NORMAN ROWLAND GALE

 

A GOOSE AMONG SWANS

NORMAN ROWLAND GALE (1862-1942)

BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN
                                                                                      
 
‘Diana with her limbs of dream,
Her wavering heart of lily-stuff,
For long had mocked me with the gleam
Too sweet, and yet not sweet enough.’ (1)

 

 

Norman Rowland Gale was a minor British poet and storyteller who is seemingly neglected in recent times or ‘out of fashion’; he is often associated with the fringes of the eighteen-nineties and the young aesthetes such as Beardsley, Richard Le Gallienne; John Lane and the Bodley Head publishing house (two of his poems appeared in volume 2 and volume 5 of The Yellow Book) where he is often mentioned in passing; a man ‘possessed of a pretty gift for turning melodious flowing verse of no originality’ and a familiar figure to many who was ‘rather a big, florid man, who wrote discreetly fleshly poems about pretty milkmaids, and apple-blossom, and rustic junketings.’ (2). In the literary circles of what is often termed the fin de siecle, Gale became quite well known as a poet writing in the modern manner of Clare or Herrick and his books were widely sought after and although he avoided town society as much as possible for he was a ‘passionate lover of the country’, he became talked about and sought after for he was, according to Arthur Warren of the Boston Herald, a  ‘big, handsome, brown-eyed, brown-haired, wholesome fellow, who gives himself no airs of “decadence” as the fashion is with so many of the young literary men in town. Gale hates the town.’  (3)

 

‘I tell you there is Arcady
In leafy Warwickshire.’ (4)

 

 He was born on 4^th March 1862 at Kew in Surrey; his father was William Frederick Gale, (son of Charles and Elizabeth Gale) born in Richmond in 1821 and christened there on 11^th July of that year; William was a ‘master plumber’. Norman’s mother was Elizabeth Pullen born in Chilham, Kent in 1834; William and Elizabeth were married in Richmond in 1857. Their first child was Olive Gale, born in Richmond in 1858, (5) then came Clement Rowland Gale (1860-1934) born in Richmond and baptised at St. Anne’s Parish Church, Kew on 15^th July 1860; next came Norman Rowland Gale (1862-1942) and finally Harold Rowland Gale (1864-1941), born Richmond. Michael Seeney of the Eighteen Nineties Society who has diligently researched Gale, to whom we are all indebted, says that the Gale family ‘lived in Cumberland Place, a row of small houses almost opposite Cumberland Gate of Kew Gardens.’ (6)

Young Norman was a passionate lover of the countryside and a keen player of field sports and as a poet his rustic verse delights in the joys of cricket, the charm and simplicity of children and the beauty of young and lusty milkmaids. In fact, he became an ‘ardent sportsman. With rod or gun, foot-ball or cricket-bat, on the back of a horse, or trudging along a Warwickshire road, he is in his best spirits.’ (7) He collected first editions and was said to have a fine library of rare and exquisite books but had to part with many, something he regretted dearly. When he was 18 Norman Rowland Gale entered Exeter College, Oxford on 22^nd October 1880 and was awarded his B.A. on 14^th January 1884. In the 1881 census both Norman, aged 19 and his brother Clement, aged 21 state their occupation as: ‘Undergraduate Oxford University’, both are single and residing in Caterham, Surrey. Norman’s father, William Frederick, is 58 and his occupation is ‘Gate Porter of Asylum’ and Norman’s mother, Elizabeth, is 46 and the ‘Wife of Gate Porter of Asylum’. (8) The Asylum is the Metropolitan District Asylum for Imbeciles, also known as the Caterham Lunatic Asylum.

Many literary works describe Gale as being a schoolmaster at Rugby and Gale sees nothing wrong in letting this stand uncorrected – ‘Gale lives at Rugby during term-time, although he no longer teaches at the famous school.’ (9) The statement is not quite true, he was a schoolmaster at Rugby, something he became soon after leaving Oxford it seems, but not at the famous public school of Dr. Thomas Arnold who was Headmaster of Rugby School from 1876-1886, in fact, ‘the only school at which we know he taught was Oakfield Preparatory School just around the corner. There are suggestions in correspondence, however, that he may also have coached boys from Rugby for university entrance.’ (10) Oakfield Preparatory School situated at 20 Bilton Road, Rugby, was opened in January 1888 by the Headmaster, Thomas Arnold Wise M.A. (1861-1940) who retired in 1929. There is also some evidence that Gale may have taught as a schoolmaster at St. Sidwell, Exeter in Devon where he turns up in the 1891 census (see note 13) and also at Boston Grammar School in Boston, Lincolnshire, where his first two volumes of poetry, ‘Unleavened Bread’ and ‘Primulas and Pansies’ were published by Dingwall and Wilson at 42 Market Place. In fact, I have found an article in the Boston Guardian of 1884 which confirms Gale was a master at the school – the article is in the ‘wanted’ column and reads: ‘Tuition – Wanted by master at the Grammar school teaching work from the 8^th of August to the end of holiday. – Apply to Norman Gale, Grammar School, Boston.’ (11)

69 year old William Frederick Gale and 57 year old Elizabeth can be found on the 1891 census living in Ringstead Road, Lewisham; William is a ‘retired plumber’ and they have taken in two boarders: Charles F Buckingham, aged 25 and born in London, who is single, and Grace Forbes Cochrane, also 25 and single, born in Gloucestershire. (12) Not long after the census of 1891 William Frederick Gale dies in Lewisham, aged 69 (13). His wife, Elizabeth Gale died in Lambeth aged 63 on 11^th February 1899 (14). In 1900-1901 Norman is living at Avenue Lodge, Ledrington Road in Dulwich.

As a poet much of Gale’s work can be seen as the usual sentimental Victorian slush about childhood where many artists worshipped the cult of the child, the purity and beauty, which to contemporary minds may seem inappropriate but to the Victorian was perfectly innocent. Michael Seeney says that Gale’s love of and sympathy for childhood was ‘qualities which, no doubt, made him an excellent teacher.’ He goes on to say that ‘I recognise the dangers in today’s climate of suggesting that an adult male’s (especially a school teachers’) affection for young people is entirely innocent, and perhaps it never can be. I have found nothing to suggest that Gale took any more than a naïve delight in the presence of young people.’ (15) I most definitely agree with Seeney’s opinion and see nothing harmful in Gale’s charming, if sometimes mawkish verse, yet there are those during his time who thought his poetry, some of which can verge on the sensual or erotic, to be quite vulgar, as in this review from The Artist: ‘Norman Gale seems at present to be dead, dead as the second volume of Gillman’s Coleridge. He has been and so is no more. So long as he was unknown he fashioned for himself pretty verses, which never became poetry but were worth reading all the same. With the printing of his first his first book, he became famous, and the success and Mr. Le Galliene between them killed him. The second volume of The Country Muse was a long fall from the first. With “Orchard Songs” Mr. Gale committed suicide.’ The review goes on to say that ‘not only has Mr. Gale’s verse become excessively bad, but he now thinks coarsely’. (16) The reviewer is referring to poems such as The Shaded Pool which begins ‘The virgins slipping from their robes, / the cheated stockings lean and long, / the swift descending petticoat, / the breasts that heave because they ran, / the rounded arms, the brilliant limbs, / the pretty necklaces of tan.’ (17) One cannot deny the erotic imagery of such a poem with its ‘undraped girls so wonder-sweet’ but I would not call it ‘course’. And again we find from the same volume in the poem A Woman, the lines ‘she is velvet and scandal and lace / and beautiful limbs’ (18) which to my ears ring as perfectly beautiful with deep ‘fleshly’ sensuality. But perhaps the most well known poem of Gale’s to suggest the sexual thrill of observing the sensual form of woman is his poem, Cicely Bathing:

 
‘The brook told the dove
And the dove told me
That Cicely’s bathing at the pool
With other virgins three.
 
The brook told the dove
And the dove told me
That Cicely floating on the wave
Woke music in the tree.
 
The brook told the dove
And the dove told me
That Cicely’s drying in the sun,
A snowy sight to see.’ (19)

 

A rather pompous article on Gale appeared in the illustrated monthly, Pearson’s magazine in 1896 which has a few interesting details on the poet whose ‘love of nature is the mainspring of his songs, and to him sunshine serves as an unfailing stimulant’; the article goes on to say that ‘according to Mr. Grant Allen, “this is an urban age,” and it is remarkable, therefore, that a poet who sings of birds and woodlands, of the loves of country folk, and of such pleasures as are called Arcadian, should have established himself in the poetic ranks, and once more brought rustic themes to the front amid applause. Mr. Gale would not desert Warwickshire meadows for the isles of Greece, and whatever may be the glories of the Ganges, it may safely be averred that they could never tempt him to leave Shakespeare’s Avon for long.

All that need be said of the poet’s personal history can be written down in a few words. He was born in 1862. As soon as he left Oxford he occupied himself in schoolmastering, and continued so to do until three years ago, when he published “A Country Muse”, a book which was, to its author’s great surprise, the recipient of unanimous praise.

His one venture in prose, “A June Romance”, has brought him many friends, and it has again gone out of print. As to his love of sport, is it not proved by his “Cricket Songs”? The fact is, Mr. Gale is an adept in nearly all games, whether those that are played in the house or those of the open air. The young men who desert the national pastime for golf and tennis he has some vigorous remarks to make. All sports that involve the suffering of dumb animals Mr. Gale shuns as he would shun the plague, and he is never tired of trying to implant the creed of mercy in both old and young listeners. Children he adores, and he does not yield to Mrs. Marriott Watson in his love for cats. The former have inspired him to write a book of songs, which have yet to be appear, and the latter have not been altogether neglected by his pen. Mr. Andrew Lang, that inventor of felicitous phrases, in calling Mr. Gale “a kind of Theocritus in flannels”, described him to a nicety.’ (20)

Gale’s love of cats led him to collaborate with various authors on several amusing publications for the publishers, Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd of London, notably with the well known Edwardian cat illustrator, Louis Wain (1860-1939). Wain was a rather tragic figure who fell into a great depression following the death of his wife, Emily and he was admitted into the Springhil Mental Hospital in 1924 as a pauper and continued to draw cats throughout the remainder of his life in various institutions. Gale also became friends with the ‘midland poet’, Alfred Hayes (1857-1936) who was educated at New College, Oxford and became well known for his volume ‘The Vale of Arden and Other Poems’ (1895); they shared many similar sentiments on nature and the pastoral and they collaborated together, along with Gale’s other friend, Richard Le Gallienne, on a volume of verse – ‘A Fellowship in Song’ published in 1893. In it, Hayes honours his friend with the poem: ‘To Norman Gale’ which begins:

 

‘Friend, whom I met in fruitful days
Rambling amid sequestered ways
Of rustic song,
These flowers, in midland meadows grown
While yet I walked and mused alone,
Pleased to be laid beside thine own,
To thee belong.’

