ERNEST DOWSON AND ADELAIDE FOLTINOWICZ

THEN FALLS THY SHADOW

ERNEST DOWSON AND ADELAIDE FOLTINOWICZ

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

‘her eyes are pure and sweet,

as lilies, and the fragrance of her hair

is many laurels.’

(‘Sapienta Lunae’. Verses. 1896. Ernest Dowson)

Read any book on the decadent nineties and the aesthetic world of Oscar Wilde and you will find mention of the tragic poet Ernest Christopher Dowson (1867-1900) who wrote some sublime, world-weary verse and is more often than not described as a dishevelled, drug-ridden bohemian who wasted his life – ‘Dowson used to drink hashish and make love in Soho’ (‘Men of the Nineties. Muddiman. p. 9) and ‘At Oxford, I believe, his favourite form of intoxication had been haschish (sic)’ (The Poems of Ernest Dowson. 9^th ed. 1922. Memoir by Arthur Symons. p. xi) Ernest Dowson, the doomed young poet of the nineties associated with the Decadent movement has always remained an enigma to the world of literature because of his obsessive romantic attachment to a little girl with whom he fell helplessly and hopelessly in love with, an attachment which produced some of the most beautiful and remarkable poems in the English language and a relationship which would eventually prove to be a factor in his own destruction.

‘Poor Dowson was a tragic figure. While we others amused ourselves, playing with fireworks, Dowson meant deliberately to hurt himself.’

(‘Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothenstein’. 1931. p. 237)

We know that Adelaide Foltinowicz, an eleven year old girl when the twenty-three year old Ernest Dowson met her in 1889, was the inspiration for Dowson’s poetry as he says so himself in the preface to his volume of poems ‘Verses’ published in 1896; the preface, ‘For Adelaide’, written at Pont-Aven, before Easter 1896 while he was away from his ‘Missie’, a name he gave to Adelaide, begins: ‘To you, who are my verses, as on some very future day, if you ever care to read them, you will understand.’ Whether she read them or not, and it is probably unlikely, she had become more than the poet’s muse, she was the spiritual essence of purity and innocence that consumed him and there was a ‘virginal devotion, as to a Madonna’ as Arthur Symons says in his memoir (The Poems of Ernest Dowson. 1922. p. xiv). Ernest fell terribly in love with Adelaide and was determined to marry her. Like Keats before him, Dowson made his vision of an ideal love the flame that burnt through every line of poetry he wrote:

Ad Domnulam Suam

Little lady of my heart!

Just a little longer,

Love me: we will pass and part,

Ere this love grow stronger.

I have loved thee, Child! too well,

To do aught but leave thee:

Nay! my lips should never tell

Any tale, to grieve thee.

Little lady of my heart!

Just a little longer,

I may love thee: we will part,

Ere my love grow stronger.

Soon thou leavest fairy-land;

Darker grow thy tresses:

Soon no more of hand in hand;

Soon no more caresses!

Little lady of my heart!

Just a little longer,

Be a child: then, we will part,

Ere this love grow stronger. 

‘A DEAR, QUEER FELLOW’

(Victor Plarr)

‘There were certainly’ says Victor Plarr in his volume of reminiscences on Dowson published in 1914, ‘two Dowsons – one the vexed and torn spirit of the biographers, of Mr Sherard and Mr Arthur Symons, the other a Dowson intime, known, I venture to think, to very few, but by the few greatly loved.’ (p. 9) Ernest Christopher Dowson was born on 2^nd August 1867 at The Grove, Belmont Hill, Lee, in Kent. The first-born son of Alfred Christopher Dowson and Annie Chalmers Dowson (Ernest’s brother Rowland Corbet Dowson came along in 1876), the young Ernest, who seems to have had little or no education outside of the family home, delights in a ‘pagan childhood’ and quickly shows a scholarly flare for the Latin classics such as Horace, Plato, Catullus, Propertius and Petrarch as well as French classics: Balzac, Flaubert, Stendhal and the American authors, Hawthorne, Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe and he had an appreciation for poetry – Ernest’s Uncle Alfred Domett (1811-1887) was a published poet who later became Prime Minister of New Zealand. Young Ernest was a sensitive dreamer and he was fascinated by ancient mythology and encouraged by his father, a man who was familiar with literary society, in his learning. Little Ernest became quite fluent in French and Italian due to the family excursions to the Riviera.

In the 1881 census the Dowsons are at St James Villa, Ilfracombe, Devon. His father, Alfred Christopher Dowson is 38, born in Limehouse, Middlesex in 1843; he is the ‘owner of Graving Dock’ (Bridge Dock at Narrow Street, Limehouse); Alfred’s wife, Annie Chalmers Dowson is 32 and she was born in Kandy, Ceylon – (she was born Annie Chalmers Swan, the daughter of Robert Dalgleish Swan and Isabella Stuart Swan in 1849: Dowson’s parents were married on 5^th July 1866 at St. Stephen’s in Lewisham); Ernest Christopher Dowson, aged 13 and born in Lee, Kent and his brother Rowland Corbet Dowson, 4 years old born in Kensington.

Ernest’s brother Rowland was born on 29^th January 1876, (following his mother’s death in 1895 he immigrated to Canada and then to the United States in 1898; he married a woman named Florence and had a child named Annie. He died of tuberculosis on 20^th September 1913 and was buried in San Diego, California).

