOHN CLARE,

POET OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

 

The poet, John Clare was born in the thatched cottage in the village of Helpston near Peterborough, on 13^th July 1793, (he was baptised in Helpston at four weeks old on 11^th August 1793), the son of Parker Clare, born 1763 and Ann Stimson, born 1757, who were married on 29^th October 1792 in Marholm, Northamptonshire. John’s twin sister unfortunately died at just a few weeks old.

The cottage was originally five dwelling places which were later joined together. John was schooled in the nearby village of Glinton where he met and fell in love with a local beauty named Mary Joyce, the love and the sorrow of his life. John began writing verse as a young boy, stuffing the sheets of paper into a chink in the cottage wall which his mother would use for fire-lighting; he seems not to have minded their being consumed by flames as they were early attempts at poetry. After school, John worked as an agricultural labourer and continued writing his verse which would, in 1820, be published as ‘Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenes’. The same year, he married Martha (‘Patty’) Turner at Great Casterton Church, on 16^th March 1820 and they had several children: Anna Maria (June 1820), Eliza Louisa (June 1822), Frederick (January 1824), John (June 1826), William Parker (May 1828), Sophia (September 1830) and Charles in 1833.

His first volume of poems proved successful and he was lionised and celebrated in literary society. Further volumes of poetry were published: ‘The Village Minstrel’ (1821), ‘The Shepherd’s Calendar’ (1827) and ‘The Rural Muse’ (1835). In 1832 he left his native cottage in Helpston for a cottage in Northborough, a village three miles away, a move which disturbed him greatly. Several years later, on 8^th July 1837, he was certified insane and two days after his 44^th birthday, he was admitted to High Beach asylum, Epping, on 15^th July ‘by authority of his wife’; after several unsuccessful escape attempts in early 1841, he managed to escape in July of that year and walked the long distance back to Northamptonshire, compelled to eat grass along the way and under the delusion that he was married to Mary Joyce and that he would find her on his return. Sadly, Mary Joyce had died unmarried on 14^th July 1838, the day after John Clare’s 45^th birthday, while he had been one year at High Beach. Following five months at his Northborough cottage, he was again certified as insane and admitted to Northampton General Asylum on 29^th December 1841 where he was given much freedom. He continued to write verse which have been classified as his ‘asylum poems’ and he liked nothing better than to while away the hours under the portico of All Saint’s Church in Northampton. John’s mother, Ann Clare, died on 18^th December 1835 aged 78 and she was buried at Helpston on 21^st December; John’s father, Parker Clare, died in Northborough on 5^th March 1846 aged 82 and he was buried the following day and laid to rest next to his wife, Anne, at St. Botolph’s Church, Helpston.

John Clare died on the afternoon of Friday 20^th May 1864 at Northampton Asylum and his body was brought back by train to Helpston. On Tuesday 24^th May the poet’s remains were laid overnight at the Exeter Arms public house opposite the church of St. Botolphs. The following day, Wednesday 25^th May, at 3 p.m., the funeral took place; there was a short procession from the Manor of Mr. and Mrs. Bellairs next to the Exeter Arms which included the poet’s widowed wife, Patty, and their children, William and Eliza; also among them were the Reverend Charles Mossop and his sister Jane. Because the vicar of Helpston was away in Scotland, the funeral was performed by the vicar of nearby Glinton, Reverend Edward Pengelley. Clare’s oak coffin bearing the brass breastplate with his name and dates of birth and death was laid next to his parents in the churchyard, ‘under the shade of a sycamore tree’. *

Three years later, a memorial stone designed by Michael Drury of Lincoln, made of Ketton stone, was paid for by public subscription and placed over the grave which bore the famous inscription – ‘A POET IS BORN NOT MADE’.

John’s wife, Patty Clare, died in Spalding on 5^th February 1871, aged 70 and she was buried in Northborough on 8^th February.

[Celebrating John Clare by Greg Crossan, the John Clare Society Journal, number 12, July 1993, (Bicentenary Number), edited by John Goodrich (and Kelsey Thornton), pp. 18-25. *: Life and Remains of John Clare. J. L. Cherry. London, Frederick Warne & Co. 1873. p. 128]

 

 
A HELPSTON PILGRIMAGE
TO RONALD BLYTHE (1922-2023)
‘WHO BORE THE SAME UNREST’

BY BARRY VAN-ASTEN
 
 
To call you a ‘peasant poet’ seems an insult –
The epithet has held you back, kept you from
Rising; being praised like Keats and Wordsworth;
But for circumstances of your birth… instead,
Rooted firm by place and the identifiable,
Parochial minor versifier, simply ignored
Because your class and stature didn’t fit!
 
‘Pasture poet’, ‘rustic bard’, ‘balladeer’…
These words evoke songs of the landscape,
Of labour fortified by ale; of working the soil,
A physical contact that draws poetry from earth;
Of sweat and toil and thoughts of carnal joy,
Not some romantic vision, or brown-limbed
Herdboy sat picturesquely in some leafy idyll.
 
I crossed the threshold of your home and looked
Through all the windows at the street outside;
I touched all the beams, the hearth was aglow
As I summoned you to me and there you sat
With the ache of tomorrow, by window-nook;
I watched you scribbling to scent of lavender,
Your secret poems that you stuffed into a chink
In the wall which were found by your mother
And used for fire-lighting.
 
Time lost by stream and tree hollow, dreaming
Of Mary Joyce beneath green boughs that sway
Till the soft brush of moth wing upon your cheek
Breaks you free from pale heaving bosom…
Draws an incantation to those lips most sweet –
‘By field mouse and fledgling, by feather and fate:
I bind thee to me, always, Mary Joyce!’
 
Like you, dear soul, I mutter and fumble
In my solitude as I ramble, frenetic at lip,
Like stream, we meander as Nene will do,
Through our imagination and our sorcery;
To whisper confessions to wind and oblivion:
In fields fascinated by tooth, claw and beak –
We listen to the language of the corn, for O,
‘Tis nature educates the soul… we believe.
 
I watched a yellowhammer on the hawthorn
That had enclosed the meadow, and in the field
I stuffed an ear of wheat into my pocket.
Passing a hollow in a tree I thought of your poem
And those daisies, old as Adam, swaying…
In the cool wood, a pathway curved and butterflies
Circled every step haunted by the hum of bees
To the chiffchaff’s delightful company in the glade!
 
There, wrapt in song of the rural muse, you sit
In your loved corner seat as mother spun yarn;
Tender of sheep, nature boy, through field and
Through spinney, returning home with dirty knees
And a world of dreams… and a bunch of flowers:
Lady’s Smock, Speedwell and Lesser Celandine,
Picked from field edges and placed in a water jug.
Fashion me sonnets from the sedge, I implored;
Warble me sweet songs of the wilderness…
 
The cuckoo chant of ecstasy rings through copse
And with pockets stuffed with seeds, snail shells,
Feathers, a bright polished pebble, down lane and
Over furrow – I too knew that wonder as a boy,
Immersed in the sacred and the divine of nature;
To draw the ghost and the spirit from sun on water,
Of millpond and rank weed beds… to read the stones
And listen, in those secret places, not seen by many
For there is a strange eroticism in the landscape!
 
Obsessing over nesting birds or found hedgerow beast:
Fox, badger and hedgehog… a broken jaw bone… before
The ‘blue devils’ beset you with delusions of being:
Byron and Burns and a bigamist… but always there
Was the shadow of the asylum door… still, you dream
Of eyes and thighs of Mary Joyce chained by runic charm;
 
Sweet Glinton girl wrapt as brier around your heart…
A virile lunacy of fancies and forebodings…
A beautiful madness, perhaps the brain’s indifference
To the wearisome world of men and women around you:
Let the heart dwell on the serenity that you had found;
The scenes of pastoral ecstasy that you conjured here
Like magic from a world, unseen by many!
 
And alas! Those mutterings were muted, but posterity
Still sings your songs of wilderness and desire – a light,
Inextinguishable as we connect with surrounding… for
Here be paradise, your ‘nest’ where bramble and teazle,
By willow are home to the hare and the lark.
 
I found a penny in the village at the Butter Cross and
Stuffed it like a secret poem between the stones of
Your grave… returning home: a dozen sombre crows
All in a row, with their heads down as at a funeral,
They seemed to repeat – ‘a poet is born not made’.
 
[Helpston. Saturday 5^th July 2025]

E. BONNEY STEYNE

THE MYSTERIOUS POET AND CRITIC
E. BONNEY STEYNE
BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

 

E. Bonney Steyne or the initials E.B.S., is a name which mysteriously re-occurs throughout certain periodicals of the eighteen-nineties: ‘The Artist’ and ‘The Studio’ particularly; it is obviously a pseudonym for I have been unable to find any such person on record as E. Bonney Steyne. The initials, E.B.S., I believe, are either genuinely the initials of the author, or simply made up. Mysteries are troubling, and it is not my intention to solve the conundrum, merely to point out the mystery and make a few suggestions as to whom the author known as E. Bonney Steyne, or ‘E.B.S.’ may be. I will come to my own conclusion as to the author’s identity, which of course, you are perfectly entitled to disagree with and disprove, in due course.

In the many published articles E.B.S. writes well with authority upon various subjects of art, from painting, illustration, design and architecture, and even the Theatre. (1)

We do know that E.B.S. is a friend of the art connoisseur Joseph Gleeson White, who is the editor of The Studio and that both men are well-acquainted with the painter, Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929). E.B.S. visited Tuke at his studio, Pennance Cottage, near Swanpool beach, Falmouth in the summer of 1895 and said that his place of work was ‘devoid of ornament, outside or in’ and had an ‘appropriate nautical flavour suggested by a most ingenious arrangement of ropes, which turn out to be, not rigging as you first thought, but a complicated system of cords for adjusting the many blinds of the roof and windows to the required light’. (Studio, V, 27. June 1895. p. 93) The critic questioned Tuke on several points of interest relating to his career and then they both walk to the beach beyond the headland of Pennance Point, the setting for many of his paintings depicting the beauty of youth on the coastal landscape. Following further discussion, they walked back to the quay and to Tuke’s floating studio before heading off to Falmouth Art Gallery, which Mr. Tuke, along with the painter, William Ayerst Ingram (1855-1913), was instrumental in starting, to see his exhibition there. (2)

E.B.S. has some fascinating things to say on female artists and champions their work upon its own merit, for example, on the illustrator, Mary L. Newill, he picks up on her style which resembles the early woodcut and says that she ‘reduces forms to simplicity, and is more occupied with the pattern than imitation of Nature’ (Studio, V, 26. May 1895. p. 59); of her embroidery, he stresses that they are a ‘mosaic of colour entirely’ and that her work is a ‘reduction of fact to symbols’. (p. 60) On Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes he goes further and defends her talent as an artist in her own right and not because she has married a fellow, successful artist of the Newlyn school, which he believes is a ‘misnomer’ (Studio, IV, 24. March 1895. pp. 186-192). Mrs. Forbes shows E.B.S. her ‘movable studio’ at her Newlyn home and calls her work – ‘strong, wholesome art, able to hold its own.’ E.B.S. has some interesting thoughts on the fallibility of the trained and untrained art critic and their inflated opinions as to what is good art, for ‘only the future (judging from the past) will select its own favourites’; he goes on to say that ‘neglected and unpopular painters in their own day sometimes continue unknown, even in a day like the present, bent on dragging hidden genius to light, and on rewarding every outburst of eccentricity or of genuine merit with fulsome adulation, we know there are those working among us, some popular, others absolutely disregarded by the most advanced as well as the most conventional critics, whose works future generations will appreciate as honest and typical examples of the best influences of their period; (p. 188) this is certainly a prophetic statement which we ourselves can recognise today. (3) His remarks show a well-informed sense of style and taste as can be seen from the following passage on the ‘Decoration of the Printed Book’ (Magazine of Art, XX, March 1897, p. 278) in which he says that ‘the construction of a really perfect book is far more likely to be achieved by avoiding blemishes than by including merely decorative adjuncts. The creed of splendid simplicity is never a popular one, and in the days of cheap blocks and ambitious young designers, the danger of over-doing ornament is more than ever one which lurks close at hand.’ He then says, quite sensibly and rightly, that ‘common sense with good taste sums up nearly all that makes for art, in a book, or any other object of craftsmanship.’ (p. 278), (4)

From the style of writing in his poetry, we can gather that E. Bonney Steyne or E.B.S. is, like so many of the contributors to The Artist, The Studio, and The Spirit Lamp, ‘uranian’ in his outlook, that is, he likes to extol the beauty of youth, particularly male beauty:

THE LAST SECRET

 
From young Greek lips a whisper fell
Across the glowing softened dusk
The secret of all things to tell
From young Greek lips a whisper fell
On ears that heard it all too well;
Mid scent of ambergris and musk
From English lips again it fell
And echoed sweetly through the dusk.
 