 

Hayes goes on to say that ‘we both have worshipped the pure rest / of Arden’s gently sloping breast’ before ending with a melancholy flourish on the timeless nature of their verse – ‘age will abate the lyric flame, / the grave’s dull tooth consume our name; / but hap what may, / friend, we have captured fugitive / fine joys, whose music will outlive / all the discordant world can give / or take away.’ (21) The poem also appears in Hayes’ volume ‘The Vale of Arden’. Gale also published a volume of verse titled ‘On Two Strings’ in 1894 with fellow poet, Robinson Kay Leather (1865-1895) of University College, Liverpool, a rather pathetic creature who in my opinion was a far greater chess player than he was a poet, (see his ‘Verses’ published by Fisher Unwin. London. 1891) nevertheless, he seems to have got on well with Richard Le Gallienne with whom he published a volume of stories titled ‘The Student and the Body Snatcher’ (London. Elkin Mathews. 1890).

 In 1886, Norman married Charlotte Mary Barnes in West Ham but for some reason in the census of 1891, 29 year old Norman, a ‘schoolmaster’ who is visiting the home of 41 year old Daniel Joseph Wood (1849-1919), an ‘organist and teacher of music’ (22) living in Denmark Road, Exeter, in Devon with his wife Elizabeth and children Kathleen and Dorothy, ages 13 and 12 respectively, states that he is ‘single’. We know that Charlotte Mary Gale died in Kent on 9^th May 1922 and the probate was held on 26^th May and that Norman is the benefactor, so I can find no reason for this. Dr. Daniel J. Wood was organist at Boston Parish Church in Lincolnshire from 1869-1875 and Exeter Cathedral from 1876-1919 and it is highly probable that Norman’s brother, Clement, the organist and composer also knew Dr. Wood as Clement was the pupil of the organist and music teacher, Alfred Angel (1816-1876) who was organist at Exeter Cathedral prior to Wood from 1842-1876.

On Wednesday 14^th December 1898 Gale gave a lecture at Gloucester Guildhall titled ‘The Horizon of Literature’. In 1901 Gale published a selection of poems by the Northamptonshire poet, John Clare (with a bibliography by C Ernest Smith) and one can tell he has a real feel for the ‘labourer poet’ born into a ‘heritage of handicaps’ whom ‘because of his strange manner, his fits of abstraction as well as of uttered enthusiasm, his appetite for solitude, the neighbours passed from mere mockery to whispers of a mind diseased, and even of a nature beset by the black ministers of magic.’ (23) Gale writes a fine introduction to the book and shows his deep sympathy and compassion for Clare and the harrowing poverty he was subjected to before succumbing to mental illness.

In 1913 Gale published a delightful little book called ‘Solitude’ which is a short essay upon the charms of solitude in nature and it is the essence of Gale’s own feelings towards the beauty of escaping to the countryside and immersing oneself in its sensuous surroundings – ‘I have gone to Solitude for a better reading of earth; I have gone in sorrow, I have gone in turmoil; I have known the pang of convulsive truancy.’ (24) Gale achieves an almost spiritual enlightenment with the solemnity of the countryside and looks upon trees, as in fact do I, as having a distinct consciousness, a sentient nature; trees with which he has formed unbreakable friendships.

In 1930 Norman Gale left Old Bilton, Rugby, and moved to Bexhill-on-Sea where he married again on 6^th December 1930 at the ‘Church of Saint Barnabas by Rev. B. H. Davies’ to Miss ‘Edith Margaret Davy of Bexhill-on-Sea’. (25) Norman Rowland Gale died aged 80 on 7^th October 1942 at ‘Connemara’, Carlton Road, Headley Down, Hampshire. The cremation was at Woking on Saturday 10^th October. Under the heading ‘A Literary Loss’, the Hampshire Telegraph and Post said he was ‘well-known as a poet, story-teller, and reviewer, and was the author of many charming books, which included “Cricket Songs”, “Orchard Songs”, and “Songs For Little People”. He formerly resided at Bexhill-on-Sea, but had been living on Headley Down for the past two years. He is survived by his second wife, whom he married 12 years ago.’ (26) [Probate: 18^th November 1942, beneficiary: Edith Margaret Gale]. Norman’s elder brother, 20 year old Clement Rowland Gale also entered Exeter College on the same day as Norman and studied music. B.A. 10^th July 1886. B.Mus. 24^th October 1889. As a boy, Clement was a chorister at Kew Parish Church and later at St. Luke’s Church, Chaterham. After leaving Oxford Clement became organist at Reading School (1885-1890) before becoming a music teacher at John Watson Institute in Edinburgh. It was in Edinburgh, presumably, where he met his wife, Blanche Antoinette Barbara Kunz (born 1^st June 1865 in Edinburgh, Scotland); she was the daughter of Jules Antoine Louis Kunz and Wilhelmina De Dreux. Blanche and Clement were married on 28^th July 1892. Clement went to the United States, arriving in New York on 14^th September 1891 and became organist and Precentor of the Episcopal Parish Church, Calvary, St. George, New York and a founding member of the American Guild of Organists. In the U.S. census for 1930 Clement and his wife Blanche, are living in Manhattan, New York. He died on 10^th May 1934 at the Fifth Avenue Hospital. His younger brother, Harold Rowland Gale immigrated to Australia, living in Brisbane. He married Annie Marie Hicks on 17^th March 1886 and in 1929, aged 64 and a ‘company director’ went to Victoria, Vancouver Island, British Columbia travelling by ship named the ‘Oarangi’. Their daughter, Muriel Maria Dolores Gale, born in Brisbane in 1890, married William George Robertson in Toronto, York, Canada on 1^st September 1915. Harold Rowland Gale died on 20^th May 1941.

 If Norman Gale shall be remembered at all it is for his love of childhood and his sporting enthusiasms but most of all for his adoration of nature where his ‘praise of Warwickshire is that of a true devotee, and in its lanes he dreams of the presence of Shakespeare, and in listening to the songs of its birds he feels that

 

“the bough
Is bending with immortals now,
And gods go large in Warwickshire!”’ (27)

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. Dream and Ideal. Song in September. Norman Gale. London. Constable.1912. p. 12.
2. John Lane and the Nineties. James Lewis May. London. John Land and the Bodley Head. 1936. p. 103.
3. Current Literature: a magazine of record and review. New York. Volume XVII. Jan-June 1895. General Gossip of Authors and Writers. P. 489.
4. Leafy Warwickshire. A Country Muse. Norman Gale. New Series. London. David Nutt. 1893. p. 101.
5. Olive Gale, sometimes known as ‘Alice’ [1871 census] or ‘Clara’, married 24 year old grocer, William Portsmouth Gartell, born in Dorset in 1855 and the son of Joseph Gartell, china dealer, at St Mary’s Church, in Caterham, Surrey on 16^th March 1880; Olive is 21 and her father, William Frederick gives his occupation as ‘plumber’ on the marriage certificate. In the 1881 census [RG11 folio: 32/55 page: 59] William, 26, a ‘Grocer and Proprietor of Coffee House’ and ‘Alice’ [Olive], 22, are living in Kensington.
6. A Six-Foot Three Nightingale: Norman Gale, 1862-1942: Biographical Essay and Check-List. Michael Seeney. Privately Printed. Oxford, for the Eighteen Nineties Society. Rivendale Press. 1998. (41 pages) p. 2.
7. Current Literature: a magazine of record and review. New York. Volume XVII. Jan-June 1895. General Gossip of Authors and Writers. P. 489.
8. 1881 Census for England and Wales. RG11 folio: 806/63 page:2.
9. Current Literature: a magazine of record and review. New York. Volume XVII. Jan-June 1895. General Gossip of Authors and Writers. P. 489.
10. A Six-Foot Three Nightingale: Norman Gale, 1862-1942: Biographical Essay and Check-List. Michael Seeney. Privately Printed. Oxford, for the Eighteen Nineties Society. Rivendale Press. 1998. (41 pages) p. 3.
11. Boston Guardian. Saturday 26^th July 1884. p. 4.
12. 1891 Census for England and Wales. RG12 folio: 521/108 page: 14.
13. Register of Deaths in England. Frederick William Gale. Lewisham. June 1891. 1d 815.
14. Register of Death in England. Elizabeth Gale. Lambeth. March 1899. 1d 217. Probate: 11^th March 1899, beneficiary: Norman Rowland Gale.
15. A Six-Foot Three Nightingale: Norman Gale, 1862-1942: Biographical Essay and Check-List. Michael Seeney. Privately Printed. Oxford, for the Eighteen Nineties Society. Rivendale Press. 1998. (41 pages) p. 3.
16. The Artist. 1^st January 1894. p. 7.
17. The Shaded Pool. A Country Muse. Norman Gale. New Series. London. David Nutt. 1893. p. 21-22.
18. A Woman. ibid. p. 89.
19. Cicely Bathing. Orchard Songs. Norman Gale. London. Elkin Mathews and John Lane. 1893. p. 88.
20. Pearson’s magazine. C. Arthur Pearson. Volume 1. Jan-June. 1896. ‘In the Public Eye’. p. 161-162.
21. A Fellowship in Song. Alfred Hayes [From Midland Meadows], Richard Le Gallienne [Nightingales] and Norman Gale [A Verdant County]. Rugby. George E Over. 1893. To Norman Gale. Alfred Hayes. p. 1-3.
22. Daniel Joseph Wood, born 1849. Educated at New College, Oxford. FRCO 1873, BMus 1874, DMus 1896. Organist at Boston Parish Church (St Botolphs) from 1869-1875. Organist at Exeter Cathedral from 1876-1919. He died on 27^th August 1919.
23. John Clare Poems, Selected and Introduced by Norman Gale with a Bibliography by C. Ernest Smith. Rugby, George E Over. 1901. p. xiii.
24. Solitude. Norman Gale. London. B T Batsford. 1913. p. 35-36.
25. Bexhill-on-Sea Observer. Saturday 13^th December 1930. p. 8.
26. Hampshire Telegraph and Post. Friday 23^rd October 1942. p. 8.
27. The Poets of the Shires: Warwickshire Poets. Charles Henry Poole. London. N. Ling & Co. 1914. p. xix.