OXFORD AND THE CULT OF THE LITTLE GIRL

Dowson, who showed great aptitude for a scholar’s profession was determined to go to Oxford, like Shelley before him and so he matriculated as a commoner to Queen’s College, Oxford at the Michaelmas Term, on 25^th October 1886 at the age of 19 to read classics. He cast a solitary shadow in the first term at Oxford and was considered to have a pessimistic outlook due to his reading of Schopenhauer, but he gradually settled into college life, as much as one who is sensitive and slightly withdrawn can do, and behaved as other undergraduates, running up bills which he would pay back in small amounts later and he made some firm friends such as Arthur Moore and Edgar Jepson, who had literary interests. He read Baudelaire, Verlaine and Swinburne and delighted in the company of his friends and of course became familiar with the Victorian Oxford tradition of entertaining the little daughters of the dons. This was generally considered a harmless and pleasurable pastime and there was none of the modern connotations associated with the corruption and abuse of a child, in fact, the Victorians positively encouraged such interactions between the scholars who were of course young ‘gentlemen’ and a sense of protection towards the child, usually a little girl playing at being grown-up and exploring notions of romance could be nurtured; we only have to look at Lewis Carroll – Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) and his boat trip with the three daughters of the dean of Christ Church, Henry George Liddell (1811-1898): Lorina, Edith and Alice, which inspired the writing of the ‘Alice’ books. The ‘cult of the little girl’ had none of the later eroticism, as far as we can tell for the most part, that Nabakov and his nymphet Lolita invoked for purity above all things was the moral definition of an adult/child relationship; the same can be said for the Oxford poets known as the ‘uranians’ such as Dowson’s friend Charles Edward Sayle (1864-1924) or the Reverend E E Bradford (1860-1944) who wrote of the beauty and virtues of young boys, not all who celebrated the romantic qualities and innocence of childhood went beyond boundaries into a sexual relationship, but of course there were occasional misdemeanours and quelled scandals, such as the Headmaster of Harrow, Dr. Charles John Vaughan (1816-1897) having to resign on account of his over familiarity with a boy named Alfred Pretor (1840-1908) and the Eton Headmaster, Dr. Hornby having to dismiss his schoolmasters, William Johnson Cory (1823-92), the poet of ‘Ionica’ and Oscar Browning (1833-1923), affairs which are still shrouded in some mystery.

But Oxford must have bored Dowson for he throws the opportunity of a University education and a degree away, to the astonishment of his friends; he decided against a life as a scholar and chose passionately the life of a poet. He stayed only five terms at Oxford and left in March 1888. Ernest returns home and assists with the work at the dry dock which his father owns in Limehouse; maybe he felt compelled in his family duty to his father and the business as it was not doing so well by all accounts. But this too bores him although he tries to show enthusiasm he is consumed by his literary interests such as his membership of ‘The Rhymer’s Club’, a literary group that met at ‘Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese’ in London off Fleet Street to read and discuss their poetry; Ernest never read his own poetry to fellow Rhymer’s which includes W. B. Yeats, Lionel Johnson, Ernest Rhys, John Gray and Richard Le Galliene, (Dowson also mentions John Evelyn Barlas of New College, Oxford with whom he had become acquainted but Barford doesn’t appear to stay long with the Rhymers; Dowson fell for his anarchistic glamour, something the other members quickly tired of) – six of Dowson’s poems appeared in the first anthology, ‘The Book of the Rhymer’s Club’ (1892) and work appeared in the final anthology ‘The Second Book of the Rhymer’s Club’ in 1894 and Dowson was also sending work to ‘The Yellow Book’, ‘The Savoy’ and Herbert Horne’s ‘The Century Guild Hobby Horse’. It was through the Rhymer’s Club that he met his lifelong friend Victor Plarr, who met Dowson through a mutual friend, Charles Edward Sayle who extolled Dowson’s poetry to Victor and they met at Sayle’s rooms at Gray’s Inn and became firm friends immediately. After this Dowson was a regular at Plarr’s rooms in Great Russell Street, on many occasion shouting his name outside and seeking a bed – he often chose to sleep in the arm-chair or on the floor! Plarr goes on to say that Dowson ‘played billiards punctually at six o’clock every evening and smoked rather vile Vevey cigars! (p. 17)

In the 1891 census we find Ernest’s father, Alfred Dowson, age 48, a ‘dry dock proprietor’, Annie C, 42 and Roland C, 14 are listed together with a general servant named Elizabeth Ward, aged 17 from Essex; Ernest Christopher Dowson was away visiting his friend Victor Plarr and his family at Hadrow Road, Tunbridge, Kent: Ernest is 23 and lists himself as a ‘dock master’; the head of the household is Gustave Plarr, 71 from Germany, his wife, Mary Jane Plarr, 69 from London and their son Victor G Plarr, a 27 year old librarian, born in Germany; with them is a 21 year old servant named Emma A. Brooker, from Kent.

‘From the time he became a man, his career is the story of a descent, physical and perhaps moral, which gained catastrophic tempo at the end’.

(‘A Study in Yellow’. Katherine Lyon Mix. 1960. p. 120)

Like many of the poets of the period, such as Wilde, Beardsley and Lionel Johnson, Dowson became interested in Roman Catholicism and he was received into the church on 25^th September 1891. Victor  Plarr (1863-1929) suggests that his conversion was not the happy experience he had hoped for: ‘He came to me rather excitedly, and yet shook hands with weak indecision. His hesitating hand-shake, alas! always betrayed a sorrowful fatigue.

“I have been admitted,” he said, but he seemed disappointed, for the heavens had not fallen, nor had a sign been vouchsafed.’ (Ernest Dowson, 1888-1897. Plarr. 1914. p. 30) There is also a suggestion from reading various biographies that Dowson became Catholic because of Adelaide and her Polish-Catholic world in Soho in an attempt to get closer to her through a spiritual connection. Plarr is reluctant to say much on his relationship with Adelaide but he does say that Dowson’s ‘love-affair was, it struck me from the first, a matter of imagination, or of common form, which ended by being a torture.’ (p. 50)

Bridge Dock. Limehouse.

May 19 1892

‘It is ages since I have managed to go to one [meeting of the Rhymer’s Club]; as a rule now I am too chronically irritated to go anywhere, except at rare, precarious intervals when there happens to be nowhere to go, and nothing to do. I am making rhymes in the meantime and trying to write a short story.’

(Letter to Plarr from Dowson, quoted in ‘Ernest Dowson, 1888-1897. Reminiscences. p. 61)

‘A Comedy of Masks’ a novel by Dowson in collaboration with his friend Arthur Moore was published in 1893 (the other novel they wrote together, ‘Adrian Rome’ is published in 1899). He heard the French poet Paul Verlaine speak at Barnard’s Inn, Holborn on 21^st November 1893 and less than twelve months later Dowson’s consumptive father died on 15^th August 1894 from an overdose of ‘chloral hydrate’. Dowson’s mother, Annie Chalmers Dowson who was also consumptive, hung herself in February 1895.