So Saadi in the garden heard
So Marlowe caught it in the town
The old sweet air that softly stirred
So Saadi in the garden heard.
In London bustle ‘tis inferred
By Southern seas it ripples on,
The sweetness of the one sweet word
Lights both the country and the town.
 
Yet only is it perfect still
Because it never has been spoken.
The moment comes, the impatient will
Would fain discover all, until
The moment passes, with a thrill
And, leaves the secret all unbroken
In perfect peace secure and still
Imagined, heard, yet never spoken.

 [by E. Bonney Steyne. The Artist, volume 13, number 153, 1^st August 1892, p. 227]

 

The word that ‘never has been spoken’ is very similar to the phrase, ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ which was the final line to Lord Alfred Douglas’s 1892 poem, ‘Two Loves’; but Douglas’s poem was written in September 1892, a month after the appearance of ‘The Last Secret’ – could the poem by E. Bonney Steyne have influenced Douglas?  Two Loves did not appear until the first and only edition of The Chameleon of December 1894 which was edited by the Oxford undergraduate of Exeter College, John Francis Bloxam (1873-1928) and the magazine would play its part in the downfall of Oscar Wilde the following April when the prosecution began. (5)

Gleeson White and E. Bonney Steyne both have a deep interest in interior design and furniture as can be seen by their articles in ‘Work: An Illustrated Magazine of Practice and Theory for all Workmen, Professional and Amateur’. (6) Gleeson, like Bonney Steyne, sometimes strays into writing verse, his poems show a marked knowledge of poetical technique and are often quite humorous and witty; take the following poem, signed ‘G.W.’, from The Artist [volume 14, number 160, 1^st March 1893, p. 67], ‘Ballade of the Young Man of the Period’ in which he describes the young gentleman as taking ‘life in its sordidest hues’ and ‘paints his room in the greenest of blues, / at the play looks the saddest of sads, / dances little, but loves to refuse. / Raves a bit o’er a Japanese fan; / yet would culture’s sweet brightness diffuse, / the young nineteenth century man!’ The final verse continues with the same humorous wordplay:

 
In costumes, he bars, checks or plaids;
In books, “liketh much to confuse”
Herbert Spencer with Kipling, and adds:
Some very electic reviews;
Creeds or churches he mostly eschews;
And athletics, once dear to our lads,
But to study him does not amuse,
The puzzle is, where he began?
But like riddles deprived of their clues
Is the young nineteenth century man.

 

An earlier example of Gleeson White’s poetry can be found in Parodies of the Works of English and American Authors by Walter Hamilton, volume I, 1884 – ‘The Monthly Parodies. An Apology’ written after William Morris’s “Earthly Paradise” by J.W. Gleeson White, Christchurch, March 1884, p. 65 which ends: ‘So with these many Parodies it is, / if you will read aright and carefully, / nor scathing satire, nor malicious hiss / for lack of beauty in the themes to see, / nor jeerings coarse, at what men prize, as we / but jest to make some little changeling play / its pranks in classic robes, all crowned with bay.’ Also in The Bookmart can be found similar verse: ‘Ballade of the Great Unread’ (volume VI, number 67, December 1888, p. 361), ‘Ballade of Russian Novels’ (volume VI, number 68, January 1889, p. 417) and ‘At a Two Penny Book Stall’(volume VI, number 69, February 1889, p. 473). Another example of a poem by ‘G.W.’ is the following four line verse ‘Up Parnassus’ from The Artist [volume 13, number 157, 1^st December 1892, p. 358]: ‘From the first plateau do not downward peer / to note with pride its height; but persevere / for from the peak itself this noble place / part of the dull dead level will appear.’ The tone of the author appears quite mocking and the same note of mockery can be found in an article by E.B.S. in the same edition of The Artist (pp. 73-74) – ‘In Consequence of Mr. Traill’ which he begins by saying ‘All the world knows what happens to one who divulges the secrets of Freemasonry. Possibly as terrible a fate awaits the betrayer of the passport to the Brotherhood of Poets, a new organization, not alas! a product of the Wild West.’ He then goes on to rant over other magazines such as the Magazine of Poetry in which one has ‘to send your “photo” to be processed (with a fee), to allow your poems to be quoted “by kind permission of the author”,’ He sneers at such things, which seem quite familiar to us now, and then goes on to suggest that a ‘certain circular is on its way, that shall make Yankee folly appear almost sensible by comparison.’ We are then shown a mock legal document with spaces to be filled in by the applicant to be an Honorary Member of the Brotherhood of Poets and to ‘obey the rules’ and enclose a Postal Order for the ‘entrance fee and first year’s subscription or life commutative fee.’ E.B.S. defends the poor unknown minor poets, apparently ‘four and twenty’ of them, ‘never yet heard singing even in a printer’s pie.’ He ends the piece, saying severely that ‘when the effrontery of this ridiculous affair thrusts itself under one’s nose, ere it passes to the waste-paper basket.’ But perhaps something soothing in poetic form shall rinse the bile dripping from otherwise sweet lips –

 

 RETROSPECTION

 
To me Love held a crystal globe wherein
I saw my secret wishes mirrored plain,
The rapture of the vision made me fain
To grasp its beauty and myself to win
Tho’ bought with bitter agony or sin,
The rapture of that moment; for its gain
To count no misery, nor any pain
So to enjoy I might at once begin.
 
But he who held it smiling said ‘Not so,’
‘Tis but a vision of thy own lost power
What time in very sooth Love’s rose-hung bower
Opened for thee, when blind thou dids’t not know
And far in other ways woulds’t idly go.
Now none can bring again that bygone hour.

[by E.B.S., The Artist, volume 13, number 155, 1^st October 1892, p. 291]

 

DAPHNIS

 
To all the world what you may seem
I know not neither do I care
To me you are a waking dream
Fulfilling all things sweet and fair.
 
The world may prize you or disdain,
You are my world; the only thing
That sways my life, one perfect gain
The only pleasure without sting.
 
Your love shines on me like a sun
And in its rays reveals my youth,
For one I live, and love that one
With loyalty and perfect truth.

[by E.B.S., The Artist, volume 13, number 156, 1^st November 1892, p. 325]

 

In another poem, ‘Two’, the poet E.B.S. seems to be consumed by the extraordinary beauty of two figures on the sea shore; either E.B.S. is drawing upon an actual encounter where he witnessed the scene during the summer of that year (1893) or he is inspired by a painting depicting two figures. I believe he is recounting a memory from the ‘tangled world’.

 

TWO

 
Two that embrace the beauty of the earth
From light to shade
Morning and evening since its primal birth
None lovelier made.
 
One with an amorous coronal of golden hair
Eyes that are as the sky mid storm cloud rift,
Clean limbed, proportioned exquisitely rare
Like Ganymede the eagle borne, the gift
Of Earth to Heaven, one’s feelings backward drift
To all the splendour of the gods of Greece
Here in the tangled world awhile adrift
Incarnate imagery of Love and Peace.
 
One with a movement undulating sweet
As lazy breakers by a summer shore
Flesh for the warmer Southern kisses meet
Eyes that are fireflies mid dark hellebore;
With purpling curls that fall in clusters o’er
A face that is the splendour of the South
When all its beauty waxes more and more
Into the ripeness of the curving mouth.

[by E.B.S., The Artist, volume 14, number 167, 1^st October 1893, p. 297]

 

It has been suggested [Impressionists in England: The Critical Reception, edited by Kate Flint, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984, [2016 ed.]: ‘Monet’s Sketches’, The Studio, Sept 1893, pp. 243-244, by E.B.S.] that the author of the article on Monet by E.B.S. (in The Studio), which by the way he prophetically suggests that ‘England is not ready to fully accept… as a pioneer of landscape painting’, is ‘almost certainly by Eveline Byam Shaw’. This is incorrect as the style of the article is the same as other critical analysis by E.B.S. and anyone familiar with the author’s writing need only read his articles on Henry Scott Tuke, Eleanor Brickdale or George Frampton to see that the author, although familiar with the Newlyn School of Art, is most definitely male and not Eveline Byam Shaw (1870-1960) (7) Nor is the author Eve Blantyre Simpson (1855-1920), as suggested by  Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi and Patricia Zakresk in reference to ‘The Paintings and Etchings of Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes’ by E.B.S., The Studio, volume 4, number 24, March 1895, pp. 186-192. (8)

We must also rule out the artist, Edward Brice Stanley [E.B.S.] Montefiore (1855-1918) for quite obvious reasons when one looks at his work, he simply does not fit. I must admit, I was side-tracked for a moment into believing E.B.S. could perhaps be the eminent homeopathic doctor, painter and sculptor, Edward Barton Shuldham [E.B.S.] (1837-1924) merely on the use of his initials on the publication of his twin nephew artists’ book – ‘Pictures from Birdland’ (London, J. M. Dent & Co. 1899) by Charles and Edward Detmold with ‘ryhmes by E.B.S.’, I think also the fact that both artists, Charles Maurice Detmold and Edward Julius Detmold, who were born on 21^st November 1883, both committed suicide, Charles at his home, Inglewood Road, Hampstead, on 9^th April 1908 by chloroform, and Edward on 1^st July 1957 by shooting himself in the chest, aroused suspicions (9).

Gleeson White’s friend and editing partner in the Bell’s series of Cathedrals, Edward Fairbrother Strange (1862-1929), who was curator at South Kensington Museum and an authority on Japanese prints, also had poems and articles printed in various periodicals, such as The Artist, and the Magazine of Art [‘The Habit does not Make the Monk’, volume 14, 1891, p. 344] and these from The Studio: ‘The Rood-Screen of South Pool Church’ [The Studio, volume 4, number 24, March 1895, pp. 192-197], ‘Some Old Wrought Iron Work’ [The Studio, volume 12, number 58, January 1898, pp. 247-251] and ‘Patterns From Suffolk Rood-Screens’ [The Studio, volume 15, number 70, January 1899, pp. 241-247]. Here is an example of a poem by Edward Fairbrother Strange, who sometimes wrote under the initials: ‘E.F.S.’:

LOVE AND LIFE
After the picture by G. F. Watts, R.A., in South Kensington Museum.

 
Oh, Love! the way is hard!
Give me thy hand. I dare not stand alone
On these rough crags, with wounded bleeding feet,
I scarce dare look, yet hear thy pinions beat,
And long to take thy heart-strength for my own.
Oh, help me, Love! the way is very hard.
And Love bent down
Into Life’s soul with pitying tender smile,
And took her hand and led her forth, the while
He whispered sweetest hopes in accents fair
Of melody so pure, not all the blare
Of the wild storm could drown.
Sweet Life:
Who would’st not live without me for a day;
Yet triest wilfully to rise alone
On these rough crags of sharp remorseless stone:
Lo, I am here and will for ever stay.
Sad Life:
Look ever in my eyes and learn to live;
Hold ever fast my hand and learn to love;
And I will lead thee to a pleasant land
Of fair smooth ways and paths, far, far above
These rocky cliffs, that glaring trackless sand,
There wilt thou know what Love to Life can give,
There Love is Life and Life is only Love,
Sweet Love!