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

Unleavened Bread: Simple Verses, by Aura [Norman Gale]. Boston. Dingwall and Wilson. 1885.

Primulas and Pansies: Simple Verses by the Author of Unleavened Bread [Norman Gale]. Boston. Dingwall and Wilson. 1886.

Marsh Marigolds, by the Author of Primulas and Pansies [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1888.

Meadowsweet, by the Author of Marsh Marigolds [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1889.

Anemones, a Collection of Simple Songs from Unleavened Bread. [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1889.

Thistledown: Essays Whereof the Tale is Six. Penned in the Studies of Rusticus and One who is a Friend of His. [Norman Gale and Charles H Meade]. Rugby. George E Over. 1890.

Cricket Songs and Other Trifling Verses, Penned by one of the Authors of ‘Thistledown’. [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1890.

Violets, by the Author of Meadowsweet [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1891.

Prince Redcheek. [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1891.

Gorillas. [Norman Gale]. Rugby. George E Over. 1891.

The Candid Cuckoo. [Norman Gale]. Old Bilton. Rugby. George E Over. 1891.

A Country Muse. Norman Gale. London. David Nutt. 1892.

A Country Muse. Norman Gale. New Series. London. David Nutt. 1893.

Orchard Songs. Norman Gale. London. Elkin Mathews and John Lane. 1893.

A Cotswold Village. Norman Gale. Private Printing (15 copies). Rugby. George E Over. (June) 1893.

A Fellowship in Song. Alfred Hayes, Richard Le Gallienne and Norman Gale. Rugby. George E Over. 1893.

A Verdant County. Norman Gale. Rugby. George E Over. 1893. [poems from A Fellowship in Song]

A Country Muse. Norman Gale. First Series. London. Constable. 1894.

A June Romance. Norman Gale. [Privately Printed 1892.] Rugby. George E Over. 1894.

Cricket Songs. Norman Gale. London. Methuen. 1894.

On Two Strings. Robinson K Leather and Norman Gale. Privately Printed. Rugby. George E Over. 1894.

A Country Muse. Norman Gale. Second Series. London. Constable. 1895.

All Expenses Paid. Norman Gale. Westminster. Archibald Constable and Co. 1895.

Holly and Mistletoe. E. Nesbit, R. Le Galliene and N. Gale. Lord Marcus Ward. 1895.

Songs for Little People. Norman Gale. [illustrated by Helen Stratton]. Westminster. Constable. 1896.

John Clare Poems, Selected and Introduced by Norman Gale with a Bibliography by C. Ernest Smith. Rugby, George E Over. 1901.

Barty’s Star. Norman Gale. London and Newcastle. Walter Scott. 1903.

More Cricket Songs. Norman Gale. London. Alston River. 1905.

A Norman Gale Treasury. Selected by Albert Broadbent. Manchester. Albert Broadbent. 1905.

Frolics in Catland. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1905.

A Book of Quatrains. Norman Gale. Old Bilton. Rugby. 1909.

The Happy Family. Illustrated by Louis Wain. Prose and verse, Norman Gale and others. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1910.

Father Tuck’s Annual. Illustrated by Louis Wain. Prose and verse, Norman Gale and others. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1912.

Kits and Cats – With Louis Wain in Pussyland. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1912.

Cats of Many Lands. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1912.

Song in September. Norman Gale. London. Constable. 1912.

A Country Muse: A Selection. Norman Gale. Grant Richards. 1912.

Solitude. Norman Gale. London. B T Batsford. 1913.

Country Lyrics, Selected from A Country Muse and Orchard Songs. Norman Gale.  London. Harrap. 1913.

Collected Poems. Norman Gale. London. Macmillan. 1914.

A Famouse Bookshop. Norman Gale. Rugby. George E Over. 1914.

Curly Heads and Long Legs. Stories by Edric Vrendenburg and Others, with 13 verses by Norman Gale. Illustrations by Hilda Cowham. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1914.

Music in Pussyland. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1915.

Merry Times with Louis Wain. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1916.

A Merry-Go-Round of Song. Norman Gale. Old Bilton. Rugby. 1919.

Such Fun. Illustrations Louis Wain. Norman Gale. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1920.

Play Fellows. Illustrations Louis Wain and others. Norman Gale, Hilda Hart, Grace C Floyd. Raphael Tuck & Sons Ltd. London. 1920.

Verse in Bloom. Norman Gale. Old Bilton. Rugby. 1925.

A Flight of Fancies. Norman Gale. Birmingham. Kynoch Press. 1926.

Messrs Bat and Ball. Norman Gale. Old Bilton. Rugby. 1930.

Unpigeonholed. Norman Gale. Bexhill on Sea. 1935.

Close of Play. Norman Gale. Rugby. George E Over. 1936.

Remembrances. Denys Heatherford [Norman Gale]. Torquay. Devonshire Press. 1937.

Brackenham Church. Norman Gale. Oxford. Shakespeare Head Press. 1938.

Love-In-A-Mist. Rugby. Norman Gale. George E Over. 1939.

EDMUND MARTIN GELDART (1844-1885)

 

THE MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF

EDMUND MARTIN GELDART

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

The Norwich born ‘Evangelist’ Edmund Martin Geldart (1844-1885) will be familiar to admirers of the poet G. M. Hopkins as they were good friends at Oxford and Hopkins mentions him several times in his correspondence. As a child, Geldart, born on 20^th January 1844 (he was Christened late in life on 26^th January 1859 at Bowden in Cheshire), was so pale he came to be known as ‘ghost’; he had the usual boyhood, delighting in cruelty and enjoyed trapping frogs in flower pots before skewering them with a pointed stick until his older brother, William (1842-1858) came and cut them in half with his hatchet (‘A Son of Belial’. 1882. p. 8); he lived a sort of church and chapel existence with his parents Thomas Geldart (1809-1877) and Hannah Ransome Geldart nee Martin (1820-1861); Edmund was the second born child to the Geldarts after William, and other siblings were: Henrietta Maria (1846-1847), Ernest (1848-1929), Mary Constance (1850-1925), Emma Agnes Helen (1852-1874) and Francis (1857-1932). The family were living in Greenwich until they moved to Waterfield Terrace in Blackheath where they stayed two years before moving to Reigate in Surrey, a place young Edmund came to love and call ‘home’ where they had a ‘doll’s cemetery in the garden’ and where he symbolically executed his Governess, Miss Atkinson, known as ‘mad Atky’ by beheading an effigy of her – apparently she witnessed it and took it all in good spirits!

At Reigate he attended an Independent chapel while harbouring a deep ‘fear of hell’ yet, ‘no love of God’ and ‘no sorrow for sin’ (‘A Son of Belial’. p. 53). Edmund attended the Merchant Taylor’s School in London when he was eleven before leaving London for Manchester, or Altrincham to be precise, where he became a great enthusiast of bug hunting and ancient Greek as opposed to Latin. He won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford in 1863 matriculating on 26^th March at the age of 19 and there are some marvellous descriptions of life at Balliol, or Belial, as he insists on calling it in his veiled autobiographical sketch, ‘A Son of Belial’ published in 1882 by Nitram Tradleg, which backwards reveals the author’s name, Martin Geldart, and portraits of his friends and masters alike, such as the great Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), Professor of Greek and Master of Balliol, to whom he gives the name Professor Jewell – many of the stories of Jowett are familiar to those who have read wide on such subjects connected to Balliol and its scholars; there are also sketches of the theologian Canon Henry Parry Liddon (1829-1890), referred to as Canon Parry, and Vincent Stuckey Stratton Coles (1845-1929), the scholar, librarian and Anglican priest, Principle of Pusey House, Oxford from 1897-1909, given the name Vicentius Staccato, and of course Geldart’s ‘ritualistic friend’, Gerard Manley Hopkins known as Gerontius Manley – Hopkins rather unkindly described the ‘hagard hideousness’ of Geldart in a letter to his mother dated 22^nd April 1863 as having ‘grey goggle eyes’ a ‘shuddering gait or shuffle’ and a ‘pinched face’ and famously added that he ‘would not have had twenty Balliol scholarships to change places with him’, but despite this they became intimate friends (Hopkins spent time at Geldart’s family home in the summer of 1865 and was quite taken by Edmund’s younger brother, Ernest, born 1848, saying in a letter that he was ‘looking at temptations, esp, at E. Geldart naked’, see Robert Bernard Martin’s ‘Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life’. 1991. p. 114)

Geldart, who regarded himself as an Evangelical, graduated from Balliol with his B.A. in 1867 (M.A. 1873) and took a teaching role at Manchester Grammar School and he seems to have suffered in 1868 some sort of nervous breakdown and so he went to recuperate in Corfu and spent three months in Athens. The account described in ‘A Son of Belial’ reveals something of Geldart’s mind at the time: ‘I had forgotten for the time that the British schoolboy regards his schoolmaster as his natural enemy; that he only respects the man who can and will thrash him; that it is war to the knife, or at least to the cane, in the majority of cases, until one or other is worsted. As I utterly and solemnly abjured the use of any hostile weapon, and was, moreover, of an exceedingly sensitive and nervous temperament, it is not, perhaps, much to be wondered at that in three days from my assuming office I was utterly and completely unhinged and broken down. The fiend like faces of my little tormentors (who meant no harm, God forgive them!) danced before my eyes.’ (p. 193-194) Geldart goes on to tell us that he spent three months undergoing the ‘torture of hydropathic treatment’ at Malvern. By New Year he was feeling well enough to travel back home to Bowdon, Cheshire, before embarking, in February, on the ‘Sidon’ for Corfu, where he suffered the ‘fear of getting drowned, and a few hours’ sea-sickness in the Bay of Biscay’ (p. 194). Strangely, Geldart was the only passenger onboard the Sidon on his fifteen day voyage in which he ‘learnt what solitude meant’, while ‘standing alone upon the deck, when the crew were partly asleep and partly withdrawn to the distance, out of sight of the man and officer on watch, and face to face with the winds and the waves.’ (p. 194-195) His sea-sickness began on the third day of the voyage, and ‘thanks to a glass of porter, I was soon myself again, having paid my tribute to Neptune for the first and only time in my life’. (p. 195-196). The next day he was fully recovered.