Annie, was one of seven children born to Robert Dalgleish Swan, born 1813 in Hythe, Kent, (he died in Camberwell on 15^th January 1864 aged 51 and was buried on 21^st January at Lambeth) and Isabella Stuart Swan, born 1820 in Dominica, West Indies; the other children are: Alex Nairne Swan (1845-1898) born in Ceylon, Alice Mary Swan (1847-1886) born in Ceylon, Ellen Swan, born in Ceylon in 1851, Robert Dalgleish Swan, born in Hythe, Kent in 1852, Ada Swan, born in Bath, Somerset in 1856 and Ethel Stuart Swan, born in Ceylon in 1862.

Shortly after Annie’s suicide, Ernest’s brother, Rowland leaves and moves to Canada leaving Ernest alone. Oscar Wilde is arrested on 6^th April 1895 and Dowson and his friend Robert Sherard attend the trial on 25^th May. During the summer, the forlorn and miserable poet who has been drinking to forget his sorrows and is afraid that Adelaide is slipping from him and into the arms of Augustus, the waiter at the restaurant, comes to a momentous decision –

‘You would have understood me, had you waited;

I could have loved you, dear! as well as he’

He decides to go away to France and so he leaves his rooms at 6 Featherstone Buildings, High Holborn and heads overseas with the notion of eking out a living writing translations for the publisher Leonard Smithers; in June he is in Dieppe, he travels to Bruges and visits Ypres; Dowson  is with his friend Norreys Connel, the pseudonym of the Irish dramatist and novelist, Conal Holmes O’Connell O’Riordan (1874-1948) and the two authors stay at 214 Rue St. Jacques in Paris, (Norreys Connel dedicates his novel ‘A Fool and His Heart’ of 1896 to Dowson with whom he travelled through Flanders in October 1895, a ‘sorrowful journey’ he calls it as Dowson was under a dark depression due to Adelaide’s rejection; in November he has several meetings with Verlaine. Winter in Paris was a dim prospect! His book ‘Dilemmas’ is published in 1895 and at Easter 1896, the year his volume of poetry ‘Verses’ is published, he goes to Brittany and stays at Pont-Aven at the Hotel Gloanec; Gertrude Atherton has some splendid things to say on Dowson during this period in her book ‘The Adventures of a Novelist’ (1932), describing him as a ‘small man with nothing of youth in his bearing. He wore a black sweater, he was unshaven, his hair was long and dusty, his eyes were green, his lips looked like a smudge of red sealing wax and he had no front teeth.’ (p. 252) Atherton, after much persuasion from her friend, the author Horace Annesley Vachell, who befriended Dowson, attempts to ‘reform’ the poet and keep him from the drink which was killing him physically and artistically – ‘he [Dowson] was in dire disgrace, for it was only a month since he had got very drunk one night, leaped through the window of a baker’s house, and demanded the wife of that pious citizen. He had been haled off to prison by the indignant husband, and condemned to spend two weeks in a cell.’ (p. 251) Vachell paints a sad picture of the poet, who is ‘naturally shy, and just now in the depths. He slinks about the hotel with his eyes down, avoiding every one, and I had to pursue him before I could get him even to speak to me.’ (p. 251) Atherton has much more to say concerning poor Dowson at this time and it’s worth reading.

Dowson writes to Victor Parr that Adelaide ‘writes to me fairly often, friendly letters which give me sleepless nights and cause me to shed morbid and puerile tears. But she is very kind.’ (Dowson to Plarr. May 1896, quoted in ‘Ernest Dowson, 1888-1897, Reminiscences’. Plarr. 1914. p. 115-117) Dowson stays some months at Pont-Aven during 1896 and his friend Arthur Moore joined him for two weeks in August before returning to London – he has been away almost two years and at times been close to suicide – little did he know that he had also completely lost his ‘Missie’!

Upon his return to London Ernest discovers the truth about Adelaide and Augustus the waiter and he is devastated. The poet becomes disturbed and changed by the loss of his great love and Victor Plarr describes a final visit from the dejected poet to his home in July 1897 where he ‘dined and stayed the night. Hardly a word could be drawn from him. He seemed frozen to stone. It was dreadful.’ (‘Ernest Dowson, 1888-1897, Reminiscences’. Plarr. 1914. p. 111) The next morning, Victor left Dowson in his book-room while he went to work at the library; he returned home about four o’clock to find he ‘had smoked innumerable cigarettes: they lay all around him in saucers and trays. And with dreaming eyes he was viewing my little child, who stood in front of him and seemed puzzled by his demeanour. He appeared to be looking through her, while she gazed at him. It was the child whose birth he had hymned.’ (Plarr. p. 112) The child is of course Marion Plarr who is five years old at the time (she later wrote the novel ‘Cynara: The Story of Ernest and Adelaide’ in 1933) and the ‘hymn’ is Dowson’s poem – ‘On the Birth of a Friend’s Child’ which begins:

‘Mark the day white, on which the Fates have smiled:

Eugenio and Egeria have a child.’

Dowson asks his friend Arthur Moore to attend Adelaide’s wedding in September and following this Ernest returns to France, staying at Arques-la-Bataille before going to Paris in October, but he is beyond salvation!

‘I had pondered on a rune of roses’

(‘Sapienta Lunae’)

                                                       

CYNARA AND THE OLD PASSION

The 23 year old Dowson first met the young 11 year old Ellen Adelaide Foltinowicz who would be known to Dowson as ‘Missie’ serving at her father’s restaurant at 19, Sherwood Street, Soho, around the end of October or the beginning of November 1889 and he became infatuated with her. Rupert Croft-Cooke, who is less than flattering about Dowson in his ‘Feasting with Panthers’ (1968) presents on the one hand a shy and fumbling poet who lacks the confidence to open his heart to ‘Missie’ and on the other hand an almost predatory seducer of young girls, who ‘watched her movements as she flashed about between the tables and listened to her pert slightly un-English speech. (p. 241) Whether Adelaide was beautiful or not, something about her attracted the attention of the young Dowson and I believe it was her simple innocence, her vivacious and vibrant youthful energy, pure and as yet unadulterated. William Rothenstein describes Adelaide in his ‘Men and Memories’ (1931) as a ‘decent, rather plain, commonplace girl, a Dulcinea in fact, quite unable to understand Dowson’s adoration, his morbid moods or his poetry. Dowson had a beautiful nature, too tender for the rough-and-tumble of the market place, and he punished and lacerated himself, as it were, through excess.’ (p. 237-8)

Almost every night Dowson could be seen at ‘Poland’, the restaurant where he would have his meal and shy glances towards Adelaide; in time, they came to enjoy each others company and most nights would end in a game of cards with ‘Missie’ before Dowson went in search of ‘madder music and stronger wine’.