[by Edward F. Strange, The Artist, volume 9, number 99, 1^st March 1888, p. 67] 

 

I find there are several parallel consistencies between E.B.S. and that other great art critic and connoisseur of aesthetic taste, Joseph William Gleeson White (1851-1898). It is said that Gleeson White and E. Bonney Steyne, or ‘E.B.S.’ are friends with and both have an appreciation and a great belief in the work of Henry Scott Tuke; White (who sometimes writes under the initials ‘J.G.W.’ or ‘G.W.’) and E.B.S. enjoy designing and crafting usable works of art, such as furniture and decorative furnishings; both write interesting and informative critical analysis of artistic works in various forms, from printing, painting and enamelling to literary works; both have their work published in the same periodicals – The Artist, The Studio, Work: An Illustrated Magazine, etc. Joseph Gleeson White spent a year in the United States in New York where he edited the magazine, ‘Art Amateur’ from November 1890 – In a notice in the periodical ‘Work: An Illustrated Magazine of Practice and Theory for all Workmen, Professional and Amateur’ (volume 2, number 85, Saturday 1^st November 1890, p. 538) we are told that ‘Mr. E. Bonney Steyne has left this country for a short sojourn in the States’. And finally, following the death of Gleeson White on 19^th October 1898, I can find no more published work by E. Bonney Steyne or E.B.S., the final piece by E.B.S. being, I believe, ‘Mr. Talwin Morris’s Designs for Cloth Bindings’ by E.B.S. in The Studio, volume 15, number 67, October 1898, pp. 38-44 (8 illustrations). What do I deduce from all this? In my opinion, Gleeson White and E. Bonney Steyne or E.B.S. is one and the same person; the character of the writing is identical – such as the seemingly old-fashioned and curious word ‘fain’ seen in the poems ‘The Last Secret’ and ‘Retrospection’ by E. Bonney Steyne and E.B.S. respectively is a word Gleeson White uses in his article on ‘American Piracy, Annexation of a British Myth’ (The Artist, volume VIII, number 85, 1^st January 1887, pp. 3-4) in reference to the meeting of Guinevere and Arthur, saying ‘The Queen would fain embrace him’ (p. 4) and examples in his works, such as ‘The Master Painters of Britain’ (four volumes, 1897-98) in the Introductory (volume I, 1897, p. IX). Gleeson White was also known to his friends as ‘Gleeful’, meaning merry, joyful and exuberant, which is a very good description of him (10) and the word ‘Bonney’ can mean fair, beautiful and is derived from the Latin, ‘bonus’, meaning good; Gleeson White was known for his delightful humour and wit, as can also be seen in his verse under his own name – is he making a charming riddle with the pseudonym? Does he feel free to express his more ‘uranian’ thoughts in verse under the persona and strange moniker of ‘E. Bonney Steyne’ and the initials E.B.S? I merely draw the reader’s attention to these facts.

Gleeson White was born Joseph William White in Christchurch, Hampshire on 8^th March 1851 (he later added the ‘Gleeson’ to his name), the only child of Joseph White (1893-1867), bookseller, stationer and printer, and Lydia Sarah Gleeson (1805-1875). His father, Joseph, who was born in Winkton, Hampshire and Lydia, born in Deptford, Kent, were married in Portsea Island, Hampshire in 1848; Joseph, who commenced his business in the art of bookbinding in 1819, seems to have been quite an energetic man, entirely self-taught – he ‘made his own boards by pasting sheets of old newspapers together, and afterwards turned out some respectable work. He bound the greater portion of the library of the late Lord Stuart de Rothesay, at Highcliffe Castle.’ He taught himself the art of printing and his business at Caxton House, 10, High Street, Christchurch, was the first and only booksellers in Christchurch. Upon his death on 17^th September 1867, aged 75, his widow, Lydia and son Joseph, continued the business. (11) Joseph’s wife, Lydia, (who was born 31^st October 1805) died several years later in Christchurch, on 26^th February 1875, aged 67. Joseph Gleeson White continued the business at Caxton House, as we can see from the 1881 census for Christchurch, Hampshire: Joseph is 30 years old and gives his occupation as – ‘Bookseller, stationer, organist’ [he was in fact organist at Mudeford Church of England Chapel, Christchurch, until he resigned in 1889 when he was presented by the choir and congregation with a silver tea service (Bournemouth Guardian. Saturday 10^th August 1889, p. 4,5)]; his wife, Annie M. White, born Annie Matilda Rose in Bath, Somerset, in 1852, is 28 years old [they were married in Bath, Somerset in 1876] and with them is their two children: 3 year old Cicely Rose Gleeson White who was born in Christchurch in 1877 who later became the well-known operatic soprano, Madame Gleeson White and married George John Miller (1877-1960) in Notting Hill, Middlesex on 22^nd July 1907, and 2 year old Eric Myles Foster Gleeson White (1879-1968) who married Beatrice Charlotte Smith (born 1868) in Notting Hill on 14^th October 1907. (12)

Joseph Gleeson White had many literary connections, he was friends with Oscar Wilde with whom he kept up a correspondence, beginning around 1888 and he supported Wilde during his trial which almost certainly ended Gleeson White’s editorship of The Studio in 1895, although he did continue to contribute articles to the magazine. Gleeson was also a friend of the poet and author, Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947) who himself became enamoured of Wilde and having met Wilde on 6^th June1888, the following ‘Summer day’, 7^th June, began that sweet intimacy between the two poets. The biographer, Neil McKenna, in his ‘The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde’ (London. Century. 2003) says that ‘the same month he [Le Gallienne] met and had sex with Oscar, Le Gallienne was also to be found staying with the journalist and poet Gleeson White and his wife in Christchurch, Hampshire, a town which was later to house a small but important colony of uranian poets and writers.’ (p. 90)

Gleeson continued to be on familiar terms with many of the uranian writers of the ‘yellow nineties’ including the teacher-poet, John Gambril Nicholson (1866-1931) and Charles Philip Castle Kains Jackson (1857-1933), the editor of The Artist and Journal of Home Culture from 1888-1894; like Gleeson, Kains Jackson was pushed aside as editor, in his case, it was due to an article he wrote for the April 1894 edition of The Artist, titled ‘The New Chivalry’ which promoted the pleasures and principles of ‘Greek love’ in an already over-populated world. The article was signed ‘P.C.’ which is Kains Jackson’s middle names – Philip Castle, and the issue also included a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas: ‘Prince Charming’ on the same page (p. 102), and following the essay, a poem by Gambril Nicholson, entitled ‘On the River Bank’ (p. 105). (13) Following this final flourish of uranian defiance, the rather soulless May edition of The Artist was published and much of its beauty died with Kains Jackson’s dismissal. Gleeson White also became acquainted with the strange enigma that was ‘Baron Corvo’ – Frederick Rolfe (1860-1913); through Nicholson’s friendship with Rolfe, the ‘Baron’ met Gleeson in Christchurch around August 1889, staying at Caxton House. Joseph’s wife took an instant dislike to Rolfe, thinking him pretentious. ‘During most of the early months of Rolfe’s stay in Christchurch, Gleeson White was in New York, where he had gone as associate editor of Art Amateur Magazine, but Mrs. Gleeson White was at home with their two children and she made the Baron welcome.’ (14) The painter, Henry Scott Tuke also visited the Gleeson White’s regularly and Tuke was also in correspondence with Rolfe, who also painted. When Gleeson White wished to leave Christchurch for London, Rolfe suggested he buy Caxton House but his unreliability and lack of funds saw this come to nothing. At this time, September 1891, Kains Jackson stayed with the Gleeson White’s at Caxton House for about a month and he acted as Gleeson’s solicitor; tensions were fraught as Rolfe claimed Mrs. Gleeson White made sexual advances towards him. Despite this, Rolfe’s photographic work did feature in an edition of The Studio – The Nude in Photography: with some studies taken in the open air, by Gleeson White which showed works by Wilhelm von Gloeden (1856-1931) and Frederick Rolfe, including a reclining nude Cecil Castle (1870-1922), cousin and lover of Kains Jackson. (15)

It is worth pointing out that E. Bonney Steyne could possibly be a play on words – Gleeson White was an enthusiastic designer and creator of beautiful decorative furnishings and one such product used with various wood such as oak was ‘ebony stain’; I might also add that many pianofortes of the time were made of ebony wood and one often came across adverts in the newspapers of the period for ‘ebony stein’ or ‘ebony Steinway’.

Joseph Gleeson White died on 19^th October 1898 after contracting typhoid fever in Italy where he travelled to during the summer of that year.

The following poem is by Gleeson White and signed ‘G.W.’ in The Artist, volume 14, number 159, 1^st February 1893, p. 36:

 

RONDEAU, To R.C.

 
Yet hearts may meet tho’ years divide
Those who once happy side by side
Were well content; since every day
Found mutually in work or play
The same ideals by each descried.
Now leagues of tossing billows sway
And words infrequent poorly say,
Yet hearts may meet.
Some joys are lost, some hopes have died
But Love still leaps the ocean wide.
Across its space take then I pray
The thought “tho’ parted each must stay
And hands and eyes have vainly tried
Yet, hearts may meet.

 

If indeed E. Bonney Steyne, or ‘E.B.S.’ was Joseph Gleeson White, as I believe he was, either rightly or wrongly, it will probably matter very little to the majority of literary scholars and enthusiasts but to a tiny minority, those who appreciate the poetry of this minor genre, it may make a very small difference indeed.

 

Works by E.B.S. in The Studio:

 

Some Sketches by Claude Monet and Eugene Boudin, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 1, number 6, September 1893, pp. 243-244 [6 illustrations].

The New Decorative Artist: Herbert Granville Fell, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 2, number 2, February 1894, p. 164 [3 illustrations].

Studies by a New “Character” Draughtsman, J. T. Wright Manuel, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 2, number 12, March 1894, pp. 218-219 [4 illustrations]

A Note on Mr. John Da Costa and his Work, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 4, number 29, December 1894, pp. 84-87 [7 illustrations].

Afternoons in Studios: A Chat with Mr. Whistler (unnamed but probably E.B.S.), The Studio, volume 4, number 22, January 1895, pp. 116-121.

The Paintings and Etchings of Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 4, number 24, March 1895, pp. 186-192 [9 illustrations].

Some Aspects of the Work of Miss Mary L. Newill, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 5, number 26, May 1895 (supplement, 15^th May 1895), pp. 56-63 [11 illustrations].

Afternoons in Studios: Henry Scott Tuke at Falmouth, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 5, number 27, June 1895, pp. 90-95 [7 illustrations].

New Book Illustrator: Charles Robinson, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 5, number 18, July 1895, pp. 146-150 [4 illustrations].

A Painter in the Arctic Regions. An Interview with Mr. Frank Wilbert Stokes, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 5, number 30, September 1895, pp. 209-214 [5 illustrations].

A Chat with Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Dawson on Enamelling, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 6, number 31, October 1895, pp. 173-178 [10 illustrations].

Mr. Mortimer Menpes and his Mexican Memories, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 6, number 33, December 1895, pp. 161-164 [4 illustrations].

Afternoons in Studios: A Chat with Mr. George Frampton, A.R.A., by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 6, number 34, January 1896, pp. 205-213 [9 illustrations].

Oscar Roty and the Art of the Medalist, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 7, number 37, April 1896, pp. 158-162 [8 illustrations].

Some Recent Designs by Mr. C.F.A. Voysey, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 7, number 38, May 1896, pp. 209-218 [14 illustrations].*

Studio-Talk, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 12, number 56, November 1897, pp. 118-123.

Some Drawings by Mr. Nico Jungman, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 13, number 59, February 1898, pp. 25-30 [8 illustrations]

Eleanor F. Brickdale, Designer and Illustrator, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 13, number 60, March 1898, pp. 103-108 [5 illustrations].

P. J. Billinghurst, Designer and Illustrator, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 14, number 65, August 1898, pp. 181-186 [7 illustrations]

Mr. Talwin Morris’s Designs for Cloth Bindings, by E.B.S. The Studio, volume 15, number 67, October 1898, pp. 38-44 [8 illustrations]

 

*E.B.S. also had an article on Voysey: ‘Country Cottages’, published in Country Life Illustrated, volume 3, number 59, 19^th February 1898, pp. 195-197.