During 1869 he was ordained deacon in the Anglican priesthood by the Bishop of Manchester, James Prince Lee (1804-1869) and became curate of All Saints, Manchester and in 1871 curate of St. George’s, Everton, Liverpool (he became a Unitarian the following year). Geldart wrote much on Greek and religious matters publishing such books as: The Modern Greek Language in its relation to Ancient Greek’ (1870) and ‘A Guide to Modern Greek’ (1883) and married Charlotte Frederika Sophia Andler (1841-1923) on 26^th June 1868 at Thorpe-Next-Norwich, Norfolk but she doesn’t get a mention by name in the volume, just the casual fact that he got married (they had three children: William Martin 1870-1922, Mary Charlotte 1872-1940 and Edmund Thomas, born 1873 who sadly did not live past his first year). Geldart, whose socialistic-style sermons disagreed with his congregation, was asked to resign from his position as minister of the Free Christian Church in Croydon and in a nervous state of health once more, he decided to go to France to stay with an old friend but was reported missing from the night boat to Dieppe, assumed drowned after committing suicide on Friday 10^th April 1885, he was 41 years old, the same age that his own mother, Hannah had died in 1861, in fact, on her 41^st birthday, on 29^th September after a mental and physical breakdown, suffering epileptic fits. Edmund was no stranger to death, he saw his younger sister, Henrietta, born in 1846 die in 1847 and his older brother William, born in 1842, whither away and die in 1858; three years later his mother departed in 1861, not to mention his own son, Edmund Thomas who died in 1873.

 ‘I suppose it was suicide’, writes Hopkins to his friend Alexander W. M. Baillee (1843-1921) on 24^th April 1885, saying that ‘his mind, for he was a self tormentor, having been unhinged, as it had been once or twice before, by a struggle he had gone through.’ Hopkins, who heard of Geldart’s death in the 20^th April edition of the Pall Mall Gazette, is referring to Geldart’s previous nervous breakdown of 1868; Hopkins also suffered from his own ‘struggles’ and thoughts of suicide, and he thought ‘A Son of Belial’ an ‘amusing and sad book’ and perhaps it is no coincidence that his darker poems such as ‘I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day’ were composed during this period, but for Geldart, the struggles ended just three years after ‘A Son of Belial’ was published which makes it all the more poignant for the reader.

Many of the newspapers carried the news of Geldart’s ‘Mysterious Disappearance’ such as ‘The Manchester Weekly Times’, on page six of its Saturday 25^th April 1885 edition which reports that the ‘Rev. Edward Martin Geldart, M.A. oxon, who was until a fortnight ago the minister in charge of the Free Christian Church, Wellesley Road, Croydon’ and who ‘formerly held a curacy in Liverpool – as an English Churchman, but entertained broad views, he went over to the Unitarians, and at the close of 1883 became the pastor of the above mentioned church.’ The article goes on to say that ‘his opinions on many subjects were regarded as strictly socialistic, and on many occasions he expounded those principles both in lectures and in the columns of the local newspapers. In consequence of the tone of his discourses he recently incurred the displeasure of his congregation and was allowed by the committee to resign. This is said to have preyed on his mind and owing to his depressed condition he was persuaded by his relations to go on the Continent for a while.’ Geldart had decided on a Mediterranean journey to visit Constantinople, ‘but his wife was averse to his going so far.’ And so Geldart made his mind up to go and visit a friend in France, M. Reiman who had been twenty tears a French Master in various colleges in Croydon. On the evening of Friday 10^th April, Geldart left home and travelled to East Croydon station and purchased a single ticket to Paris. He was ‘very unwell’ and his wife Charlotte accompanied him to the station and placed him in a carriage, asking a kindly gentleman who was travelling in the same carriage to accompany Geldart to the station. He travelled on the 8.19 p.m. boat train to Newhaven (which left London Bridge at 8 p.m.). At Newhaven Geldart gave up the first portion of his ticket. The following day, Saturday 11^th April, a telegram arrived at Geldart’s home in Croydon to say that a gentleman’s luggage (a portmanteau, umbrella, and walking stick) had been found on the tidal boat at Dieppe – these items left by Geldart show that he embarked on the boat at Newhaven and certainly did not arrive at Dieppe.

On Wednesday 15^th April Mrs Geldart set out on a search of the various places around the south-coast to look for her husband but to no avail. She reported the circumstances to Scotland Yard and on Friday 17^th April she travelled to Dieppe (the Brighton Railway gave her a free first-class pass). The article goes on to say that ‘Mrs Geldart has two sons, both promising scholars at Whitgift College. He himself was Balliol scholar.’ The description of Geldart given by Scotland Yard reads: ‘Edmund Martin Geldart, age 41 years; height 5ft, 7 in, complexion fair, hair curly light brown, turning grey. Whiskers full and reddish; wears spectacles; clerical dress, soft felt hat, side-spring boots, flannel shirt, had in his possession a large gold watch, and black leather portmanteau, containing wearing apparel.’

On the afternoon of Saturday 18^th April Mrs Geldart returned to Croydon from Dieppe by the mid-day train. ‘She was painfully distressed and feared that the worst had happened. She brought with her her husband’s luggage including his walking stick and umbrella.’

And so the disappearance of Edmund Martin Geldart will continue to remain a mystery.

BETTY MAY GOLDING - TIGER WOMAN

 

NOTES ON THE EARLY YEARS OF

BETTY MAY – TIGER WOMAN

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

‘My parents were nothing to brag about; they were shiftless and now and then they drank. It was a handicap for me that was balanced on the other side of the ledger, by a real asset. I was beautiful.’ (1)

 

Betty May’s volume of autobiography ‘Tiger Woman’ (1929) is an interesting read which focuses on the sensational aspects of her life but fails to give specific details of her family during the early years of her upbringing; in this fact the book is quite useless to historians who live and breathe data – names, dates and historical facts. Little is given away in the book, even John Symonds sheds no new light upon her, but she does give some tantalising clues as to their identities and being fond of solving puzzles I thought it would be interesting to dig through some skeletal remains and put some skin back on their bones! The first clue I had was on the marriage certificate for Betty’s marriage to Frederick Charles ‘Raoul’ Loveday on 3^rd September 1922 in Oxford where she states her father’s name and profession as: ‘George Golding (deceased), Artist’; well, as for his occupation she is half right for from reading her book ‘Tiger Woman’ he seems rarely to be sober! In fact, she paints a bleak picture of her home life in Tidal Basin, Limehouse, saying that her father left the family, wife and four children, to fend for themselves – ‘even the law failed to extract from him any contribution towards our support, although I believe he used to be sent to prison at intervals for refusing to pay anything towards his family’s upkeep.’ (2) She also mentions that her grandfather (George’s father) was a ‘Police Inspector’ and so I was able to identify George and his father from the census returns.

 

ROBERT GEORGE GOLDING (1847-1917)

 

Betty May’s paternal grandfather, Robert George Golding was born in 1847 in Purton, Wiltshire; the son of Robert Golding (1815-1912) and Jane Ricks (1817-1906) a dressmaker who were married in Cricklade in 1845, Robert had a sister named Elizabeth Mary Golding, born 1851 in Cricklade and two brothers both born in Cricklade, Mortimer Golding, born 1854 and John Golding, born 1856. Robert George Golding married Maria Keep, born in 1845, Newbury village, Woolhampton, Berkshire, on 15^th April 1867 at St Pancras, London (3); Maria was the daughter of John Keep, (1806-1874) born in Oxfordshire and Ellen Robbins, (1805-1888) born in Berkshire who were married at St Peters, Woolhampton on 22^nd June 1833; Maria’s siblings, all born Woolhampton, are: James Charles Keep (1838-1898), Henry Keep (1840) who married Charlotte Brunsdon in 1860; William Keep (1841-1898) who married Mary Jeffries in 1865 and John Keep (1844) who married Esther Jane Laver in 1877 and had at least nine children.

 

JACK THE RIPPER

 

Betty fails to mention in her book Tiger Woman the connection to Jack the Ripper! There was real fear in Whitechapel during 1888 after the ‘Ripper murders’ became known and just five weeks after the slaying of Mary Kelly on 9^th November 1888, on Thursday 20^th December, Betty May’s grandfather, Police Sergeant Robert George Golding (26K) is on his beat with Constable Thomas Costello (194K) when at 4.14 a.m. Robert discovers the dead body of a woman in the yard between 184 and 186 Poplar High Street, called Clarke’s Yard, a builders- merchant; it seemed at first sight to Sergeant Golding that the Ripper had struck again. There were no visible marks to suggest murder, her throat had not been cut and there were no obvious wounds. The woman, it turns out was a well-known local Limehouse prostitute known as ‘Drunken Lizzie’; her name was Rose Mylett, born in 1859 who had been seen on Wednesday evening just before 8 p.m. in Poplar High Street near Clarke’s Yard talking to two men and later, on Thursday morning around 2.30 a.m. quite drunk, outside the George on Commercial Road with two men – it was the last time she was seen alive! The inquest was held the next day on Friday 21^st December by Wynne Baxter at Poplar Town Hall (and again on 2^nd and 9^th January 1889) and although a string mark was found around her neck suggesting strangulation it was not contributed to be a Ripper murder and Robert Golding came to the same conclusion.

Robert George Golding joined the Police Force on 29^th January 1866 – warrant number: 46955, and probably served at either Limehouse or Poplar Station. It can be seen in the 1881 census that Robert is an ‘Inspector of Police’ yet in the incident described above he is a Sergeant – Golding was promoted to Inspector in Y Division on 14^th April 1880 but was reduced in rank to Sergeant on 4^th November 1881 for ‘neglecting to properly visit the men on night duty, telling deliberate falsehoods respecting same, and returning to Station under the influence of drink’. That day, 4^th November, he was transferred from Y Division to K Division (Police Number 26K) as a Sergeant and instructed to report to Bow Police Station the following day, 5^th November 1881 where he would then be informed where he would be serving, either Limehouse or Poplar. He retired from the Police on 25^th April 1890.