Adelaide was born in 1878. Her Polish father Joseph (Josef) Foltinowicz, a tailor by profession who became a restaurant proprietor was born in 1850; Josef and Adelhaide Wagner were married between April-June 1877 in Westminster.

Her father Joseph Foltinowicz who had become fond of the young poet and his tenderness towards his daughter, became ill in 1893 and Dowson in a fit of passion while Adelaide was sick with worry for her father, proposed to the 15 year old Adelaide, in fact, according to a letter from Dowson to his friend Sam Smith, it was a couple of days before her fifteenth birthday, but she declined saying she was too young. The rejection, along with the following suicides of Ernest’s parents would prove too much for him to recover from. Adelaide’s father, Joseph died on 24^th April 1893 aged 43.Dowson felt less welcome at the restaurant following Joseph’s death as Adelaide’s mother saw no good in the strange young man: what prospects did the bohemian-looking man who had left Oxford without a degree and who sat scribbling in a corner of the restaurant and made romantic gestures towards her daughter have?

While Dowson became depressed and solitary, shutting himself off from those around him and fleeing London, the scene of so many haunting episodes, Adelaide fell in love with Carl Frederick Augustus Noelte, a German man ten years her senior (born 1869) who waited on tables in her father’s restaurant and following Joseph’s death took on more responsibility; one can almost see Madame Foltinowicz encouraging this positive move forwards and facilitating the romance between Adelaide and Augustus who later returned to his earlier profession as a tailor – Adelaide and Augustus were married on the morning of 26^th September 1897 at the Bavarian Chapel, Golden Square. (The couple lived at 30 Comeragh Road near Hammersmith). Dowson did not attend the ceremony, his friend Arthur Moore took Ernest’s present and one can only imagine the intense feelings for Adelaide which were dashed, the regret and the jealousy which surely he must have suffered and kept to himself, and for some time he had watched the girl become a woman and lose something of the initial innocence that first attracted him –

‘I watched the glory of her childhood change,

Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew,

(Loved long ago in lily-time)

Become a maid, mysterious and strange,

With fair, pure eyes – dear eyes, but not the eyes

I knew

Of old, in the olden time.’

(‘Growth’. Verses. 1896. Ernest Dowson)

Croft-Cooke seems to echo this thought in his ‘Feasting with Panthers’, saying that at first Dowson was ‘amused and enchanted by Adelaide, who was a pretty little dark thing, he found in two years during which he rarely missed an evening in the restaurant he called “Poland”, that she was rapidly growing physically mature and the kind of poetic child-worship he had been giving her had to change with her development.’ (p. 242)

LOVE’S AFTERMATH

‘I doubt if Dowson wanted to live; he was consumed by a weary hopelessness, and he drank, I thought, to be rid of an aspect of life too forlorn to be faced.’

(‘Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothenstein. 1931. p. 237)

Ernest Rhys who knew Dowson from the Rhymer’s Club days tells us in his excellent volume, ‘Everyman Remembers’ (1931) that his ‘last glimpse of Dowson was on the steps of that rendezvous of scribes, the British Museum. He looked three shades further gone in ill health; his clothes were dusty, and a small red stain of blood on his collar emphasized the pallor of his face. Within a month or two more he was dead, and one of the Rhymers, Arthur Symons, was, I believe, his last visitor.’ (p. 222)

Dowson, who had been living in lodgings on Euston Road, died of consumption, aged 32 on the morning of Friday 23^rd February 1900 at the home of his friend Robert Harborough Sherard (1861-1943) who had found him drunk and penniless and nursed him for the last six weeks of his life at 26 Sandhurst Gardens, Catford, London. He was buried on 27^th February in the Roman Catholic part of the Lewisham Cemetery.

‘Love’s aftermath! I think the time is now

That we must gather on, alone, apart

The saddest crop of all the crops that grow,

Love’s aftermath.’

(‘Beyond’. Decorations. 1899. Ernest Dowson)

Adelaide’s mother, Adelaide Foltinowicz (born Adelhaide Wagner in 1839) died on 9^th October 1900, aged 61 and Adelaide and her husband moved back to 19 Sherwood Street.

Adelaide and Augustus had the following children:

Bertha Noelte, born 30^th June 1898 (she married a man named Stickney; Bertha Stickney, widow aged 50, died 18^th September 1948 at Gold Bridge, Canada), Amelia Adelaide Noelte, born 1900 and Catherine Noelte, born 1903 (she married the 38 year old Swede Oscar Johnson, on 5^th December 1931).

Adelaide and Augustus have been married three-and-a-half years by the time the 1901 Census is taken on 31^st March and the Noelte’s, Augustus 32, ‘journeyman tailor’, Adelaide 22, Bertha 2 and Amelia 0, have two servants: Emily Ward, a 16 year old housemaid from Fulham and Louisa Ward, a 14 year old domestic nurse; also at the address is a German visitor, George Mertl aged 30, a waiter by profession.

A TRAGIC END

Ellen Adelaide Noelte died on 13^th December 1903, aged 25 of septicaemia due to an abortion in June 1903. The woman who performed the abortion, a German named Bertha Baudach, of 2 Euston Square, was arrested in January 1904 and charged with her manslaughter in March 1904 and sentenced to 7 years imprisonment; Bertha had a long history of carrying out abortions and had even previously served time for it. According to the 1891 census, 40 year old Bertha, who states her profession as ‘midwife’, was born in Germany in 1851; she is living in Balls Pond Road, Islington with her husband, Herman Baudach, a hairdresser born in Germany in 1852 and their two children: Roland aged 12 and Martha aged 9.