 

 

Works by E. Bonney Steyne in Work: An Illustrated Magazine of Practice and Theory for all Workmen, Professional and Amateur:

 

Volume I:

Number 6, Saturday 27^th April 1889: ‘Binding made Easy, by E, Bonney Steyne’, pp. 81-83.

Number 9, Saturday 18^th May 1889: ‘Binding made Easy, by E. Bonney Steyne’, continued from 27^th April edition, pp. 138-139.

Number 20, Saturday 3^rd August 1889: ‘Japanese Motive for Panel in Fretwork, by E. Bonney Steyne’, p. 308.

Number 21, Saturday 10^th August 1889: ‘A Tray for Loose Letters, with Ink Bottle, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 327-329.

Number 30, Saturday 12^th October 1889: ‘A Mauresque Coffee Table, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 471-473.

Number 34, Saturday 9^th November 1889: ‘Design for a Large Bracket in Fretwork, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 535-536.

 

Volume II:

Number 73, Saturday 9^th August 1890: ‘Clocks and Clock Cases, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 329-330, also in the same edition: ‘Two Finger-Plates for Fret-Cutting, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 337-338.

Number 74, Saturday 16^th August 1890: ‘A Hall Settle: After an old Bedstead of the Sheraton Period, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 345-346.

Number 76, Saturday 30^th August 1890: ‘An Overmantel in the Arabian Style, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 377-378.

Number 79, Saturday 20^th September 1890: ‘Design for a Bracket in Fret-Work, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 432-434.

Number 82, Saturday 11^th October 1890: ‘A Corner Cupboard with Carved Panels, or for Gesso Ornamentation, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 483-484.

Number 100, Saturday 14^th February 1891: ‘A Small Hanging Cupboard with Fretwork Doors and Enrichments, by E. Bonney Steyne’, pp. 769-770.

 

I can find no articles by E. Bonney Steyne in volumes III and IV. I may note that Gleeson White’s ‘A Hanging Music Canterbury in Fretwork’ appeared in the number 105 issue of volume III (Saturday 21^st March 1891, pp. 3-4) and the final articles by E. Bonney Steyne, to my knowledge and research, was in volume V of Work, re-subtitled ‘the Illustrated Journal for Mechanics’, number 203, Saturday 4^th February 1893: ‘A Remodelled Drawing-Room’ (part I), by E. Bonney Steyne, p. 40; part II of the same article appeared in number 207, Saturday 4^th March 1893, p. 104. There is also an interesting article by E. Bonney Steyne on ‘Painter-Etchers Old and New’ in Art Review, volume I, 1890, Notes and Reviews, pp. 126-127.

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. E.B.S. reviewed Oscar Wilde’s play, ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’ which opened at the St. James’s Theatre, London on 20^th February [1892] in which he says ‘Mr. Oscar Wilde is like a dear little boy, clean and well-dressed, brought into dessert under promise to be good; who immediately improves the occasion by uttering terrible speeches, and behaving quite as badly as his mother’s rivals could wish.’ He damns the play as too dramatic and ‘flippant’ – ‘vice is hinted at, but when you get behind the mystery, no nonconformist  conscience could be more guiltless than these mock libertines and sham sinners’; he ends the review by saying: ‘We prefer to think that the spoilt child has real wit and genuine talent and can be as lovable and fresh when he cares to be so, as he can be just a merely provoking young monkey, when our expectant audience are prepared for a nicely behaved infant. E.B.S.’ [The Artist, volume 13, number 148, 1^st March 1892, p. 76]
2. Afternoons in Studios: Henry Scott Tuke at Falmouth. The Studio, volume 5, number 27, June 1895, pp. 90-95. [7 illustrations]
3. see: ‘Some Aspects of the Work of Miss Mary L. Newill’. [Supplement to The Studio, 15^th May 1895] The Studio, volume 5, number 26, May 1895, pp. 56-63 [11 illustrations]; and ‘The Paintings and Etchings of Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes’. The Studio, volume 4, number 24, March 1895, pp. 186-192 [9 illustrations].
4. The Decoration of the Printed Book, by E.B.S. Magazine of Art, volume 20, March 1897, pp. 275-278.
5. The Chameleon, volume 1, number 1, December 1894. The magazine began with Wilde’s ‘Phrases and Philosophies for the use of the Young’, pp. 1-3, and included Gambril Nicholson’s ‘The Shadow of the End’, pp. 4-7; Alfred Douglas’s sonnet poem ‘In Praise of Shame’, p. 25 and his ‘Two Loves’, pp. 26-28; the anonymous (although written by Bloxam in June 1884) short story, ‘The Priest and the Acolyte’, pp. 29-47; an anonymous and delightful little poem, ‘Love in Oxford’ (which seems very reminiscent of poems by ‘Alan Stanley’, the poet, Stanley Addleshaw, in his ‘Love Lyrics’ which was published the same year), p. 48, and the magazine ends with the charming short poem, ‘At Dawn’, by Bertram Lawrence, p. 59.
6. ‘A Remodelled Drawing-Room’, part I, in volume 5, number 203, 4^th February 1893, p. 40, and part II, volume 5, number 207, 4^th March 1893, p. 104. see also, ‘Cabinet Making and Upholstery’, ‘Cabinet in Fret-Cutting’ J. W. Gleeson-White, ‘Work’, March 23 1889 and ‘Drawing-Room Overmantel with Lincrusta Decoration’ E. Bonney Steyne, ‘Work’, April 20-65, 1889; ‘An Occasional Chair with Fret-Work Decorations’ by J. W. Gleeson White, ‘Amateur Work, Illustrated’, volume 7, 1887, p. 486, and ‘A Bachelor’s Sideboard in the Neo-Japanese Style’ by J. W. Gleeson White, ‘Amatuer Work, Illustrated’, volume 1,  London. Ward, Lock, & Co. 1881, pp. 376-377.
7. Eveline Margaret Grose Byam Shaw, also known as Evelyn C. E. Shaw, was married to the artist John James Byam Shaw
8. Crafting the Woman Professional in the Long Nineteenth Century: Artistry and Industry in Britain, edited by Kyriaki Hadjiafxendi and Patricia Zakrest. London, Routlegde. 2013 [2016 ed.], p. 183.
9. Edward Barton Shuldham M.D., M.R.C.S., born in India in 1837 and educated at Trinity College, Dublin; he was a friend of the author Lewis Carroll and a member of the British Homeopathic Society and published several books on the subject: Headaches, their Causes and Treatments (1875), Stammering and its Treatment (1879), The Family Homeopathist (1883) etc. he also wrote and lectured on art and was a painter, sculptor and poet. He collected porcelain and Japanese woodblock prints and famously sold his ‘Blue and White Chinese Porcelain Collection’ (more than 160 pieces, including seven Hawthorn jars) at Christies in February 1880 which was mentioned in The Artist [volume I, number 3, 15^th March 1880, p. 73]; he was a critic for The Dark Blue Magazine and wrote short stories such as ‘The House by the Moor’ in Chambers journal of Popular Literature, Science and Arts [seventh series, volume III, number 123, 5^th April 1913, part I, pp. 273-277, part II continued in number 124, 12^th April, pp. 297-299] and articles: ‘Sacred Art in the Royal Academy’ [Churchman’s Family Magazine, volume 6, July 1865], ‘Heine as an Impressionist’ [Temple Bar Magazine, volume 29, 1870, pp. 210-227], ‘Old Nankin Blue’ [The Art Journal, part I, October 1877, part II, November 1877]. He married Elizabeth Young (born 1846) in 1864 and he and his wife, raised the Detmold children, Mary, Nora, Charles and Edward, at their Hampstead home. Charles and Edward showed great promise as illustrators and their first book, ‘Pictures from Birdland’ was published in 1899 when they were just 15 years old; their Uncle, Dr. Shuldham, provided the verse to each illustration as ‘E.B.S.’ [in the 1901 census for Hampstead, 17 year old Maurice C. and Edward J. Detmold, both give their occupations as ‘artist’]
10. ‘Gleeson White and Kains Jackson at Auction’, Front Free Endpapers, 18^th July 2017, https://endpaper60.rssing.com
11. The Bookseller. Monday 30^th September 1867, p. 12.
12. 1881 census for England and Wales. RG11, piece/folio:1192/85, p. 26, line: 5.
13. The Artist and Journal of Home Culture, volume XV, number 172, 2^nd April 1894, The New Chivalry, pp. 102-104.
14. Frederick Rolfe, Baron Corvo: A Biography. Miriam J. Benkovitz. London, Hamilton. 1977. p. 50.
15. The Nude in Photography: with some studies taken in the open air, by Gleeson White, The Studio, volume 1, number 3, June 1893, pp. 104-108 [8 photographic works ]. The article was also reproduced for The Photogram magazine in three parts: part I, volume 1, number 3, March 1894, pp. 55-56, part II: volume 1, number 4, April 1894, pp. 85-86, part III: volume 1, number 5, May 1894, pp. 103-105.

LOVE LYRICS

 

THE LOVE LYRICS OF ALAN STANLEY
BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

 

‘Your life was in its spring time when we met,
The flowers bent down in homage as you came
Whispering of love; I never could forget,
Once having seen, that body white of thine,
Or dear gold hair crowned with the purple vine,
And crimson mouth which set my blood a-flame.’
 

[Surrender. Love Lyrics. 1894. p. 10]

 

 

In 1894 a slim volume of poetry titled ‘Love Lyrics’ was published by the London publishers, Gay and Bird; its author was a young unknown poet named Alan Stanley, a pseudonym of Stanley Addleshaw, later Reverend Canon Stanley Addleshaw. The volume is not a very remarkable collection of poetry being for the most part derivative of the so-called decadent period and there are more than a few hints of ‘unwholesome’ or some would say ‘unnatural’ acts of passion. Many passages in Love Lyrics speak of the poet’s desire for a younger ‘golden haired’ lover, a love the poet has been cultivating for two years until there are signs of reciprocal passion. I believe the book relives this flourishing passion in poetic form with the usual mystique surrounding such intimate declarations of affection, necessary for its time. There are moments of sheer indulgence and attempts to merge into the world of sinful aestheticism centring on an overpowering lust, the blossoming fruit of every youthful thought; and there are instances when the verse fails, but there is tremendous promise if the poet had continued to develop, which unfortunately he did not. I do not wish to be a harsh critic, many others before me have filled that role; I value the book simply for its historical interest and somewhat endearing ‘schoolboyish’, naive charm, perhaps the flowering of the folly of youth.