 

Robert and Maria Golding had six children, all born at St Pancras: Maria Louisa Golding, born 9^th April 1868 (Christened 28^th June 1868) (4), Ellen Golding born 1870, George Golding, Betty May’s father, born 1871 (5), Florence Golding, born 1872 (Christened 12^th May 1872) [Florence married James Malcolm, born 1873 in Canning Town, London, on 4^th April 1896 in Whitechapel, they had a son named James Mortimer Malcolm, born 1897, Canning Town, vol 4a p 131], Henry Golding born 1874 [Henry married Eliza James at St Mary’s Church, Whitechapel on 23^rd February 1896; Eliza died in Lambeth aged 24 in 1899 (volume 1d page 212), Henry married again as a widow on 30^th May 1903 in West Ham, Essex to Mary Stalham, (Marriage April-June 1903, West Ham, volume 4a, page 286)] (6) and Edward Golding born 1876 [Edward married Elizabeth Tuck at St Mary’s Church, Whitechapel on 10^th January 1897 and they had five children: Florence Elizabeth Golding (Poplar 1897, vol 1c p 654) she died in Poplar 1897; James Edward Golding (West Ham 1898, vol 4a p 167)James possibly died in Poplar in 1902; Harold Clement Golding (West Ham 1901, vol 4a p 158), Harold died in Poplar in 1902 (vol 1c p 363); Albert Edward Golding, Poplar 1903, vol 1c p 628; Vera Golding (West Ham 1905, vol 4a p 292), Christened 12^th March 1905].

In the 1871 census the family are living in Gray’s Inn Lane, St Pancras; Robert George Golding is 25 and a ‘Police Constable’, Maria 25 and probably carrying their son, George; Maria Louisa is 3 and Ellen is 1; with the family are Robert’s brother, John Golding, 15 an ‘errand boy’ and Robert’s sister Elizabeth, 20 who is a ‘domestic servant’ (7). Ten years later in the 1881 census the family are now living in Upper Gordon Road, Enfield, Middlesex – Robert George Golding is 34 and an ‘Inspector of Police’, Maria 35, Maria Louisa is12, Ellen 11, George 9, Florence 8, Henry 6 and Edward 5; living with the family is Maria’s mother, Ellen Keep who is a widow of 78, and under occupation it states ‘Anuitant’ (8).

The 1891 census (9) is very important because it contains another clue to Betty May’s parentage. The Goldings are now living at number 1 Brunswick Street, Poplar, Tower Hamlets, London and Robert George Golding is 44 and a ‘Retired Police Sergeant’; Maria is 46, Maria Louisa is 22, single and living on her ‘own means’; Betty May’s father, George is 19 and single and works as an ‘Iron Plater’ on the ships; Florence is 18 and single, working as a ‘Packer in Confectionary’; Henry is 16 and single working as a ‘Railway Van Guard’ and Edward is 15 working as a ‘Labourer in Shipyard’. Also boarding with the Goldings is Ellen James, a 19 year old single woman born in London in 1872 who also works as a ‘Packer in Confectionary’ and was probably befriended by Florence at the workplace and the family took her in as a boarder. In her book Tiger Woman, Betty May states that her mother ‘had to work twelve hours a day at a chocolate factory’ (10) With this in mind I looked for a marriage between George and Ellen and found a George Golding marrying an Ellen James in the summer of 1891 in Poplar, London (11).

 

ELLEN JAMES

 

In finding Ellen James’s birth, she states on the 1891 census that she is born in London in 1872 so I checked a year either side (1871-73) for Ellen James born in the London area, with the mother’s maiden name I then found the parent’s marriages and located them on the census to 1) make sure I had the correct Ellen James and 2) to see if either parent had French lineage which I did not find (12). It is worth noting that many of the people on the census returns were illiterate, many of them not knowing the correct year of birth, place of birth or even their own name so one has to rely a little on intuition sometimes and errors can occur!

Ellen James was born in 1872 in Poplar (volume 1c page 729) [Mother’s maiden name ‘Abbott’]; she is the first born of six children to Sarah Abbott (born Stepney 1852) and John James who were married in Bethnal Green in 1870 (volume 1c page 604), the other children are: Eliza James born Poplar 1873 (volume 1c page 679), John Henry James born Poplar 1875 (volume 1c page 706) [he died in 1875], Henry James born Poplar 1877 (volume 1c page 745) [died Poplar 1877], Mary Ann James born Poplar 1879 (volume 1c page 689) and John James born Poplar 1880 (volume 1c page 667). I have found them in the census for 1881 living in Gaselee Street, Poplar, John James is 37, a labourer born in Devon, Sarah is 30, Ellen 10, Eliza 8, Mary A. 3 and John not yet one year old (RG11 folio 510 page 30); in the previous census of 1871 John, a 27 year old labourer and his 19 year old wife, Sarah, are lodging in Poplar at the home of Jessie Emms, a 42 year old labourer born in Poplar and his wife Mary and six children (Affiliate Image Identifier: GBC/1871/0585/0200).

Betty May says in Tiger Woman that her mother was ‘half French’ (p. 14) but I can find no evidence of that.

Betty May also says that she is one of four children born to George and her mother, and Betty was born Bessie Golding in West Ham in 1894 (13); the other three children born to George and Ellen Golding are: Ellen Golding, born 1891 in West Ham (volume 4a page 65), George Golding born 1892 in Poplar (volume 1c page 650) and Maria Golding, born 1896 in West Ham (volume 4a page 156). She paints a terrible picture of her squalid conditions as a child and her father, George seems to be a very unpleasant man - ‘if he saw a cat in the street he liked to pick it up by its tail and crash out its brains against a wall’ (14).

In time, even her mother, who had shown great strength in bringing up the children could not handle Betty and her brother so they were sent to her fathers ‘with a note explaining that henceforward we should have to live with him.’ (15) Conditions at her father’s were even worse and there was no parental love and by all accounts he seems to be living off immoral earnings and the place the children are living in is a brothel. One day, a police man comes to the home looking for George Golding – the police man turns out to be Robert George Golding, Betty’s grandfather, come to arrest George Golding which indeed he succeeds in doing and taken to the police station; the children, Bessie and her brother George are also taken with them. This must have occurred around 1899 or 1900 presumably as Betty is still quite young and she remembers being in the magistrate court and hearing the magistrate say, “And the little girl can go to her grandmother’s”’ (16, meaning her paternal grandmother, Maria. But shortly afterwards she is sent to live with ‘an aunt and her husband, with whom I lived on a barge for the next few years.’ (17. The next we hear about George Golding, according to Betty May is that he was ‘sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, after which he and his twin brother went out to Canada, and joined the mounted police, where they gained credit for their bravery. When the war broke out my father joined the first Canadian contingent that came over here. He never got to the front, however, where he would probably have done well, but catching a chill while in training on Salisbury Plain he died of double pneumonia.’ (18 I looked up the death of George Golding and found he had indeed died in Salisbury, Wiltshire in 1915 aged 43 (19.

 

In searching for Betty May and the next chapter of her life on a barge I turned to the 1901 census and found a Bessie May, aged 6, born in Poplar living in Northfleet, Kent, with her Uncle, William Walker, 46, born in Gravesend, Kent in 1855 (Christened 8^th August 1855) who works as a ‘Waterman’ and her Aunt, Eliza Walker, 45, born in Limehouse, London in 1855 (20 Looking at the previous census for 1891 the Walkers were still in Northfleet, Kent, in Factory Road, and William is 36 and a ‘Bargeman’; Eliza is 35 and they have an 8 year old adopted child with them named Eliza Philpot (born 1883 in Middlesex) (21; the child ‘Eliza’ was born Eliza Emily Philpot in Poplar in 1882 (volume 1c page 722) and her mother’s maiden name is ‘Abbott’ – the little girl is actually the child of Betty May’s great Aunt Fanny, Ellen James’s (later Golding) Aunt Fanny Abbott (born Stepney 1854, volume 1c page 586); she married Stephen Walter Philpot, a ‘coppersmith labourer’ in Stepney in 1876 (volume 1c page 873) and they had two children: Eliza Emily and Charles Philpot, born 1885 in Poplar (volume 1c page 645); in the 1881 census they are living in Naval Row, Poplar, Stephen is a labourer and Fanny is 27 and with them are two children: Lily aged 3 and William, not yet one year old, both born in Poplar (RG11 folio 509 page 122). Unfortunately Fanny Philpot nee Abbott died in 1887 aged 33 in Poplar (volume 1c page 405) and in the next census of 1891, Stephen, a widow aged 38 is still living in Naval Row, Poplar with his daughter Lily E. aged 13 and two sons William H. aged 10 and Charles aged 6 (RG12 folio 334 page 10). The child Eliza was adopted by the Walkers [Fanny’s husband Stephen married a second time to Elizabeth Dowley in Poplar in 1891 and the son Charles is with them in the 1891 census]. The connection to the Walkers is that Eliza Walker is Fanny’s younger sister, Eliza Abbott born Stepney 1855 (volume 1c page 524) who married William Walker in Mile End in 1882 (volume 1c page 994) and they seem to have had no children of their own, so Eliza Philpot is actually Eliza Walker’s niece, and Eliza Walker would have been Bessie Golding’s great Aunt, not her Aunt. The 1911 census (still in Northfleet) tells us that William is 56 and a ‘Bargeman’ in the Industry of Cement and Eliza is 55 (22.

As for Robert George Golding and his wife Maria, it can be seen from the 1901 census that they are living in St Stephens, Upton Park, East Ham, Essex, Robert is 54 and his occupation since retiring from the Police is ‘Timekeeper at Warehouse’; Maria is 56 and their son, Henry Golding, is 26 and a ‘Labourer in Shipyard’. Living with them is Robert’s granddaughter, Gertrude Golding, 4 years old, born in Battersea, London, who is Henry Golding’s daughter whom he is caring for, his wife Eliza died two years previously [Henry will marry again in two years, 1903 to Mary Stalham] (23 Ten years later in the 1911 census Robert, 64, a ‘Police Pensioner’ and his wife, Maria, 66, are living in Tilehurst, Bradfield, Berkshire. (24

Robert George Golding died on 23^rd February 1917 in Reading, Berkshire, aged 70 (25; his wife, Maria Golding nee Keep, died aged 92 in Reading during the summer of 1937 (26

I have not concerned myself with Betty May’s time in Somerset and have only touched upon so many lives that she would have encountered as a child. I am confident as to her paternal lineage but there is that element of doubt as to her mother’s line, purely on Betty’s claims to her being half French but time may prove me wrong and that damn ‘Abbott’ may turn out to be a ‘Philpot’ after all!