Augustus possibly re-married between July-Sept 1907 in Westminster to Lilian Florence W. Martin and another possibility is that on 19^th March 1912, he immigrated to the United States travelling to Ellis Island, New York from Hamburg on the Graf Waldersee with his brother Gustav Noelte and a friend named Mand Calker; Auguste is a widow aged 44 who has been residing in Leipzig, Germany, but I cannot fully confirm either possibility.

In conclusion we can say that much of Dowson’s infatuation with Adelaide was really one-sided and I can see nothing sinister in the relationship but as a result of that unrequited love we have some great masterpieces of English love poetry. Frank Harris (1855-1931), who proved his literary unreliability in recording the ‘truth’ with his volumes of autobiography and exaggerating his own importance in his friendship with Oscar Wilde which casts doubt on the validity of every word he has written, wrote a sketch of Dowson for his ‘Contemporary Portraits’ (Second Series. 1919) and for once (except for mistaking Adelaide for being French) hits the nail on the head, saying that ‘after a couple of years courtship, - talks at lunch, games of cards after dinner, a kiss or two, friendly on one side and passionate on the other, the illusion of love returned, - she married a waiter, and Dowson could never recover his fragile hold on life and hope.’ (p. 70)

‘The world forsaken,

And out of mind

Honour and labour,

We shall not find

The stars unkind.’

(‘Beata Solitudo’ for Sam Smith. Verses. Ernest Dowson. 1896)

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS CONSULTED:

Verses. Ernest Dowson. 1896.

The Pierrot of the Minute. Ernest Dowson. 1897.

Decorations. Ernest Dowson. 1899.

Madder Music, Stronger Wine. Jad Adams. 2000.

Three Poets of the Rhymer’s Club. Derek Stanford. 1974.

Ernest Dowson. Mark Longaker. 1945.

Ernest Dowson: The Swan of Lee. Laurence Dakin. 1972.

The Poems of Ernest Dowson. With a Memoir by Arthur Symons. 1906.

Ernest Dowson, 1888-1897, Reminiscences, Unpublished Letters and Marginalia. Victor Plarr (with bibliography compiled by H G Harrison). 1914.

The Book of the Rhymer’s Club. 1892.

The Second Book of the Rhymer’s Club. 1894.

The Men of the Nineties. Bernard Muddiman. 1921.

Men and Memories: Recollections of William Rothenstein (1872-1900). 1931.

A Study in Yellow: The Yellow Book and its Contributors. Katherine Lyon Mix. 1960.

Contemporary Portraits, Second Edition. Frank Harris. 1919.

The Adventures of a Novelist. Gertrude Atherton. 1932.

Feasting with Panthers: A New Consideration of some Late Victorian Writers. Rupert Croft-Cooke. 1968.

Everyman Remembers. Ernest Rhys. 1931.

ERNEST RANDOLPH REYNOLDS

THE ABINGTON ORCHID

ERNEST RANDOLPH REYNOLDS

Ph.D. (Cantab.), B.A. (Lond.)

(1910-1987)

‘Porcelain is perhaps the most entrancing of all the branches of the Antique Tree.’

[‘Guide to European Antiques’. Chapter 2: I, Introduction.

Ernest R. Reynolds. 1963 (U.S. edition. 1964. p. 41)]

Ernest Randolph Reynolds has become a forgotten author, a dusty curio, especially here in his home-town of Northampton where he should be remembered with deep gratitude and affection for he had such love for the town which can be seen by anyone reading his ‘Northampton’ series of books. Scholar, actor, poet, playwright and collector, there seemed no end to his talents, interests and enthusiasms and his humble home at number 43 Wantage Road, in Abington, Northampton, a house on the perimeter of the county cricket ground, has long stood without recognition; one would not know he lived there most of his life until his death in 1987, for there is nothing to honour his presence there. Just an ordinary, Victorian terrace house, originally three bedrooms, front parlour and back room with a coal cellar; one would easily pass it by not knowing what local distinguished person occupied it and who called it ‘home’ and appreciated its architectural features: ‘even the cheapest Victorian terrace houses often contain elaborate front-room fireplaces and a little plaster moulding in the entrance passage or carved stonework outside.’ [‘Guide to European Antiques’. Victoriana: IV, Furniture, Miscellaneous Trifles. Reynolds. 1963 (U.S. edition. 1964. p. 92-93)] In fact, reading his excellent volume on ‘European Antiques’ one is shown many illustrations of his collectibles and if one looks carefully at the photographs in many the wallpaper is consistently the same and it is my belief that these photographs of his collection were taken at his home at 43 Wantage Road.

Ernest Randolph Reynolds was born on 13^th September 1910 in Northampton and he was christened on 23^rd October of that year.

I.

The Census for 1911 (notoriously inaccurate for its dates of birth and places of birth) shows the Reynolds family are at 43 Wantage Road, Abington, Northampton: Head of the household is Alfred Reynolds, 31 (born 1880, Northampton) whose occupation is shown as ‘clicker’ (1); Alfred’s wife, Fanny Reynolds (nee Roddis), 26 (born 1885, Bucks Stoke Stratford) (2); there is an eight year old son, Alfred Thomas Reynolds, (born 1902, Northampton and christened on 8^th July 1902 in Abington), Ernest, not yet one year old, born Northampton and a boarder, Jessie Warren, 47 (born 1864, Northampton) living on ‘private means’.

Ernest’s father, Alfred married Fanny Roddis (actually born 1884, Stony Stratford, Northamptonshire) in the spring of 1902 in Northampton. According to the 1901 Census taken on 31^st March, Fanny was living with her family in Abington, Northampton; she is 17 and works as a ‘Gold Stamper’. She lives with her father: Thomas Roddis, 48, born 1853, Thrapston, Northamptonshire who is a ‘Jobbing Gardener’; her mother: Mary, 45, born 1856, Newnham, Northamptonshire; sister: Helen, 24, born 1877, Duston, Northamptonshire who is a ‘Boot Trimmer’ (3) and sister Annie, 22, born 1879, Duston, Northamptonshire who is a ‘Boot Machinist’ (4).

II.