Stanley Addleshaw was the fourth and final child (all boys), born to the Manchester solicitor, John William Addleshaw (1836-1924) and his first wife, Rachel Ann Heyes Hemingway (1839-1873) who were married at the Parish Church in West Derby, Lancashire on Thursday 16^th November 1865 (1). Their first child was the barrister, poet and author, William Percy Addleshaw, born 22^nd September 1866, [Christened on 28^th November 1866 at Bowdon, Cheshire] who like Stanley, had similar influences and desires. William, or Percy as he liked to be known, was educated at Shrewsbury School, entering in the Easter term of 1880 and leaving in 1886. He went up to Christ Church, Oxford, matriculating on 12^th June 1886, aged 19 and studied Law, B.A. 1890 and he was called to the bar in 1893. Percy, under the pseudonym, Percy Hemingway, published a collection of stories: ‘Out of Egypt: Stories from the Threshold of the East’ in 1895 and the following year a volume of poetry, ‘The Happy Wanderer and Other Verse’ (1896). (2) There are several instances in Percy’s ‘Happy Wanderer’ of a close-guarded love between it seems two young men (many of the poems had already appeared in The Academy and two of the poems were published in the Pall Mall Gazette). The volume opens with Percy’s poem to his friend – In Memoriam Roden Noel (obit May 26^th, 1894), where he declares that ‘the doors are shut, the locks are sealed, / and many weep above your grave, / some for the secrets unrevealed, / and all remembering what you gave.’ (p. 1) The poem goes on, saying ‘But I, who loved your songs and you, / a gracious presence still shall meet, / on peaceful days of August blue,’… In another poem, To John Addington Symonds (p. 17) he calls him ‘friend’ and he says they had made plans to meet but unfortunately Symonds died on 19^th April 1893 before it was carried out. In ‘The Refugee’ (p. 38) Percy, under the heavy ache the poet suffers for love, says that ‘It is my fate to suffer, this I know, / for I have touched the stinging hand of Sin, / and where he beckoned jauntily would go, / learnt all his tricks and skilfully grew therein.’ And in ‘Lovers’ (p. 40) he concludes ‘”For in his presence I may doff the sham, / because he loves me even as I am.”’ adding, ‘such is the love of friends in every land, / but only they who love may understand.’ Perhaps the most revealing of the poems is ‘All Souls’ Night’ (p. 43) where he confesses ‘’tis no phantom wooes me on this night; / my lover’s limbs are strong, his heart is light,’. The poet rounds off the volume with a series of quatrains he dedicates to Frederick York Powell (1850-1904) who was a lecturer of Law at Christ Church, Oxford and later in 1894, Professor of Modern History. (3) The next child born to John and Rachel Addleshaw was Harold Pope Addleshaw, born on 24^th February 1868 (Christened on 10^th September 1868 at Bowdon, Cheshire). Harold attended Shrewsbury School in the Easter Term of 1880 and left in 1886 and like his father, became a solicitor. (4) The third child born to the Addleshaw’s was John William Heywood Addleshaw, born on 14^th May 1869 (Christened 9^th October 1869 at Bowdon, Cheshire). J. W. H. Addleshaw entered Shrewsbury School in the Easter Term of 1883 and later became a solicitor. (5) Then the last child, Stanley Addleshaw, was born on Friday 1^st December 1871 at Chorlton. Actually, there was another child, Rachel Theodora Addleshaw, born in Whalley Range, Manchester on Thursday 11^th September 1873 who sadly died [Manchester Evening News. Friday 12^th September 1873. p. 4] and it was either giving birth or complications following the birth, that Stanley’s mother, Rachel Addleshaw died; she was just 34 years old. In the 1881 census [RG11, piece/folio: 3886/95. p. 12, line: 8] nine year old Stanley is living with his widowed, 43 year old solicitor father in Stretford, Lancashire. They have three servants: Agnes Reefe, 22 from Worcester, Emily Bexter or Bixter, 27 from Suffolk and Lucy Brown, 28 from Lincoln. Stanley’s brothers, 13 year old Harold and 14 year old Percy are boarding at Shrewsbury School in Shropshire which they entered in the Easter term of 1880 [RG11, 2649/16, p. 25, line: 17]; 11 year old John William H Addleshaw is possibly boarding at Harrow Moor School, Sharrow Vale Road, in Eccleshall Bierlow, Yorkshire, West Riding [RG11, 4634/10, p. 13, line: 9] but I cannot be altogether certain of this; but we do know that he entered Shrewsbury School two years later in the Easter term of 1883.

On Friday 24^th January 1890, the three brothers: Percy, Harold and Stanley Addleshaw attended a Grand Ball hosted by the Mayor and Mayoress of Manchester at the Town Hall, Albert Square [Manchester Courier. Saturday 25^th January 1890, p. 6]. The guests, of which there were between 400-500, arrived at 8 p.m. and were presented to Alderman and Mayoress, Mrs. Mark; there was a refreshment buffet and the large hall had three huge mirrors installed and was used for dancing while the music was courtesy of Mr. F. Vetter’s quadrille band – 18 waltzes, 2 Lancers and 2 polkas. Supper – ‘boars head a la Windsor’, was at 11 p.m. and the music resumed at midnight till after 2 a.m.

Stanley Addleshaw went up to Pembroke College, Oxford on Saturday 25^th October 1890, aged 18 – Third Class History 1894, B.A. 1895, M.A. 1905. Within his first month at Oxford Stanley is cox in the winning Pembroke College boat in the rowing tournament on 21^st November [The Oxford Magazine. 26 November 1890. p. 122]. While at Oxford, Stanley, like his older brother, Percy, wrote verse which extolled the beauty of young men and boys, a fashionable pursuit at Oxford in the nineties by young bachelor scholars. Percy and Stanley both came under the influence of Oxford’s aesthetic movement and both had become acquainted with the poet, and Cambridge Apostle, the Honourable Roden Noel (1834-1894). They also both later attended the funeral of the author on art and editor of The Studio – Joseph Gleeson White (1851-1898) which took place at Hammersmith Cemetery on the afternoon of Saturday 22^nd October 1898 – White died aged 46 on 19^th October and his coffin was of ‘polished elm, with massive brass furniture’ [Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette. Thursday 27^th October 1898. p. 6]. Gleeson White had designed the cover to Percy’s volume ‘Out of Egypt’ in 1895 and the following year included four quatrains of Percy’s in ‘The Pageant’ (6); along with Edward Fairbrother Strange (1862-1929), (7) Gleeson was the editor of the Bell’s series of Cathedral books and they had edited Percy Addleshaw’s book on Exeter Cathedral published in January 1898, nine months before Gleeson died in October.

Throughout the eighteen-nineties, the Addleshaw brothers, Percy, Harold, John and Stanley, generally took their holidays in Buxton and usually Mary McDonnell, whom John married in 1893, would come too; Mary Gertrude Shore whom Harold later married also attended on some occasions. In 1891, John, Harold, Stanley (of ‘Pembroke College’) and Miss McDonnel stayed at The Hollies in Buxton from 15^th - 27^th April (8).

Stanley Addleshaw had two articles published in The Spirit Lamp in 1892 and 1893; firstly, a ‘Short Note Upon a New Volume of Poems’, a review of ‘Silhouettes’ by Arthur Symons in volume II, number IV of the Spirit Lamp (6^th December 1892, pp. 117-118) in which he says Symons ‘writes as one bored with life; he is a pessimist and a cynic. Nearly every poem in the book is unhealthy; the atmosphere is that of the hot-house. Those of the poems which deal with nature are melancholy in the extreme, and those that deal with mankind show a morbid love of depicting sin in its most hectic colours.’ The article goes on to say that ‘these are the orchids of the muse, and he who loves but wild-flowers may not approach them.’ (p. 118) The second article is titled ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ in volume III, number II of The Spirit Lamp (17^th February 1893, pp. 30-32) which is a review of the O.U.D.S. play of 1893 which Stanley believes was a poor choice and ‘cannot be called a very interesting comedy, and it is certainly much more charming to read it than to see it acted.’ (p. 31)

Love Lyrics appeared under the pseudonym Alan Stanley while Stanley Addleshaw was still an undergraduate of Oxford University in November 1894. (9) The poet served his dedication of the feast, the ‘poor, frail flowers’, ‘To G___’ like cold soup, somewhat embarrassingly on the final page of the book (p. 54), saying: ‘These poems are all of love, and you / inspired them, sweet. / Your beauty thrilled me through and through; / as melody to viola / so was I tuned to you. / What else, fond lover, can I do / but lay these offerings at your feet - / these poor, frail flowers at your feet?’ The first of the ‘frail flowers’ to adorn the volume is ‘At Evening’ (p. 2) in which the poet lays his sentimental agony before us right away – ‘Do your lips tremble now to mine? / In your eyes can I see / spring up a light of love divine, / a new born ecstasy? / Ah, dear, I shiver ‘neath your kiss, / have I not waited long for this - / that you should turn to me?’ And in similar mood he lays his tortured heart before the simple beauty of a child – ‘My heart’s desire is white and fair, / more gold than sunshine in his hair,’ and the syrup keeps on flowing from the poet’s sweet lips – ‘So frail he is, so slim and rare, / a willow wand he seems to be / that quivers with each passing air, / - My heart’s desire.’ But he is not done with us yet, for ‘His beauty fills me with despair, / it overwhelms me so; I dare / scarcely to pray on bended knee / that I may kiss him reverently, / fearing to stain beyond repair / my heart’s desire.’ [To a Child, pp. 4-5) In another poem, Love in Autumn, the poet’s ‘heart grows weary’ and he sighs to recapture ‘the golden glories that are fled’ (p. 7) before the reader succumbs to the charm of the final verse in ‘To a Dream’ (p. 12) and we find new peaks to the poet’s misery when he recalls how he ‘felt warm kisses fall / on upturned throat and barren breast, / then stirred I with a wild unrest / to know the sweetest kiss of all.’ One wonders if indeed he ever did get to know the ‘sweetest kiss of all’? The poet has placed a fair broth of sentimentality before us that we spoon down between prized lips all too eager to taste of that much talked about ‘sweetest kiss of all’, yet we must suffer in silence for now and continue in the hope of Swinburnian touches of brilliance. And it comes, or at least a passing shadow of lyrical beauty, in the form of The Dawn Nocturne (August Blue) where we find a young bather lingering around the third verse – ‘stripped for the sea your tender form / seems all of ivory white, / through which the blue veins wander warm / o’er throat and bosom slight, / and as you stand, so slim, upright / tho glad waves grow and yearn / to clasp you circling in their might, / to kiss with lips that burn.’ (p. 15) Quite beautiful and even the printing mistake following those ‘glad waves’ that should have read ‘glow’ and not ‘grow’ is a fortunate accident for indeed it defines the hunger in the yearning better, I believe. But let us not be too hasty to leave the water, for ‘a very nymph you seem to be / as you glide and dive and swim, / while the mad waves clasp you fervently / possessing every limb.’ (p. 15-16) Such heights of ecstasy seem almost unreachable for the young poet and it is almost certain that he was inspired by the famous painting by Henry Scott Tuke’s of four youths, three nude, bathing in Falmouth harbour, called ‘August Blue’ which was begun in Cornwall in 1893, a place Percy, Stanley and Roden Noel liked to visit; we can of course speculate that Stanley may have met Tuke or visited his studio. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition between 7^th May and 6^th August 1894 and it is probable that Stanley saw the exhibition and the painting inspired the poem. We can only assume in the next poem, Now Dies the Sun, (p. 17) that the remarkable youth has left the water and taken with him all the exhilarating rays of that glorious orb of fire and our poet once more is in darkness and despair, for ‘Lo! the pale moon by gentle breezes led / drifts like a wraith, ere night has yet begun, / all grows so hushed, the very world seems dead, - / now dies the sun.’ I am particularly fond of the poem, ‘Love at Hinksey’:

 

In the grey city at our feet
The lights gleam out, and one by one
Each gas-jet makes a mimic sun
Now the real sun has set, and sweet
The air grows with the heavy scent
Each flowering bush of May has lent;
The sky above a clear-cut gem,
And the moon rising from the sea
Trailing her white robes silently,
Has seven stars for a diadem.
 
When the sun set the breeze, too, fell,
Fluttering down like a wounded bird,
Now only its dying call is heard
From where wan river waters swell,
Amid tall lilies golden grown
We two in silence stand alone.
Your trembling hand in mine is prest,
I know within your sweet grey eyes
Love lights a torch which never dies
But flares for ever in unrest.
 
Ah dear, you love me now, and yet
Have I not often felt despair
Lest I should never touch your hair,
Or that our lips had never met?
I thought that you would never be
More than a simple friend to me.
Have I not known you two long years?
Have I not striven to make you love?
I think some angel from above
Has moved you by my aching tears.
 
You are a perfect poem, sweet,
Sung to an angel’s melody
Before the Throne in ecstasy,
Where choir to choir the song repeat
Through all the columned courts of Heaven.
Dear God to you such grace has given,
Has wrought you as a golden flower,
Or as a drifting nenuphar,
Or as a wondrous ivory tower.
 
For in the hush of that young corn
Where only birds and flowers may see,
You shall be all in all to me,
And we will rest there till the morn
Turns emerald-sky to ruby red
And crowns with gold your golden head.
And lends unto your eyes new fire,
And makes your splendid, curving mouth
A gorgeous poppy of the South
Culled for some God’s desire.