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. ‘The Angel Child who “saw Hell” and came back’. By W. B. Seabrook. The Salt Lake Tribune, Salt Lake City, Utah. 19^th August 1928.
2. Tiger Woman – My Story by Betty May. Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. 1929. All quotations taken from the 2014 edition by Duckworth Overlook. London. Quotation p. 13.
3. Marriage St Pancras, April-June 1867, volume 1b, page 25.
4. Maria Louisa Golding married Arthur Johns (born 1864, Limehouse) in 1894 – they had 5 children: Louisa Johns born 1900 (Christened 2^nd October 1900), Bessie Florence Johns born 23^rd October 1894 (dying 29^th September 1978 in Vancouver), she married Hamilton James Wardlow; John William Johns (1895-1916), Able Seaman (service number J/14548) HMS ‘Defence’ Royal Navy, died 31^st May 1916 aged 20; Florence Johns born 1895 and Ivy Johns 1907 (Christened 28^th July 1907) – 1970.
5. George Golding Birth 1871 St Pancras (Mother’s maiden name: Keep), volume 1b page 76.
6. Henry and Eliza Golding had two children both born in Lambeth: Gertrude Louise Golding born 1896 (volume 1d page 355) and Henry Golding born 1898 (volume 1d page 396); Henry and his second wife had six children: Hilda Mary Golding born 1904 West Ham (volume 4a page 173), Lydia Golding born 1906 West Ham (volume 4a page 316), William Robert Golding born 1908 Whitechapel (volume 1c page 243), Florence Golding born 1910 Whitechapel (volume 1c page 260), Harry Golding born 1917 Lambeth (volume 1d page 514) and Ivy Golding born 1918 Lambeth (volume 1d page 394).
7. 1871 Census for England and Wales. Affiliate Identifier GBC/1871/0218/0108.
8. 1881 Census for England and Wales. RG11, folio 1393/18, page 29.
9. 1891 Census for England and Wales. RG12, folio 334/11, page 15 and 16.
10. Tiger Woman. p. 14.
11. Marriage April-June 1891, Poplar, London, volume 1c, page 912.
12. Ellen James – a) born 1871 Bethnal Green, mother’s maiden name: Harrow. Parents: Anna Harrow and Henry James married Bethnal Green 1865 (1c 604), b) born 1872 Poplar, mother’s maiden name: Abbott. Parents: Sarah Abbott and John James married Bethnal Green 1870 (1c 604), c) born 1872 Lewisham, mother’s maiden name: Adshead. Parents: Hannah Elizabeth Adshead and John James married St Georges’s Square 1867 (1d 191), d) born 1873 Shoreditch, mother’s maiden name: Philpot. Parents: Clara Lydia Philpot and Frederick James married Bethnal Green 1878 (1c 780). Although the ‘Philpot’ connection seemed likely due to the little girl, Eliza Philpot on the 1891 census, I dismissed it after looking at census returns for the family.
13. Bessie Golding, birth October-December 1894, West Ham, Essex, volume 4a, page 114. Mother’s maiden name: James.
14. Tiger Woman. p. 21.
15. ibid. p. 19.
16. ibid. p. 24
17. ibid. p. 24.
18. ibid. p. 25.
19. George Golding, death January-March 1915, Salisbury, Wiltshire, volume 5a, page 288.
20. 1901 Census for England and Wales. Schedule Type 188, page 32. In the 1861 census William Walker is 6 years old living in Stable Row, North Aylesford, Kent with his family: father, James Walker, 34 a ‘Lighterman’ born in Northfleet; mother, Ann, 32 born in Colchester, and siblings, Mary A. 8, Sarah S. 4 and Frances C. 2 (1861 Census, RG09, folio 472/13, page 18). In the 1881 census the Walkers are living at The Shore, North Aylesford, Northfleet, Kent – Ann, 51 (widow), William 26, single and a ‘Lighterman’, Hannah N. 18, James Chas 16 a ‘Labourer in Chalk Works’, Esther Amelia 13, Charlotte 10 and Clara F. Ann’s 3 year old grand daughter (1881 census,  RG11, folio 874/14, page 21)
21. 1891 Census for England and Wales. RG12, folio 649/84, page 23.
22. 1911 Census for England and Wales. RG14, folio 495, page 1.
23. 1901 Census for England and Wales. Schedule Type 256, page 39.
24. 1911 Census for England and Wales. RG14, folio 263, page 1.
25. Robert George Golding, death January-March 1917, Reading, Berkshire, volume 20, page 585.
26. Mary Golding, death April-June 1937, Reading, Berkshire, volume 2c, page 351.

CROWLEY AND STOCKHOLM

 ALEISTER CROWLEY

AND THE

STOCKHOLM REVELATION

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law

 

 

The significance of the years 1896-1898 in Aleister Crowley’s life often get overlooked for the more sensational aspects of his magical career, yet they are important years that help shape and develop the young romantic poet in search of himself and his spirituality. Important factors during the years 1896-98 can be seen as pivotal in setting Crowley upon the path he chose to tread for there is so much nonsense written about Crowley being wicked when in fact he was nothing of the sort, he did not commit murder or rape or abuse children, things which of course are really wicked and should be punished; in fact, the only breaking of the law he seems to commit is the act of passive sodomy in homosexual encounters during a time when it was repressed by hypocrites; thankfully the expression of physical love towards one’s own sex is no longer a criminal offence and in observing the past from our own point in time we can see how foolish and damaging the legal classification was. I should say it is to his great strength of character, mind and will that he did not become a deranged murderer under the oppressive, soul-destroying Christian atmosphere of the Plymouth Brethren to which his family belonged and it would have been a decidedly weak, dim-witted and characterless individual who did not revolt against such extreme and dangerous beliefs. Crowley was an enlightened individual who questioned everything in a time of dogged acceptance and it seems to me he would fit in rather nicely with the morality and behaviour of the present climate.

Since the death of his father, Edward Crowley on 5^th March 1887 the young ‘Alick’ seems to have become obsessed with the pursuit and committing of sins as his mother increased her sense of bigoted religious mania – ‘for a year or two after my father’s death my mother did not seem to settle down; and during the holidays we either stayed with Bishop or wandered in hotels and hydros. I think she was afraid of bringing me up in London; but when my uncle moved to Streatham she compromised by taking a house in Polworth Road. I hated it, because there were bigger houses in the neighbourhood.’ (1) ‘Bishop’ is Crowley’s uncle, Tom Bond Bishop, a ‘ruthless, petty tyrant’ and Emily’s brother who lived at Thistle Grove (later Drayton Gardens) in South Kensington. The house is a detestable place of hypocritical Christian morality morning, noon and night, and filled with pious pretence of the worst sort by the Bishop family members – Grandmother Elizabeth Bishop nee Cole (1808-1896), (she and her son John came to live with Aleister and his mother Emily later in Streatham), Aunt Ada, a teacher whom Crowley doesn’t seem to mind; John Bishop (1821-1900) and Annie Bishop (1824-1890), siblings from Grandma Bishop’s first marriage and prevalent among this wreckage is Tom Bond Bishop himself. Uncle Tom moved to ‘Glenorme’, a house in Polworth Road, Streatham and Emily also found a house there at number 7, Polworth Road (I have found here there in 1891 on the electoral roll); the young Crowley furnished a ‘laboratory’ here and made experiments, mixing chemicals like some apprentice alchemist and it was here of course that he experimented on removing the nine lives that a cat is supposed to possess by various methods of its destruction; and it is undoubtedly here that the young Crowley enjoyed one of his sweetest sins of all and made his ‘magical affirmation’ with the new parlour maid on his mother’s bed one memorable Sunday!

On Thursday 18^th June 1896 Crowley’s Aunt Ada Jane Bishop died in Wandsworth, she was fifty-four years old and Crowley’s mother’s favourite sister. Her death notice appeared in The Standard (Saturday 20^th June 1896. London. p. 1) which states her death occurring at ‘Glenorme, Polworth Road, Streatham’, the house where she lived with her brother Tom Bond Bishop (1839-1920). She was buried on Tuesday 23^rd June 1896 in Lambeth. Aleister attended the funeral and says that his mother ‘refused to enter the church during the service and waited outside in the rain, only rejoining the procession when the corpse repassed those accursed portals on its way to the cemetery. She stood by the grave while the parson read the service. It was apparently the architectural diabolism to which she most objected.’ (2) Crowley writes the poem ‘In Memoriam A. J. B.’ to his Aunt and the poem contains deep Christian sentiments and Crowley still has his faith in Christ – ‘as when the conqueror Christ burst forth of prison, / and triumph woke the thunder of the spheres, / so brake the soul, as newly re-arisen / beyond the years.’ (3) He goes on to invoke the ‘world immutable of sleep’ where ‘we see our loved one, and vain eyes desire / in vain to weep’ before tailing-off in familiar Christian symbolism –

 
‘Woeful our gaze, if on lone Earth descendent,
To view the absence of yon flame afar –
Yet in the Heavens, anew, divine, resplendent,
Behold a star!
 
One light the less, that steady flamed and even
Amid the dusk of Earth’s uncertain shore;
One light the less, but in Jehova’s Heaven
One star the more!’

 

Not long after the passing of Aunt Ada death again visits the Bishops to collect Crowley’s maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Bishop nee Cole (born 1809), who died on 4^th August 1896 in Wandsworth; she is buried three days later on the 7^th August in Lambeth. I believe this double tragedy occurring so close together instilled in Aleister, who still clung to Christian doctrines, the seeds of doubt which would germinate a year later through the various momentous steps upon the path to reality, such as in the following June 1897 when he realises in Berlin that he is not manifested upon the earth to play chess and perhaps some other ‘destiny’ is assigned to him and his illness of October 1897 when he experiences the Vision of Universal Sorrow; and again in December of that year when he visits his friend Professor Lamb and a tremendous outpouring occurs which in turn culminates days later in Amsterdam with the conflict of the spirit where the weakness of Christian belief ends and a new ‘law of the strong’ is born in the form of some idealised romantic Satan, the Satan of Milton, the bisexual Baphomet.