Ernest attended the Northampton Town and County Grammar School, Billing Road, from 1921-1928 and taught at Stimpson Avenue School, Abington, Northampton from 1927-1928. On 1^st October 1929 Reynolds applied to the University of Nottingham for a one year course of study: 1929-1930: Intermediate B.A. Oxford Senior Locals – English. While at Nottingham University he wrote his first published poem, ‘Tristram and Iseult’, published in 1930. In the preface to the poem, Reynolds calls it ‘pictorial poetry’ and goes on to say that ‘what respect I have preserved for the sequence of events is largely drawn from Wagnerian treatment of the legend’. (‘Tristram and Iseult’. Preface. p. iii. Nottingham. 1930) The poem is divided into four parts: ‘The Prelude’, ‘The Love Dawn’, ‘Red Poppies’ and Liebestod’ which are each divided into eight line stanzas (sixty-five stanzas in total) each describing in flower and gem imagery, particular scenes from the story; each part is preceded by a short passage in French from ‘Tristan’ by Beroul. The main themes of the volume are the slaying of Marhault, the love potion which brings Tristram and Iseult together, the love affair between them and Tristram’s death. The poem was awarded the Kirke White Prize for poetry from Nottingham University for the year 1929-30.

III.

Reynolds was an authority on several subjects including theatre history and his ‘Early Victorian Drama: 1830-1870’ published in 1936 is a brilliant introduction and analysis of the Theatre and its various styles of the Victorian period: ‘in the age of Shakespeare the current philosophy was really of a pagan kind.’ (p. 4) Reynolds was also a sometime actor with the Northampton Repertory Players (in 1976 Reynolds published his twenty-page, ‘Northampton Repertory Theatre’ which was commissioned by the Players to mark their Golden Jubilee: 1927-1977). His expertise in theatre study made Reynolds an excellent critic and historian of the dramatic arts (his articles were often published in ‘The Stage’ such as Reynolds’ piece ‘Twenty-Five Years of Repertory at Northampton’ which appeared in ‘The Stage’ on Thursday 17 July 1952) and his keen impressions of the modern stage built on the foundations of the early Victorians, are often quite enlightening: ‘it is interesting to trace the influence of the new dance-dramas of Yeats on the similar experiments of Terence Gray… and the subsequent great revival of ballet in England… And if modern ballet could somehow link itself with poetry again and re-establish the partnership of dance-drama on a large scale, then the pioneer ideas of Yeats would indeed have a splendid apotheosis on the modern stage.’ [‘Modern English Drama: A Survey of the Theatre from 1900-1950’. Reynolds. 1949. p. 53-4] Yet he was aware that the theatre did not have the same power as literature when it came to society ‘the building of Utopias has to be left to the novelist and the romantic poet.’ (‘Early Victorian Drama: 1830-1870. Reynolds. 1936. p. 4)

IV.

Reynolds was also a great authority on porcelain and collecting antiques – the ‘term ‘porcelain’ has been very loosely used in the past and applied to many types of paste which are not porcelain in the true sense at all.’ [‘Collecting Victorian Porcelain’. Preface. Reynolds.1966 (1968 edition. p. 13)] He spent his whole life learning and memorising various pottery marks (the Chinese marks he found difficult to remember) and he was under no illusion as to the difficulty of becoming proficient: ‘the neophyte who embarks on the great Ceramic Pilgrimage must certainly be prepared for some hard study’. [‘Guide to European Antiques’. Chapter 2: I, Introduction. Reynolds.1963 (U.S. edition. 1964. p. 42)]

V.

Apart from porcelain and antiques his knowledge also encompassed many forms of the world of art including painting and furniture along with some knowledge of architecture: ‘anyone who looks without prejudice at, say, Millais’ famous picture of the drowned Ophelia, or at some of the charming Tudor-style country railway stations along many English branch lines, or at a fine pair of Victorian Minton or Copeland vases, will have to admit that they have a strong character of their own. The models of the past have merely acted as a spur to the artists, not as a stranglehold crushing liveliness or adaptability to the needs of a fresh age.’ [‘Collecting Victorian Porcelain’. Introduction. Reynolds.1966 (1968 edition. p. 20)]

VI.

Reynolds made some excellent antique purchases in his time, many of which are mentioned in his ‘Collecting Victorian Porcelain’ (1966) and his ‘Guide to European Antiques’ (1963); in the latter he mentions a Fuseli painting of 1792 which was one of ‘three large Shakespearean scenes’ – ‘the other two are a delightfully vivacious Angelica Kauffmann work – the last scene of The Two Gentlemen of Verona where the main characters are assembled in a wood, and an unsigned but very well done episode from the Comedy of Errors against a background of classical architecture’ (‘Guide to European Antiques’. Reynolds. 1963 (U.S. edition. 1964. p. 158) among others which are shown in photographs obviously taken at his home in Wantage Road, Abington, although he does say that ‘no one should want to turn his house into an uninhabitable museum where at every step his visitor knocks against a warming-pan, or curse under their breath as they bump into the seventeenth or eighteenth china cabinet.’ [‘Guide to European Antiques’. Preface. Reynolds.1963 (U.S. edition. 1964. p. 10)]

VII.

In the 1939 Register Ernest, his father Alfred and mother Fanny are at 43 Wantage Road, Abington, Northampton. Between 1940 and 1944, Reynolds was in Baghdad and Lisbon as a British Council Lecturer before returning to England to lecture on English at the University of Birmingham, from 1946-1955. In 1941, probably while abroad, he began writing his ‘fantastic symphony in seven movements’, a long poem in seventeen sections: ‘Mephistopheles and the Golden Apples’ which was published two years later in 1943. In the poem, Mephistopheles tempts Guntram, a don, with the promise of unlimited knowledge; Mephistopheles and Guntram go to Tintagel in section six where they are welcomed by Merlin; in the next section we meet Galahad, Lavaine and Bedivere who each speak in turn. In section nine the story of Tristram and Iseult is sang by the siren and in section twelve several other Arthurian references are mentioned by the ghost of Dante Gabriel Rossetti!