Hinksey is a little village just outside Oxford and the poet says he has known his friend for two years, which would be 1892 while he was an undergraduate at Pembroke College; I believe he is directly addressing the poem to the same ‘G___’ he dedicates the volume to and it is clear that on some beautiful evening, the poet and his friend stride out towards Hinksey. Stanley reminds me of A. E. Housman’s unrequited passion for Moses Jackson but unlike Jackson, Stanley’s ‘friend’ relents under the two years of tender bombardment and it seems that both succumb to an overwhelming passion and lips meet…

In the poem At Bournemouth (pp. 29-30) the poet is once again watching the bathers – he is not making a good impression upon the reader I’m afraid, with all this lurking about and staring at nude and scantily clad swimmers –  and he wishes to ‘join that happy throng, / and lose my care and laugh as they, / or kiss the lips of one I love,’ (p. 30) We can only guess whose lips, but most likely the same ‘golden haired’ G___ whom I believe also is the person the poet sits with ‘in the late afternoon’ at a café in Marseilles and their hands touch lightly and the poet ‘did not draw my hand away.’ (p. 35) The poet is torn by his feelings and back home, in the north of England with its ‘gas-jets’, ‘hawkers’ and ‘poor waifs of sin’, he reflects upon that touch and wishes to  be back in the south; yet he is tempted for a moment by the beauty of a woman –

 

‘Thinking of one, I could not stoop so low
Although her face was fair, and her great eyes
Grew pleading as she begged me with her go.
 
Aye, she was fair, and all the fire that lies
Deep in man’s heart began to burn and glow
In a white-heat of flame that never dies.
 
I stooped and kissed her lips, but lo, there rose
A visioned face that falling tears did stain,
And through my heart there shot a sudden pain,
As half aloud, I cried, “my loved one knows”.’

 

Then the poet ‘turned away! Nor kissed her lips again,’ [In a Northern Town, pp. 39-40] for he knows that he has sweeter lips to kiss. In the poem, A Night Thought (p. 44) he lies where the ‘fading roses lie, / in the drear garden of our dead delight?’ Dead perhaps because he can see no future in their passionate embraces, yet his nights are disturbed by thoughts of being with his heart’s desire, and ‘sometimes as I sleepless moan and sigh, / will you return to cheer my aching sight? / To kiss my lips, my falling tears to dry / within the night?’ The pain of loving someone and keeping the relationship secret takes its toll on the poet and in the poem, A Tragedy (pp. 48-50), the strain upon the lovers begins to unravel their bond – ‘we loved, and all around seemed gay / to our enchanted eyes, though cold / and keen the chilling winds would play / with autumn’s leaves, so dead, so old, / for us the air with song was filled, / though song and songbird now were stilled.’ The poem continues in similar measures of despair:

 

Through the long nights we two would sit
To tell our love, the well-worn tale,
Watching the fickle shadows flit,
O’er warm red walls and ceiling pale,
Your hand within my hands was prest,
Your head lay pillowed on my breast.
 
And yet you say I never knew
Nor cared to know your inmost soul,
I never looked you through and through
Nor all your secret fancies stole,
I knew your lips, your eyes, your hair,
But not the shy soul lurking there.
 
So you drift from me, O my sweet,
Still colder grows your glance each day,
Love flies us on his winged feet,
I plead, and yet he will not stay;
With tear-dimmed eyes I watch his flight
Till daylight falters into night.
 
But sometimes with reluctant voice
We whisper the old words again,
Feigning the long hours to rejoice
In pleasures that have turned to pain,
And ghosts of our dead joys arise
And mock us with their weeping eyes.

The poem ‘Two Rispetti’ (pp. 51-52) seems to suggest that the lovers are parted (the autumnal break-up of A Tragedy, and winter has passed) and the poet now in the spring, residing in the North, is dreaming of the South, the ‘city of the lilies’, (Oxford); the scent of those lilies ‘fills the darkened room, / the Angelus rings out, a crimson glow / of southern sunshine floods the northern gloom.’ The final verse conjures before the sleepless poet the voice and form of his lover: ‘I hear a well-known voice, I touch a hand / with love I roam along the pleasant land, / we pause and kiss, where flowers spring to out feet / “a kiss in dreamland yet a kiss most sweet.”’ In the final poem, Love’s Song, our poet declares his love, saying ‘I hold your hands and look into your eyes / and mark the violet glories sleeping there, / I bend and touch the splendour of your hair, / my joy grows manifold and never dies; / we are as one, O God, let never care / as some wild discord, marring all, arise / in Life’s sweet song.’ (p. 53)

Throughout the volume is a thread of a story being told, somewhat mysteriously perhaps due to the nature of that relationship, but it is being whispered in song – in At Evening the poet asks: ‘have I not waited long for this - / that you should turn to me?’ Well, yes he has, two long years apparently. And it goes on to suggest this love was hard won – ‘And you are silent, love, this hour / this last flushed hour of day - / is it because my love’s strong power / has drawn your soul away? / Do you regret your love of me? / Does your soul struggle to be free / flutter and fail always?’ (pp. 1-2) That this love was furtive and secret we are told in Love in Autumn (p. 7) where ‘the low wind moans a lullaby, / my loved one comes with gentle tread’, suggesting a secret tryst beneath the boughs of some secluded place in or around Oxford. This is further emphasised in The Old Story (pp. 8-9) in which ‘no sound unto my ears was sweet / as the soft echo of your feet.’ But a love played out in shadows and secrets is hard to sustain and we must remember that if this is a love between two undergraduates at Oxford, then we are on the threshold of the Wilde scandal and the plight of reputations and careers ruined; unfortunately, unlike the poet, society will not view it as a beautiful thing. The love proves not as strong in the end and seems to disperse upon the breeze as the poet rather naively asks: ‘was it because we loved too well, / we tired and broke the fervid spell?’ He concludes and has to accept the reality of his lover denying even their friendship – ‘I know not, and I do not fret, / because I hear that you forget / even that we have ever met.’ (p. 9) That ‘heard’ suggests a third-party has informed the poet and that the lovers are no longer on speaking terms, at least not publicly… secrecy and discretion, in these matters, were of the greatest importance – ‘you shall not hear me even breathe your name…’ (George G. S. Gillett. ‘To W. J. M.’ The Artist. April 1890. p. 113). The relationship was probably irretrievably lost at the time of the volume’s publication and the poet, although at a loss as to why the relationship has broken down, seems gracious and does not ‘fret’ for he knows that such unions are short lived; as he says in the poem At Evening which opens the volume (p. 3): ‘The nightingale in yonder grove, / lifts up his voice in praise, / he knows and chants our Lyric-love, / the love that never stays. / He sings “This moment is supreme / yet fleeting as a flitful gleam, / nor comes in after days.”’

Reviews of the volume were not altogether favourable and many dismissed it as poor poetry. One of the earliest reviews in The Scotsman (November 1894) had this to say about it: ‘The Love Lyrics of Mr. Alan Stanley are readable, and probably sincere; but they are so passionless that they can hardly be accorded any prominent place among poems of their class. It is pleasant, doubtless, to consider how the fancy unites associations derived from a contemplation of the beauties of nature with the thoughts and feelings inspired by the love of woman; and this part of the poetical business the present book performed with some success, although even in this branch of the subject it seeks distinctions where distinctions there are none, since, after all, Love at Hinksey is essentially much the same thing as Love at Bournemouth. But this is a serious subject, and demands some severity in the poet or he will be carried over the line, as the writer of the present volume is in several instances, in which trying to be passionate he succeeds only in being mawkish and sentimental in a sickly way. The book is only a small one, but it takes more talent than appears in it to sustain an interest through some thirty pieces all of which are based more or less exclusively on kisses and claspings, and golden curls, and yearnings and thrills, and all that sort of thing.’ (10) I beg to differ for there are moments of great passion as in this from The Dawn of Love (p. 42): ‘… fiercer grows / the passion that so long has in me burned, / Oh! How your falling raiment doth disclose / your neck’s fine curvings to my ardent gaze, / and lo I falter as my hot mouth strays / in trembling kisses o’er your throat upturned.’ Or this from Love’s Song (p. 53): ‘For as your lips seek mine in tender kiss / our two mouths grow together as one flower, / and naught to us the passing of the hour, / for each hour brings renewal of our bliss / in life’s sweet song.’

One of the better reviews appeared in The Academy, of December 1894, which said that the ‘fault in this tiny volume seems to be youth and inexperience, which will therefore work their own cure. Mr. Stanley manages some difficult metres very deftly, he expresses his thoughts felicitously, and shows genuine poetical feeling. He should beware of too prodigal a use of epithets, and not weary us with frequent a display of “gold” and “ivory”. But he has skill and taste.’ (11) The Bookseller of January the following year said ‘Mr. Stanley is a very “loving” person, if we are to take these rhymed confessions of his seriously. Everywhere he “loves”, he “loves”: Marseilles, Bournemouth, Florence, Hinksey, Monte Carlo, it is the same tale.’ (12) Also of January is this example from the Gentlewoman (Thursday 3^rd January 1895, p. 54) which positively gushes over the volume, saying that a ‘young poet, timorously giving the world his first volume of verses has rarely had so little reason to fear the result as Alan Stanley. Love Lyrics (Gay & Bird) are the poems of a young man – a very young man – but the only sign of his youth is their freshness, their spontaneity, their beautiful love of love. Passion in the hands of poets too often touches upon morbidity, love of form too often upon mere carnality. Passion of the highest shines like a purple flower in the greater number of the lyrics, but it is healthy, vigorous. “White lilies”, “golden hair”, and “crimson mouth”, are well-worn poetic similes, but with Mr. Stanley they lose all sense of staleness, all feeling of commonplace, becoming frankly ingenuous, the only metaphor that fits his fancy. An indescribable charm, a softness and grace, lurk in the more amorous of the poems, a true vein of poetry in the descriptive lyrics. Now dies the sun is very charming, as a singer of love songs breathing exalted passion, Mr. Stanley has touched heights of expression which are but seldom attained at the first striking of the lyre.’ And the Literary World (February 1895) gave a most unfavourable review, saying that ‘Mr. Stanley sings of love: a very laudable and likely thing to do in the years between twenty and forty, but in not a few instances he does not do his subject honour, for his artistic education has not been enough prolonged to teach him when to pause, or when to use suggestion in the place of sentiment. All of Mr. Stanley’s faults are not those of youth, however, for he sins against good taste occasionally in a manner that it will not please him to remember when he has added a score to the present tally of his years.’ The article goes on to say that the poet is ‘devoid of originality. He is a derivative verse-maker, who has the knack of assimilating the vices of his models without being helped by their virtues. He uses some Swinburnian tags; he takes the worst of Mr. Arthur Symons, and thus equipped thinks to charm us with his piping.’ Suffice to say, the reviewer does not ‘conscientiously recommend it.’ (13) But perhaps the worst of the reviews in my opinion comes from the Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art in January 1895 under the heading: ‘Wanton Verse’ in which the reviewer brings God and Mrs. Grundy into the fight against ‘decadent’ and indecent poetry and literature. It starts by assuring us that ‘the book [Love Lyrics by Alan Stanley] which we take as an example of wanton verse has no importance in itself, but it is a convenient specimen of an affectation which is coming into vogue among the younger men.’ The review condemns such poetry and the ‘Decadent school, which has never existed, and will never exist, in England, and which has never existed in any definite or definable way even in France.’ The poor misguided fool goes on to say that ‘almost all French verse, for the matter of that, would distress that lady [Mrs. Grundy] if she could understand it.’ He singles out Stanley, saying that the poet was ‘in Marseilles, with some one who looked at him “o’er the half-filled glass of your absinthe dim.” This was in the late afternoon. By evening the absinthe had proved so effective that “your flower-like head sunk down on my breast”; but whether this, too, happened on the Cannebidre, and whether the neighbours imputed or to absinthe, or, as Mr. Alan Stanley does, to love, we are not told. Further, Mr. Alan Stanley addresses these incoherent remarks to a boy bathing: - King of the Sea, triumphant boy, Nature itself made thrall to God’s White work without alloy On whom no stain doth fall. Gaze on him, slender, fair, and tall, And on the yearning sea…’ His basic argument, after invoking Verlaine and Rimbaud, is that poetry should be firstly ‘sincere’ and secondly ‘good’, neither of which does this Lord upon High at the Saturday Review believe Love Lyrics and other poetry volumes like it,  contains, for there is ‘no sincerity, no real feeling; and we certainly cannot commend them as works of art. They impress one merely as a feeble attempt to live up to a ridiculous ideal. Certain people, who happened to be somewhat morbid and unbalanced, had written successfully about the sensations which they had really had; therefore, it appears, we must all try to be as morbid as we can, and write flounderingly about the sensations which we have not had.’ (14) And finally from the reviews, this nonsense from the National Observer of Saturday 20^th April 1895 (p. 29) – ‘Mr. Alan Stanley is a “sad bad mad” fellow, and is determined that his readers shall know it. His verse is full of “crimson lips” and “flower-like heads” and “warm kisses”; while his modesty may be measured by the subjoined quotation from what he is pleased to call Wreckage: “I looked into my glass last night To trace my beauty there, How wan I seemed by candlelight I who had been so fair.” The waste-paper basket is the proper receptacle for such unwholesome rubbish as this, which makes one positively blush for its progenitor.’ 