Since entering Trinity College, Cambridge on 1^st October 1895 for the Michaelmas term, Crowley has felt a sense of freedom which has been gathering apace since his father’s death in 1887; the old constraints and restrictions of the Plymouth Brethren have been cast to the wayside and a Herculean sense of self importance has grown in strength as he goes in search of sensual experiences, cleansing himself of the ‘mire of Christianity by deliberate acts of sin and worldliness’ as he says in his Confessions (p. 123)

After the Easter term ended on Wednesday 24^th June 1896 Crowley travelled to the Bernese Oberland; on the 14^th July 1896 he is climbing the Monch in Switzerland, the first guideless traverse of the mountain [see Crowley’s poem ‘A Descent of the Moench’ in Mysteries: Lyrical and Dramatic. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I] He returns to Cambridge for the Michaelmas term which began on Thursday 1^st October 1896 and ended on Saturday 19^th December 1896; Crowley, who turned twenty-one on the 12^th October, travelled to Stockholm and he stayed at the Grand Hotel. It is in Stockholm that he says that he was ‘awakened to the knowledge that I possessed a magical means of becoming conscious of and satisfying a part of my nature which had up to that moment concealed itself from me. It was an experience of horror and pain, combined with a certain ghostly terror, yet at the same time it was the key to the purest and holiest spiritual ecstasy that exists.’ (4) John Symonds is incorrect in his ‘The Great Beast’ (chapter II: Father and Son) in assuming that Crowley’s ‘awakening’ is literally his waking from sleep in his hotel room in Stockholm to some significant spiritual realisation, such blatant nonsense gets repeated until it is taken as fact and so the truth, which oftentimes is in plain view, is all but ignored for the more ‘convenient’, lazy and wrongly accepted viewpoint. Crowley informs us himself what occurred, all be it in Crowley’s own indefatigable manner, in chapter twenty-one of his ‘Not the Life and Adventures of Sir Roger Bloxam’ written between 1916-17 – in the winter of 1896 Crowley is in Stockholm, he doesn’t know anyone (except the British Minister and his wife) and he is feeling a little lonely; on Tuesday 29^th December, he had been ice-skating for some three hours and felt tired, cold and hungry and quite frankly a little bored of skating. He attempts a skating manoeuvre, quite badly and falls down on the ice. A man steps forward amongst the skaters to his rescue and Crowley is glad to hear the English tongue. The man introduces himself as James L. Dickson – Crowley assumes he is Scottish due to his middle name, which ‘stood for something Scottish, Laurie, or Leslie, or Levy, I think’ he suggests, but James Dickson is a married man, a family man and Crowley with some sense of honour probably knows the name but does not want to bring shame upon him, for there was a definite attraction between the young Crowley, who was ‘comely and graceful, lissome’ and ‘playful as a kitten’ and the older man, James; and ‘the new friends talked of England, home and beauty’. Dickson dined with Crowley that night and the following night, Wednesday 30^th December, Crowley dined with Dickson, and the next day, New Year’s Eve, Dickson dined with Crowley once more and on the stroke of midnight when the old year dies away to become the new, Dickson seduced Crowley who was more than happy to fall into a new, strong sinful experience. Crowley tells us in the next chapter of ‘Roger Bloxam’ that he was a ‘trifle sore at the rudeness of the Scotsman [Dickson] for it was Crowley’s, the ‘sensitive maiden’s’ first time with a man; Dickson, he continues, had no ‘savoir faire’ and ‘he was restless, he fidgeted, he said nothing wise, or witty, or even graceful; and he withdrew finally with abruptness’. Crowley says in his Confessions (p.124) that it was an ‘isolated experience, not repeated until exactly twelve months later, to the minute.’ Crowley writes about the experience in his poem, ‘At Stockholm’ which he probably wrote soon after in January 1897 and was published in his ‘White Stains’ in 1898:

 
At Stockholm
 
We could not speak, although the sudden glow
Of passion mantling to the crimson cheek
 
Of either, told our tale of love, although
We could not speak.
 
What need of language, barren and false and bleak,
While our white arms could link each other so,
And found red lips their partner’s mutely seek?
 
What time for language, when our kisses flow
Eloquent, warm, as words are cold and weak? –
 
Or now – Ah! sweetheart, even were it so
We could not speak.

 

Tobias Churton in his ‘Aleister Crowley: The Biography’ published in 2011 gives Dickson’s full name in chapter three on page 29 as James Lachlan Dickson (also see his note 7 on page 432 which gives Dickson’s profession as  ‘Cotton Spinner’s Agent’, attributed to William Breeze). Along with ‘At Stockholm’, a romanticised poetic version of the encounter which may have actually meant little to Dickson in Crowley’s ‘White Stains’ is another curious poem written as a tribute to the first man to become sexually intimate with Crowley at this time:

 
To J.L.D. *
 
At last, so long desired, so long delayed,
The step is taken, and the threshold past;
I am within the palace I have prayed
At last.
 
Like scudding winds, when skies are overcast,
Came the soft breath of Love, that might not fade.
O Love, whose magic whispers bind me fast,
 
O Love, who hast the kiss of Love betrayed,
Hide my poor blush beneath thy pinions vast,
Since thou hast come, nor left me more a maid,
At last.

 

If James Lachlan Dickson is indeed the man concerned, and there is no reason to believe he isn’t, he has the ‘Scottish-sounding’ middle name and his work would have given him the opportunity of travel; but what can be found of this James Lachlan Dickson? well, he was born on 1^st January 1855 at Portsea Island in Hampshire [the night of his seduction of the 21 year old Crowley was the eve of his 42^nd birthday], the son of David Dickson, a draper who employed three men, born in 1820 in Scotland (he died on 1^st February 1865 in Portsea) and Isabella Ann McMillan, born 1820, who were married in Medway, Kent in 1848 (5). James L Dickson was employed as an agent for a cotton spinners and manufacturers and he married Birmingham born, Mary Ann Cattell (1863-1923) on Thursday 16^th February 1888 in Camberwell. The wedding took place at St Paul’s Church, Herne Hill in Camberwell and Miss Annie Cattell is the neice of Mr. William Bennett, the respected proprietor of the Half Moon in Dulwich. The bride’s father gave her away and of the four bridesmaids, two were James Dickson’s sisters, Charlotte and Maria; his brother David was best man (6). In 1891 they are living in Portland Place, Beckenham, Kent and ten years later they are in Lambeth. James and Mary had the following children: James Thomas Dickson, born 1889, William Arthur Dickson, born 1890, Sidney Edgar Dickson, born 1893 and Constance Irene Dickson, born 1897.

The ‘so long desired, so long delayed’ sexual encounter with James L. Dickson is not the first account of a man attempting to seduce Crowley for he tells us in his Confessions that the ‘brother of the Dean of Westminster (he subsequently became a missionary and died at Lokoja) had been taught that if he couldn’t be good he should be careful. While he was actually in charge of me his conduct was irreproachable, but after giving me up he invited me over to his mother’s house at Maze Hill [Greenwich] to spend the night, and did his best to live up to the reputation of his cloth. I did not allow him to succeed, not because I could see no sin in it, but because I thought it was a trap to betray me to my family. Just before he left for Africa he invited me again, prayed with me, confessed to his offence, excusing himself on the ground that his elder brother Jack, also a missionary, had led him astray, and asked my pardon.’ (7) He is a little more explicit in his ‘The World’s Tragedy’ (1910) under the chapter ‘Adolescence’ and delights in his intention to send a copy of the volume to the ‘Very Reverend Armitage Robinson Esq., M.A.D.D., Dean of Westminster (8) for though I suppose he knows how his missionary brother Jack seduced to sodomy his missionary brother Fred, he may still be ignorant of how that brother Fred (one of my tutors) attempted to seduce me in his own mother’s house at Maze Hill. This came a little later; and I knew exactly what he was doing, as it happened. I let him go as far as he did, with the deliberate intention of making sure on that point.’ This occurred in the early 1890’s when Crowley was in his teens and at the hands of various tutors chosen by his Uncle, Tom Bond Bishop; it shows his early inclinations towards bisexuality and his acceptance of his feminine side. ‘Jack’ is the Reverend John Alfred Robinson M.A. (1859-1891) (9) and ‘Fred’, Crowley’s tutor, is Dr. Frederick Augustine Robinson (1870-1906) (10), both became missionaries in Africa. Frederick, of Guy’s Hospital, went to Likoma Island Mission, South Africa in 1891 when Aleister was around sixteen years old.

Before the Lent term began on Friday 8^th January 1897 Crowley was in Copenhagen, and he wrote the poem ‘Astray in her paths’; it is only days since he left the arms of James L Dickson, whose ‘gaze is still on me’, in Stockholm and the poem reaches new heights of passion, mingled with a spiritual inner light, far beyond ordinary mortal conceptions – ‘because we love, / are not of earth, but, as the immortals, stand / with eyes immutable; our souls are fed / on a strange new nepenthe from the cup / of the vast firmament. Nor do we dream, / nor think we aught of the transient world, / but are absorbed in our own deity’.  The poem continues until he reaches some great understanding:

 
‘But now I turn to thee, whose eyes
Blaze on me with such look as flesh and blood
May never see and live; for so it burns
Into the innest being of the spirit
And stains its vital essence with a brand
Of fire that shall not change; and shuddering I
Gaze back, spirit to spirit, with the like
Insatiable desire, that never quenched,
Nor lessened by sublime satiety,
But rather crescent, hotter with the flame
Of its own burning, that consumes it not,
Because it is the pure white flame of God.
I shudder, holding thee to me; thy gaze
Is still on me; a thousand years have passed,
And yet a thousand thousand; years they are
As men count years, and yet we stand and gaze
With touching hands and lips immutable
As mortals stand a moment;…
The universe is One: One Soul, One Spirit,
One Flame, One infinite God, One infinite Love. (11)

 

Following the end of the Easter term on Thursday 24^th June 1897 Crowley went to St Petersburg to learn Russian for the Diplomatic Service which he had chosen as his career and on his return he broke his journey at Berlin to attend a chess conference and upon entering, Crowley, who was a prolific chess player, was ‘seized with what may justly be described as a mystical experience. I seemed to be looking on at the tournament from outside myself. I saw the masters – one, shabby, snuffy and blear-eyed; another, in badly fitting would-be respectable shoddy; a third, a mere parody of humanity, and so on for the rest. These were the people to whose ranks I was seeking admission. “There, but for the grace of God, goes Aleister Crowley,” I exclaimed to myself with disgust, and there and then I registered a vow never to play another serious game of chess. I perceived with praetor-natural lucidity that I had not alighted on this planet with the object of playing chess.’ (12)

In October during the Michaelmas term of 1897 Crowley fell ill and he was ‘forced to meditate upon the fact of mortality’ consumed by the ‘futility of all human endeavour’. What is the purpose of life and the continuity of the individual spirit? A successful career does not automatically impose greatness upon a person and eternal respect and devotion – ‘I did not go into a definite trance in this meditation; but a spiritual consciousness was born in me corresponding to that which characterizes the Vision of the Universal Sorrow.’ He goes on to say that he was ‘not content to be annihilated. Spiritual facts were the only things worth while. Brain and body were valueless except as instruments of the soul.’ (13) He had been restricted by the demands of Christianity in his youth and since entering Trinity the freedom became meaningless without substance – ‘I had never given myself wholly to chess, mountaineering or even to poetry. Now, for the first time, I felt myself prepared to expend my resources of every kind to attain my purpose.’ (14)

Late in the October term of 1897 he also became acquainted with Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt who was to become his lover.