During September 1952, his play ‘Candlemas Night’, a ‘fantastic comedy’ was performed at London’s Royal Court Theatre. The play shows the attempts of Miss Spanheim (Lucifer’s minister in Oxford) in her seduction of three Oxford dons – Dr. Tancred, Dr. Osmund and Dr. Adamastor. The dons are shown how to use cards to conjure the Goddess of Wisdom, the Queen of Spades (Pallas Athene) with the intention of imprisoning her; but she is too clever for them and strikes them dumb. The don’s wives: Sigismunda Tancred, Agatha Osmund and Ines Adamastor try to conjure the Queen of Spades to plead with her for their husbands’ voices to return but they do the conjuration wrong and evoke instead the Knave of Diamonds (Hector of Troy). The play was transformed into a ‘radio play’ for the B.B.C. and on Monday 26 December 1955, on the Third Programme at3 p.m. there was a radio performance of ‘Candlemas Night’. The music is by the composer Malcolm Arnold, conducted by Lionel Salter, and the play was produced by Frederick Bradnum. The radio play is performed again on Friday 30 December 1955 (The Third Programme, 8.55 p.m.) and there is a repeat performance on the Third Programme on 26 February 1956.

VIII.

IX.

X.

Dr. Ernest Reynolds gets a mention on p. 179 of Lou Warwick’s 1960 publication ‘Death of the Theatre: A History of the New Theatre, Northampton’ and in October 1964 an article on Reynolds appeared in the ‘Northampton Independent’: ‘Ernest Reynolds: Strange Facts’ by the journalist Ian Mayes (Northampton Independent. October. 1964. p. 57).

XI.

XII.

In the Summer of 1987 Ernest Randolph Reynolds died. He was still living at 43 Wantage Road, Abington, Northampton. According to Anthony Meredith in his book ‘A-Z of Northampton: Places-People-History’ (2017) Reynolds, in his later years, ‘rarely strayed from his home, an ‘Aladdin’s Cave’. Weeks later the house was broken into and his valuable china figurines, porcelain and priceless antiques were stolen. From reading his published works on porcelain and antiques we know some of the exquisite items he owned, such as the three Victorian Worcester plates (1862-70), a Crown Staffordshire hexagonal vase, a Coalport Rose Pompadour plate, a set of Booth’s ‘scale-blue and exotic birds’, a walnut veneered arch-dial long-case clock (circa 1720’s), a ‘patch period’ Derby plate, a French Ormolu clock (circa 1830), a French silver-plated coffee pot and of course the Fuseli painting of 1792, to name a few items of his precious collection. If the thieves were in possession of his volume the ‘Guide to European Antiques’ they would have a quite accurate inventory of his valuable pieces! He was a man who adored beauty and had a distinct appreciation for aesthetic and charming pieces of art: ‘hideous things were undoubtedly produced (is the present age, however, in any position to cast stones in that direction?)’ [‘Collecting Victorian Porcelain’. Introduction. Reynolds.1966 (1968 edition. p. 24)]

Perhaps some day he shall receive the recognition he deserves!

Published works:

Tristram and Iseult. Nottingham. (1930) Winner of the Kirke White Poetry Prize 1929-30, Nottingham University.

Garin Le Loherain: A Poem. (1935)

Early Victorian Drama: 1830-1870. (1936)

Modern English Literature, 1798-1935, with the addition of three chapters by E. R. Reynolds. Alfred John Wyatt. (1936)

Mephistopheles and the Golden Apples: Fantastic Symphony in Verse. Cambridge. (1943) [written in 1941]

Ines de Castro: Verse-Drama in One Act. (1943)

King Sebastian: Verse-Drama in a Prologue and Three Episodes. Lisbon. (1944)

Pedro and Francisca: Verse-Drama in a Prologue and Four Episodes. Lisbon. (1944)

Vasco de Gama: Verse-Drama in Three Episodes. Lisbon. (1944)

Modern English Drama: Survey of the Theatre from 1900. (1949)

The Plain Man’s Guide to Antique Collecting. (1963)

Guide to European Antiques. (1964)

The Plain Man’s Guide to Opera. (1964)

Collecting Victorian Porcelain. (1966)

Northamptonshire Treasures. (1972)

Northampton Town Hall. (1974)

Northampton Repertory Theatre. (1976)

PHOTOGRAPHS taken from the ‘Guide to European Antiques’ by Ernest Reynolds, 1963 (all page numbers refer to U.S. edition. 1964) showing pieces from his collection and taken, I believe, at 43 Wantage Road, Abington, Northampton:

I.                   Blue and white Chinese Vase on carved wooden stand, decorated with birds and flowers. K’ang Hsi mark. Finely carved Chinese wooden figure of a sage. (between pages 32-33)

II.                Italian water-colour in gilt frame with black surround showing a seated woman, c. 1860. (Between pages 72-73)

III.             ‘Victorian Corner’ with a Majolica Jardinierre decorated in blue, yellow, green, pink and brown. Also notice Mr. Reynolds’ sofa, books and cushions! (between pages 72-73)

IV.             Eighteenth-century Long Case Clock, arch dial, walnut veneer with marquetry motif, elaborately chased cherubs and dolphin enrichments in arch and spandrels, c. 1720. (between pages 72-73)

V.                French eighteenth-century Silver-Plate Coffee Pot. Circular Silver alms-dish with lion-head and rococo-style chasing. (page 88)

VI.             Heavy carved oak seventeenth-century Firescreen with panel of crimson floral damask. (Bought at the Sotheby Sale, Ecton Hall, 1955). (Between pages 96-97)

VII.          Georgian Bowfronted Mahogany 5 ft. Sideboard, c. 1780. (Between pages 136-137)

VIII.       Rare Mahogany Patience Table, c. 1780; Silver Tea Pot, hall marked 1787; Oval Satinwood Tea Caddy, c. 1790; Regency Mahogany metal-mounted Chair, c. 1810; Sheraton Mahogany Self-Locking Cellarette, c. 1790; Silver carved Tankard by John Swift, hall marked 1775. (Between pages 136-137)

IX.             Hepplewhite Mahogany Dining Chairs in their original leather, c. 1780. (Between pages 136-147)

X.                Four Chairs: (left to right): Country-Sheraton Fruitwood Chair, c. 1780; Early nineteenth-century solid Yew-wood Carved Chair, c. 1830; Chippendale Mahogany Chair, c. 1755; Late Georgian Mahogany Chair, c. 1810. (Between pages 136-137)