The integrity of the poems depends on whether one believes they are real or imaginary. If indeed the experiences in Love Lyrics are poetically factual and Stanley’s wondrous desires and yearnings were fulfilled and the two lovers parted amicably or were forced to part, then it may be a factor in Stanley’s future. Allow me the indulgence of throwing in a theory as to the identity of G___. We can assume he, and I believe it is a male, was a younger undergraduate at Oxford. The relationship between them has been ongoing for two years, over which it has intensified from an infatuation and blossomed into what the poet believes is love, to which the younger has succumbed. I believe the poem, To a Poet (pp. 31-32) is addressed to the same person of his affection and that the undergraduate also writes verse, and is the greater poet – Stanley admits his verses are ‘weak’ and that the poet sings a ‘chant more true’ his ‘passionate sweet song’. Stanley asks the ‘true songster’ to ‘smile but if you will / at this my praise, / yet keep your well-loved friendship for me still, / through life’s long after days.’ If Stanley were addressing a well-known poet he would have said so and not been mysterious, or at least applied initials so that the poet could accept the praise and perhaps return his thanks. It is a poet addressing a fellow poet, a ‘friend’ who must remain unidentified and only the poet addressed would know, which tells me it is the same person who inspired the volume – the lover. I would suggest that the poet addressed has also had undergraduate verses published either in The Spirit Lamp or in Oxford Verses; the latter has an obvious poet named G___ with similar romantic ideals as Addleshaw, and ‘born of ways torturous to the soul’: Gabriel Gillett. Addleshaw’s Love Lyrics was published in November 1894 around the same time as Oxford Verses which may have appeared soon after as the editor, Rosslyn Bruce’s ‘Acknowledgement’ (p. viii) is dated November, 1894. Gillett’s ‘Love Songs’ (pp. 28-32) appeared in the same volume of Oxford Verses (1894) as Addleshaw’s ‘A Tragedy’ (pp. 56-57), ‘An Old Picture’ (p. 58) and ‘Love at Hinksey’ (p. 59) and it is easily noticeable that Gillett is the better poet. (15) To continue on a similar thread, d’Arch Smith tells us in his hugely informative Love in Earnest (1970) that another poet, ‘A. R. Bayley, a friend of Gillett’s, who already contributed [to The Spirit Lamp] a harmless article on Peer Gynt, sent in a story which was too dangerous even for [Lord Alfred] Douglas to handle.’ (p. 53) Douglas published ‘a note in the editor’s “Answers to Correspondents” section’ which ‘apologised to an A. R. Bayley, who had sent in a story and two poems: “I like your story very much,” wrote Douglas, “but I dare not publish it.”’ (16) Bayley was, like the younger Stanley Addleshaw, an undergraduate of Pembroke College (17) and may have been an intermediary between Addleshaw and Gillett. George Gabriel Scott Gillett, coincidently, shared the same birthday as Stanley Addleshaw, 1^st December, although Gillett was two years younger, born in Hawley, Hampshire in 1873. He was educated at Westminster School where he was a member of the Debating Society and the Literary Society; in the latter he showed some talent as a performer, particularly in the role of Shakespearean ladies, perhaps because of his slender beauty [see The Elizabethan, for the Literary Society performances, volume 6, numbers 7-12, 1889] and gained a History Scholarship in May 1892 to Keble College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 15^th October that year, aged 18, two years before Love Lyrics was published. Gillett’s poem, ‘To W. J. M.’ which appeared in The Artist (1^st April 1890, p. 113) shows Gillett’s unrequited infatuation for another who may feel ‘disgust at passion you deem vile’. The poem ends with almost Houseman-like reserve – ‘Mine by the punishment as mine the blame / and though in hopeless fear my heart is numb / and its renunciation, yet still dumb / you shall not hear me even breathe your name.’ In Gillett’s poem ‘In Memoriam E. B. F.’ in The Spirit Lamp (volume III, number III, March 1893, pp. 72-73) and dated 10^th January of that year, the poet recalls his ‘friend and more than friend’ who has drowned – ‘Brave boy with the bright blue eyes, / faithful and fair and strong! / dead now – when the short day died / like a broken song, / and the night comes dark and long.’ Timothy d’Arch Smith tells us in Love in Earnest (p. 53) that according to fellow uranian poet and scholar of Exeter College, Oxford, Reverend Samuel Elsworth Cottam (1863-1943) the initials were fictitious.

 

‘Yet to him that giveth Love as a thing due,
Worship as a free will, Beauty lends the clue;
Whereby out of old things, Art makes all things new.’

 [To Kalon. Gillett. The Artist, 1^st December 1891, p. 355]

 

In Addleshaw’s poem, From North to South, (pp. 21-23) which in itself has an undercurrent of sexual meaning, the poet (Stanley) writing as Sappho, is residing in the ‘bleak’ North (Manchester, the home of the Addleshaw family) while his love with the ‘golden hair’ lies in the ‘fair’ South (Oxford or Hampshire perhaps) and ‘wine-red is his red red mouth’. He makes the distinction clear for he longs for ‘my lover’s mouth, / that kissing him I might lose my care’ –‘And my body yearns to follow my soul, / and my lips his lips to seek’… the poem ends with a tone of despair – ‘Nor does he know my fretting care, / as he wanders blithe and debonaire. / But O, how I long and yearn to be there, / for the North is bleak and the South is fair.’ Gillett can be just as mysterious and passionate: ‘Or, best of all, when the world lies sleeping, / your arms twin’d round me,your lips to mine, / Love shields us both with his pinions steeping / our souls in music and fore and wine.’ [Oxford Verses. Love Songs III, p. 31]

Later, like Addleshaw, Gillett entered the Church, he was ordained deacon in 1898 and priest the following year. This of course is mere supposition and a tantalising if very delicate thread. In the same year as Love Lyrics was published, Stanley and Percy Addleshaw’s literary friend, Roden Noel, died in Germany on 26^th May (1894); publishers, Elkin Mathews announced in September 1895 that two works would  be published: ‘My Sea and Other Posthumous Poems’ by the late Hon. Roden Noel with an Introduction by Stanley Addleshaw (published in January 1896), and ‘Selected Poems from the Works of the Hon. Roden Noel’ with a biography and critical essay by Percy Addleshaw (published in October 1897) – later, in 1902, came ‘The Collected Poems of Roden Noel’ by publishers Kegan Paul (London) with an Introduction by the late John Addington Symonds.

The following year after the publication of Love Lyrics, in 1895 Addleshaw entered the Clerical School at Leeds and was ordained deacon the following year and priest at Ely in 1897. Like Houseman, who threw his soul into scholarly solitude and study, following love’s disappointment, Stanley, perhaps threw his soul before God. But it is unwise to speculate without firm evidence, but we do know that Reverend Stanley Addleshaw had his article on Walter Pater published in the Gentleman’s Magazine in March 1897; it is an interesting theory by Addleshaw which compares two works by Walter Pater (1839-1894), who had a profound influence on the young undergraduates, including Wilde, on attitudes to art and aesthetics, which was not altogether wholesome. The two works: ‘Studies in the History of the Renaissance’ (1873) and ‘Marius the Epicurean’ (1885) by Pater, show, according to Addleshaw, a marked development between the Greek and Roman hedonism of the former, and the Christian, noble sense of duty and chastity of the latter; the pagan and the divine in art. Addleshaw grasps Pater’s concepts well, saying let ‘life be filled with sensation. Remember that no moment can return; let it then, be as exquisite as possible.’ One can almost hear Wilde in his phrases which contrast the individualistic and even narcissistic approach to art and beauty; the sense that art should not be condemned or judged for the sake of its moral or immoral influences, but purely on its aesthetic level which answers – does this work of art give me pleasure? (18).

Stanley Addleshaw became curate at Downham from 1896-1905 and Diocesan Missioner in the Diocese of Ely from 1901-05. He was vicar at Gorsefield from 1905-1915 and it was while he was vicar at Gorsefield that Stanley Addleshaw married the only daughter of Reverend Canon Elgood George Punchard (1844-1917): Rose Elgood Punchard (1880-1960) at St. Mary’s Church, Ely, Cambridgeshire, on Tuesday 13^th June 1905. Their first child, George William Outram Addleshaw was born on Saturday 1^st December (like his father), 1906 at Gorefield Vicarage, Wisbech, (19) and a daughter, Mary Rachel Addleshaw was born on Sunday 19^th September 1909, (Mary never married and she died in 1983). Reverend Stanley Addleshaw spends the following years at Gorefield busy and well-liked within the parish. In 1911, 39 year old Stanley, clergyman ‘established church’ and his wife Rose, 31, are living in Gorefield, Leverington, Cambridgeshire with their two children George, aged 4, and May [Mary] aged 1. They have two domestic servants living with them: Elizabeth Russell, 45 (born 1866 in Hillson, Cambridgeshire) who is the cook, and Dora Pentelow, 17 (born 1894 in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire) who is the housemaid (20).

On Monday 7^th February 1916, Reverend Stanley Addleshaw attended the inquest on his older brother, Percy Addleshaw at Hove Town Hall; his barrister brother, Harold Addleshaw was also there. Mr. Alfred Sams, who was the proprietor of the Clayton Park Hotel, Hassocks said he had nursed Percy for eight years, five years at the Hill Side Hotel and three years at the Clayton Park Hotel; on Wednesday 29^th December 1915, Alfred went to Percy’s room at 9 p.m. and at 10 p.m. and found him both times writing a letter, on checking on him later, he found Percy on the floor. Percy had slipped climbing the stair and broken his right arm and was attended to by Dr. William Halley Eggar, of Hassock’s Lodge. (21) The burial took place that day on Monday 7^th February at Brighton and Preston Cemetery. The Mid Sussex Times of Tuesday 8^th February 1916 (J. P.’s Fatal Fall. p. 8) said that following the accident Percy was ‘conveyed to a seaside nursing home, but succumbed to dropsy, accentuated by the mishap’ and died on Friday 4^th February. In the following article, on the same page, ‘Percy Addleshaw: A Friend’s Tribute’ said that ‘very few of those to whom the figure of the badly crippled gentleman was so familiar realised how many well-known people were interested in Hassocks simply because Mr. Addleshaw lived there. Fewer still realised how he towered over us intellectually. He was a great bookman, perhaps almost too much of a bookman. One could wish he had devoted less time to other men’s books and more to his own.’ The article goes on to say that he had a ‘curiously speculative mind combined with an enthusiastic love of the beautiful in nature and art. As a poet he was very good indeed, and occasionally great…’ ‘He was a devoted pupil and disciple of the late P. York Powell, the great Regius Professor of History at Oxford and the influence of The Yorker, as he used to call him, was a very marked feature in Mr. Addleshaw’s life. Among his other friends were Roden Noel, Lionel Johnson, J. Addington Symonds and other members of that brilliant literary circle which flourished in the nineties – the days of Aubrey Beardsley and the Yellow Book.’ A friend of Percy’s, the Anglican clergyman, poet and antiquary, Reverend Walter Harold Yeandle (1895-1952) wrote a fitting tributary poem, which was published in the Mid Sussex Times (Tuesday 15^th February 1916, p. 5) – ‘In Memoriam: Percy Addleshaw’:

 

‘And now you’ve gained that “cool and quiet inn”
For which you hoped; the “Sign o’ the Grave” swings high
Above the door; its walls will hush the cry
Of war, the roar of storm, for you. ‘Tis sin
To wish to bear you company from within,
So I instead must be content to sigh
And trust you’ll find your rest complete, close by
Those souls in gentle temperament your kin.
 