On Tuesday 7^th December 1897 Crowley called at the house of his friend Dr. Charles George Lamb (1867-1941), the Cambridge lecturer and engineer who entered the university in 1891. It must have been a strange and extraordinary meeting that wild, windy night in December and Crowley must have been in great distress at his spiritual dilemma which had increased since his Vision of Universal Sorrow in October and in need of a friendly ear and advice from someone he respected and trusted. He writes rather perplexingly as an introductory to his poem ‘Aceldama, a Place to Bury Strangers’ of 1898, that it ‘was a windy night, that memorable seventh night of December, when this philosophy was born in me. How the grave old Professor wondered at my ravings! I had called at his house, for he was a valued friend of mine, and I felt strange thoughts and emotions shake within me. Ah! how I raved! I called to him to trample me, he would not. We passed together into the stormy night. I was on horseback, how I galloped round him in my phrenzy, till he became the prey of a real physical fear! How I shrieked out I know not what strange words! And the poor good old man tried all he could to calm me; he thought I was mad! The fool! I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered – now I have only one doubt left – which of the twain was God? Howbeit, I aspire!’ (15) What transpired that night had a lasting effect upon Crowley and it would be interesting to know more about the part Charles Lamb played in his momentous conversion from Christianity to the occult!

After the Michaelmas term ended on Sunday 19^th December 1897 Crowley travelled to Amsterdam, and he purchases a small, red notebook in which he writes eight sonnets and several rondells and songs in pencil; The sonnets are: ‘Love me or leave me’, ‘Your love is light’, ‘To pass through the pale streets’, ‘I, who am dying for thy kiss’, ‘He, who seduced me first’, ‘A sailor’s kiss is branded’, ‘Did you speak truly?’ and ‘The old, dark evening’. The sonnet ‘He, who seduced me first’ undoubtedly refers to James L Dickson whom Crowley encountered almost a year ago to the day –

 
He who seduced me first I could not forget.
I hardly loved him but desired to taste
A new strong sin. My sorrow does not fret
That sore. But thou, whose sudden arms embraced
My shrinking body, and who brought a blush
Into my cheeks, and turned my veins to fire,
Thou, who didst whelm me with the eager rush
Of the enormous floods of thy desire,
Thine are the kisses that devour me yet,
Thine the high heaven whose loss is death to me,
Thine all the barbed arrows of regret,
Thine on whose arms I yearn to be
In my deep heart thy name is writ alone,
Men shall decipher – when they split the stone.

From the rondells and songs (six in total) is a strange poem, ‘The Red Lips of the Octopus’:

 
The red lips of the octopus
Are more than myriad stars of night.
The great beast writhes in fiercer form than thirsty stallions amorous
I would they clung to me and stung. I would they quenched me with delight.
 
The red lips of the octopus.
They reek with poison of the sea
Scarlet and hot and languorous
My skin drinks in their slaver warm, my sweats his wrapt embrace excite
The heavy sea rolls languishly o’er the ensanguined kiss of us.
We strain and strive, we die for love. We linger in the lusty fight
We agonize; our club becomes more cruel and more murderous.
My passion splashes out at last. Ah! with what ecstasy I bite
The red lips of the octopus.

 

 

On Thursday 23^rd December 1897, while Crowley is in Amsterdam, he is on the threshold of one of the greatest spiritual conflicts of his life, for he has been walking the streets all day and watching the sun pass overhead and ‘fade away / to other streets, and other passengers, / see him take pleasure where the heathen pray,’; he is tired and weary and his mind is in torment. The day has been long and there is frost sparkling along the streets as he wound his way towards the docks; from the darkness of his inner sorrow he holds his silver crucifix in his fingers and contemplates ‘the wound / stabbed in the flanks of my dear silver Christ.’ Christ is alone and Crowley is also alone – he puts the crucifix to his mouth and kisses the ‘silver lips’ as if in farewell. He puts the crucifix away and his ‘feet must go / some journey of despair.’ He has come through the dark night of his soul which probably began at the home of Professor Lamb and found that which he had known all along and he must walk and ‘know never more the day and night apart, / know not where frost has laid his iron hand / save only that it fastens on my heart; / save only that it grips with icy fire / these veins no fire of hell could satiate; / save only that it quenches this desire. / Let me pass out beyond the city gate.’ (16) Two days later on Saturday 25^th December 1897, still in Amsterdam, he writes the poem The Nativity (also contained in the Amsterdam notebook under the title ‘Xmas’). In the poem we find the Virgin Mary at Bethlehem, in labour, where ‘each spasm is a holocaust’, and thrice she has ‘cursed the name of God’ and thrice she has ‘prayed that she may die’ until ‘she is delivered of the Christ’. (17)

While in Amsterdam Crowley had been writing furiously to his new friend with whom he fell deeply in love – Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt, and on Crowley’s return to England, he met Pollitt at the Queen’s Hotel in Birmingham on Friday 31^st December 1897, exactly a year to the day on which he had spent the night in the arms of James Lachlan Dickson – the seduction repeated itself almost to the minute when Pollitt and Crowley became lovers and Jerome seduced him at the beginning of the New Year.

Back at Cambridge for the Lent term in January, Crowley moves from his rooms at 35 Sidney Street to 14 Trinity Street and he and Jerome are almost inseparable, Crowley taking on the role it seems as the dutiful wife; the relationship, which was one of the most profound in Crowley’s life, lasts just six months when Crowley terminated the friendship at the Bear Hotel in Maidenhead where the poet had gone seeking solace to write his poem ‘Jezebel’. Pollitt followed him there and no doubt some scene played out and so Crowley called an end to the greatest and noblest friendship he had ever encountered.

The pursuit of spiritual attainments still drove Crowley onwards and in November 1898 it took him to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Abramelin and a new chapter in the life of Aleister Crowley, which would ultimately lead to the fulfilment of his destiny as the prophet of the new Aeon of Thelema.

 

Love is the Law, Love under Will

 

 

NOTES:

 

*Cabbalists among you may care to note that the initials J.L.D. – Yod, Lamed, Daleth: The Hermit, Virgo, Hand, the Secret Seed, 10 – Justice, Libra, Ox-Goad, 30 – Empress, Venus, Door, 4 = 10+30+4 = 44 Blood, the multiplication of 11, the number of Magick, by 4.

 

1. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. 1969. p. 59.
2. ibid. p. 58.
3. In Memoriam A. J. B. Songs of the Spirit. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I.
4. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. p. 123-124.
5. David and Isabella Dickson had the following children: Isabella Ann Dickson (1850-1902), James Lachlan Dickson (1^st January 1855- 16^th August 1927), Sarah Dickson, born 1853, David Robert Dickson (1857-1927), Charlotte Agnes Dickson, born 1859 and Margaret L Dickson, born 1863. Interestingly, there is an article in The South Eastern Gazette on Tuesday 15thy November 1853 (p. 5) under ‘Coroner’s Inquest’ which states that on Tuesday 8^th November 1853, there is an Inquest at the Running Horse Inn, Sandling, before J N Dadlow Esq. coroner, concerning the death of a 17 year old woman named Emma Collins whose body was found in Spratt’s Mill pond, Boxley, on Monday 7^th November. She was found by Richard Waterman who with assistance retrieved the body. Isabella Ann Dickson, the wife of David Dickson, draper of Maidstone, said the deceased was in her service for six months and last saw her alive at 10.45 Sunday night in the kitchen; Emma was due back at 8 but didn’t get back till 10 and Isabella told her to go to bed (she slept in the kitchen due to Isabella having friends staying at the house). Miss Collins was a disruly girl and Isabella threatened to tell her father of her behaviour and the girl replied that she would not be a trouble to anyone much longer. She had been depressed due to a failed romance and two letters were found in her pocket from a soldier in the Hussars named Langford.
6. The South London Press. Saturday 25^th February 1888. p. 6.
7. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. p. 72.
8. Reverend Joseph Armitage Robinson (1858-1933), Dean of Westminster (1902-1911).
9. Reverend John Alfred Robinson (1859-1891), born Keynsham, Somerset. Educated at Rossall School and Christ’s Church, Cambridge, matriculating 1877. B.A. 1881. M.A. 1884. Became a missionary, Hausa Mission. Died 25^th June 1891 at Lakoja, Nigeria, aged 32.
10. Dr. Frederick Augustine Robinson (1870-1906) – born 14^th June 1870 in Liverpool, Christened 11^th September 1870 at St. Augustine’s, Everton, Lancashire, where his father, Reverend George Robinson (1819-1881) was vicar. Entered Christ’s Church, Cambridge, 18^th April 1893; Guy’s Hospital, M.R.C.S. (Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London), L.R.C.P. (Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London) 1892. Medical Missionary, Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, at Lake Nyassa. Medical Officer M.D.S.F., Labrador. District Surgeon at Nqutu, Zululand. Married Dr. Lillian Agnes Rogers Jenkins, L.R.C.P. Edinburgh, and late Indian Medical Officer (born in Tenby, South Wales, the only daughter of Rev. J. Rogers Jenkins) at St. Augustine’s in Durban, Natal 10^th May 1898. Served in the suppression of the Natal Rebellion, 1906. Died on 1^st October 1906 at Natal aged 36. Frederick’s father, George, married Henrietta Cecilia Forbes (1826-1919) in 1854 and they had thirteen children, eight boys, six of which entered the priesthood, and five girls. Frederick was also assistant surgeon at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and on Thursday 16^th February 1893 he attended the Leicester Town Hall trial of Richard James Glynn, 45 on a case of ‘unlawful wounding’ of Jim Smith on 4^th February, whose knife wound Frederick had examined; Glynn was pronounced not guilty and discharged. [The Leicester Chronicle and Leicestershire Mercury. Saturday 18^th February 1893. p. 6]
11. Mysteries: Lyrical and Dramatic. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I.
12. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. p. 140.
13. ibid. p. 124-125.
14. ibid. p. 125.
15. Aceldama. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I.
16. The Goad. Songs of the Spirit. 1898. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume I.
17. Oracles. 1905. The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, volume II.