You taught me many things – friend, critic, guide.
Though you pass from me, still must there abide ere long
Some other voice may carry on the song,
Though you’re not here to censure or to praise,
Kindled by you, fresh beacons yet may blaze!

Harold Yeandle. B.E.F., France. Feb. 10^th 1916.’

 

Stanley became vicar of St. Mary’s, Ely and chaplain of Ely Cathedral from 1915-29 and Honorary Canon of Ely from 1925; Deacon of Fincham from 1932-35; Rector of All Souls with St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, Huntingdon in the Diocese of Ely from 1935; Rector of All Saints, Huntingdon from 1935-45 (and Rural Dean of Huntingdon from 1937-44). Reverend Canon Stanley Addleshaw, who was also treasurer of York Minster, died following a long illness at the age of 79 on Thursday 25^th January 1951 at his home, Green Leas, The Walk, Huntingdon. The funeral took place at All Saint’s Church, Huntingdon at 2.30 p.m. on Monday 29^th January (22).

 

‘Your wreath falls down, well, let the blossoms fade,
They matter not, the rose of love is sweet;
The morning birds sing out in the far glade
Raising a nuptial-song, for we are one,
And for our marriage-torch there comes the sun
Flaming through heaven, with swift ardent feet.’

 [The Dawn of Love. p. 42]

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. John William Addleshaw was the sixth child born to John Addleshaw, born 1799, and Maria Mundy (1800-1866) who were married on 9^th July 1821. Other children of John and Maria were: Thomas Mundy Addleshaw (1823), Elizabeth Mary Addleshaw (1824), Alfred Addleshaw (1826-1886), Ann Addleshaw (1831), Maria Addleshaw (1833), and after John William’s birth in 1836, came Mary Jane Addleshaw (1839). John William Addleshaw married Rachel Ann Heyes Hemingway, the daughter of Reuben and Martha Hemingway, on 16^th November 1865. John became a successful solicitor in the firm of Addleshaw and Warburton & Co. who had their offices at 67, King Street, Manchester, circa 1876, which later moved, around 1879, to 15, Norfolk Street, Manchester. They also had a London agent, Addleshaw, Warburton and Trenan, from around 1890, operating from 7, Newcourt, Carey Street, London, W.C. John William Addleshaw married again after Rachel’s death in 1873, to Laura Parkinson (1869-1941) in Manchester in April 1908. John William Addleshaw died on 10^th January 1924 and he was buried two days later on 12^th January at Bowdon, in the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Manchester.
2. William Percy Addleshaw died on 4^th February 1916 and is buried in Brighton, East Sussex.
3. In the Preface to Percy’s book, Sir Philip Sidney (London, Methuen & Co.) of October 1909, the author says ‘I wish to mention my beloved master, York Powell. He urged me often to write. In writing, though I realised he would at times have controverted the views I have put forward, I have regarded my task as a sacred duty owed to him. I like to think he is still, as he always was, my kindest critic.’ (pp. vii-viii).
4. Harold Pope Addleshaw married Mary Gertrude Shore (born 1872) in West Derby, Lancashire on 2^nd July 1895. They had three children: Harold Leslie Addleshaw born 1^st August 1896 (and dying in Aberconwy in 1982), and twins: John Lawrence Addleshaw, born 30^th October 1902 (and dying in Macclesfield in 1989) and Derrek (or Derek) Hemingway Addleshaw born 30^th October 1902 (and dying in Trafford in 1986). Harold Pope Addleshaw died on 8^th March 1943 and was buried in Bowdon, Manchester.
5. The Pageant, by Charles Shannon (1863-1937) and Gleeson White. London, Henry & Co. 1896 [150 copies. a second edition was published in 1897]. The four quatrains by Percy Hemingway (none of which are included in The Happy Wanderer) begin: ‘Ye cannot cheat the Master of your fate!’, ‘Why weep for days irrevocably dead,’, ‘To-night old poets through the city go,’ and ‘The future lies before us rich with gold’ (p. 130).
6. John William Heywood Addleshaw married Martha Lillian McDonnell (born 1868) in Fairfield, Derbyshire on 18^th May 1893. They had two children: John Hemingway Addleshaw born 27^th August 1895 (and dying in Wells in 1971) and Rachel Beatrice Addleshaw, born 23^rd April1905 (and dying, unmarried in Honiton in 1990). John William Heywood Addleshaw died on 18^th May 1931 and was buried on 21^st May at Torquay Cemetery, Hele, Devon.
7. Lt.-Col. Edward Fairbrother Strange, CBE., born in Worcester on 8^th October 1862, he attended Worcester Cathedral School and Kidderminster Grammar School before entering the Civil Service in 1881. He was a museum curator; assistant keeper of woodwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington (1889) and at the National Art Library (1891). He was an authority on etchings, engraving and Japanese colour prints and published several books: Palissy in Prison and Other Verses (privately printed, 1892), Alphabets: A Handbook of Lettering (1895), Japanese Illustrations (1897), Japanese Colour Prints (1903) and Chinese Lacquer (1926). He died on 14^th April 1929.
8. The Buxton Herald and Gazette of Fashion. Wednesday 15^th April 1891, p. 2 [Visitors]. In other years at Buxton we can see: 1892: John, Harold and Stanley with Miss McDonnell and Miss Mary Shore (who later married Harold) from 6^th -20^th April; 1893: Harold and Miss Shore, with John and Stanley from 19^th April – 10^th May; 1894: John and wife, Mary, Stanley, and Harold and Miss Mary Shore, from 28^th March – 7^th April; 1896: John and Wife Mary from 23^rd May – 6^th June; 1897: John and wife Mary, Harold and wife Mary, 19^th – 26^th June; 1898: John and wife Mary, 11^th May – 13^th July; 1899: John and wife Mary, 27^th September – 27^th December. Other holidays include: Stanley and Harold at the Imperial Hotel, Denbigshire, North Wales from 21^st August 1890, and Percy, Stanley and Miss Mary McDonnell staying at Kinmel Terrace, Pensarn from 30^th July – 17^th September 1892.
9. Three of the poems appeared in ‘Oxford Verses’ (1894) edited by Rosslyn Bruce under his real name: A Tragedy (pp. 56-57), An Old Picture (p. 58) and Love at Hinksey (pp. 59-61) so making the connection between Alan Stanley and Stanley Addleshaw was not a difficult process to a fellow admirer of such verse; in the same volume of Oxford Verses was another like-minded poet, Gabriel Gillett and his poems, Love Songs (pp. 28-32). Oxford Verses was reviewed in the Pall Mall Gazette, Wednesday 27^th February 1895, p. 4, which mentioned Stanley Addleshaw, along with other poets.
10. The Scotsman. Wednesday 28^th November 1894, p. 10.
11. The Academy, number 1181, 22^nd December 1894, p. 530.
12. The Bookseller. 9^th January 1895, p. 20.
13. The Literary World. 22^nd February 1895, p. 168.
14. The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art [Supplement]. London. Saturday 19^th January 1895, pp. 71-72.
15. Gillett had already had several ‘uranian’ poems published previously: ‘Triolet’ in The Artist, December 1889, volume x, p. 367; ‘To W. J. M.’ in The Artist, 1^st April 1890, p. 113, and ‘To Kalon’ in The Artist, 1^st December 1891 [Gillett’s 18^th birthday and Stanley Addleshaw’s 20^th birthday], p. 355.
16. Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas. New York. Hyperion. 2000. p. 43.
17. Arthur Rutter Bayley, born 27^th April 1868, Brixton, Surrey. The son of Rev. W. R. Bayley, Arthur was educated at Harrow School (leaving in December 1885) and went up to Pembroke College, Oxford on 28^th October 1886, aged 18. B.A. 1890. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. Bayley had several works published: Peer Gynt, The Spirit Lamp, vol II, number IV, 6^th December 1892, pp. 98-100; in the same volume appeared Addleshaw’s A Short Note Upon a New Volume, pp. 117-118. In the Louvre: A Sonnet, The Spirit Lamp, vol III, number III, 10^th March 1893, p. 60; in the same volume is Gillett’s In Memoriam E B F (dated 10^th January 1893), pp. 72-73, and Charles Kains Jackson’s Impressions, p. 55. The Defence of Poesy, (pp. 71-78) and the poem, In Lyonesse (p. 86), The Spirit Lamp, vol IV, number II, 6^th June 1893. Bayley’s poem, Sunday Afternoon at Iffley, appeared in William Angus Kight’s The Glamour of Oxford, (Oxford. B. H. Blackwell. 1911. p. 240). He also compiled ‘A Catalogue of Portraits in the Possession og Pembroke College’ (May 1895) and Bayley’s book, The Great Civil War in Dorset, 1642-1660, appeared in 1910. A. R. Bayley seems to have the same ‘uranian’ desires as Stanley Addleshaw and Gabriel Gillett – upon Bayley’s death in 1948, the 80 year old bachelor left £20,000, his 20-roomed mansion, two cars and other personal effects to his secretary-chauffeur, (companion) Reginald Arthur George Surridge (born 1914), who Bayley, of Graham Road, Malvern, Wiltshire, had met when Surridge (now 34) was a nine year old choir boy: ‘I was only nine, Mr. Surridge said yesterday, when I first knew Mr. Bayley . He was a governor at the grammar school I attended, and when I was in Malvern Priory choir he often asked me to tea. On leaving school I started work for him.’ [the gross estate was worth £70,000] (The People. ‘Choir Boy Grew Rich’. Sunday 3^rd October 1948.p. 1).
18. Walter Pater. Reverend Stanley Addleshaw. The Gentleman’s Magazine, volume 58, March 1897, pp. 127-251.
19. George William Outram Addleshaw, M.A., B.D., F.S.A. (1906-1982), was educated at Bromsgrove School before going up to Trinity College, Oxford to study Modern History, B.A. 1929, M.A. 1932, B.D. 1935. he went on to study Theology at Cuddesdon College in 1929 before being ordained deacon in 1930 and priest in 1931 at Winchester. He was curate at Portswood, Southampton from 1930-37, before moving to Basingstoke. He was Vice Principle of St. Chad’s College, Durham from 1939-46, Examiner Chaplain to Archbishop York in 1942 and the Bishop of Chester in 1951; he was also Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth II from 1957-64. Dean of Chester Cathedral from 1963-77 and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society from 1949. He published several books: The High Church Tradition: A Study in the Liturgical Thought of the Seventeenth Century (1941), The Architectural Setting of Anglican Worship [with R. A. Etchells] (1948), The Beginnings of the Parochial System (1953), Rectors, Vicars and Patrons in Twelfth and Early Thirteenth Century Canon Law (1956) and Chester Cathedral (1967). He died on 14^th June 1982, aged 75.
20. 1911 Census for England and Wales. RG14, schedule type: 33, piece/folio: 65, p. 1, household identifier: 92850065.
21. Brighton Gazette. Wednesday 9^th February 1916. p. 1.
22. Death notice: Peterborough Evening Telegraph. Friday 26^th January 1951. p. 6. According to Canon Addleshaw’s will, he left £22209, 1s. 9d. gross £22081 12s. 6d. net value paid £3321. ‘He left £20 to his chauffeur Albert Howes, £50 cook Ellen E. Prigg, to parlourmaid Grace Cox if respectively still in service and not under notice, £25 to Ely Diocesan Association for Moral Welfare, effects to his wife and the residue upon trust for life remainder to his children. Probate has been granted to his son Canon George W. O. Addleshaw of 10, Precentor’s Court, York, and to his nephew, Harold L. Addleshaw, solicitor of 15, Norfolk Street, Manchester.’ [Saffron Waldon Weekly News. Friday 1^st June 1951, p. 9]