XI.             Pair of Prints in Black and Gilt frames with the legends ‘I Vanderbank pinxt. 1729’ and ‘G. Kneller pinxt. 1735’ (sold by I. Faber at Ye Golden Head in Bloomsbury Square). (Between pages 152-153)

XII.          ‘The Division of Lear’s Kingdom’ (King Lear, Act 1) by Henri Fuseli. (Between pages 152-153)

NOTES:

1.      Alfred Reynolds was born in Northampton in 1878 (and probably died there in 1942); he is recorded on the 1881 Census as a two year old ‘scholar’ living at Inkerman Terrace in Northampton. In the 1891 Census the Reynolds family are living at Margaret Street, Northampton and the family members are as follows: William Henry Reynolds, aged 42 (born 1849, Daventry, Northampton); his occupation is ‘shoe maker’; Harriet Reynolds, wife of William, aged 42 (born Birmingham, Warwickshire); their children: Henry, 22, shoe maker; Emily, 20, shoe hand; William, 18, born Yorkshire, shoe maker; David, 16, born ‘England’, solicitor’s clerk; Alfred, 13, born Northampton, scholar; Alice, 10, born Northampton, scholar; Nellie, 8, born ‘England’; Fred, 6, born ‘England’ and Florrie, 3, born ‘England’. In the 1901 Census the Reynolds are still in Northampton: William Henry is 52 – ‘Boot Maker’, Harriet is 51, William is 28, (born ‘Leeds’) – ‘Clicker Boot Trade’, David, 26 – Solicitor’s Clerk, Alfred, 22 – ‘Clicker Shoe Trade’, Fred, 16 – Ledger Clerk, Alice, 20 – ‘Boot Machinist’, Nellie, 18 – ‘Boot Fitter’ and Florrie, 13 – ‘Cardboard Box Maker’. As we know Alfred married Fanny Roddis in 1902, but the Reynolds family are still in Northampton during the 1911 Census and William Henry, aged 63 gives his occupation as ‘Licensed Victualer’; Harriet is 63, Fred is 26 and single – ‘Clerk Bedding Company’; Nellie is 28 and single – ‘Machinist Boot Factory’; Florence, 23 and single – ‘Barmaid’; Edith Julia Reynolds, Granddaughter aged 12, born Northampton – ‘Scholar’ (actually: Julia Edith Reynolds, born 1899, Northampton, daughter of Henry Reynolds and Elizabeth Ann).

2.      The Roddis family can be seen on the 1881 Census living in Duston village, Northamptonshire. Fanny Roddis (who probably died in Brixworth, Northamptonshire in 1966) is not born until 1884 but her parents and elder siblings are as shown: Thomas Roddis (father) aged 28, born 1853, Thrapston, Northamptonshire, occupation: ‘Gardener and Domestic Servant’; Mary Roddis (mother) aged 25, born 1856, Newnham, Northamptonshire; Mary Helen Roddis (sister) aged 4, born 1877, Duston, Northamptonshire; Annie Elizabeth Roddis (sister) aged 2, born 1897, Duston, Northamptonshire; also at the address is Anthony J. Speight, a single lodger aged 24, born 1857, Kendle, Westmorland who is a schoolmaster.

3.      Helen, actually born Mary Helen Roddis, 1877, Duston, Northamptonshire. She married a Londoner named Thomas Edward Debnam in Northampton, 1904 and they lived in Duston. ‘Helen’ died in Northampton in 1973.

4.      Annie Elizabeth Roddis was born in 1897, Duston, Northamptonshire. She married Arthur Johnson in Northampton in 1902.

 

Some additional Newspaper Articles:

Ernest Reynolds gave a talk at Northampton’s County Hall on Thursday 27^th September 1951, titled – ‘Poetic Drama in England’. The talk was given before the Northampton Arts Association and in attendance was the Mayor (Councillor F. Lee) who is also a member of the Association. (Northampton Chronicle and Echo, Friday 28^th September 1951. p. 7)

Also during 1951, Reynolds’ two act, eight scene play ‘The Three Musketeers’ was performed at Northampton Repertory Theatre, premiered on  Easter Sunday 25^th March, which was a ‘triumphant Bank Holiday premiere in a packed theatre’; Reynolds also gave a ‘brilliant, modest curtain speech’ which ‘capped an evening of romance and adventure’. (Northampton Chronicle and Echo, Tuesday 21^st March 1951. p. 4)

Reynolds – Doctor Ernest Randolph of Abington Park, passed peacefully away at Northampton General Hospital on [Thursday] July 30^th, 1987, aged 76 years. Dear friend of Audrey and David Bloor. The funeral service will be held on Thursday August 6^th at the Church of St Peter and Paul, Abington 12.15 p.m. followed by interment in the churchyard.  Enquiries and floral tributes to Ann Bonham and Son, W. G. Ward, Funeral Directors, St Giles Street, Northampton. (Northampton Chronicle and Echo, Monday August 3^rd 1987. p. 2)

The Northampton Chronicle and Echo also published an article on Wednesday 5^th August 1987 (p. 4) saying that ‘Dr. Reynolds had a television play screened in Norway and he worked for the Mercury and Herald, and also the Chronicle and Echo in Northampton…’ it goes on to list some of Reynolds’ books published: ‘Early Victorian Drama (1936); Modern English Drama (1949), Mephistopheles and the Golden Apples (1943); The Plain Man’s Guide to Antique Collecting; to Opera and also Collecting Victorian Porcelain; Northamptonshire Treasures (1972) and Northampton Repertory Theatre (1976). Dr. Reynolds will be buried at the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the church in Abington Park, this Thursday at 12.15 p.m. His parents are buried there. Friends agreed that although Dr. Reynolds had many achievements, he was best known as a real character and a great wit.’

‘Tributes to Dr. Ernest Reynolds – poet, lecturer, playwright, journalist, traveller and great character of Northampton, have been pouring in since he died at the age of 76 last week.’ said the Northampton Chronicle and Echo’ (Wednesday 5^th August 1987, p. 4) which went on to say that ‘Among the plaudits was one from his friend Maurice Dunmore, classical music critic of the Chronicle and Echo, who described him: “one of the great local eccentrics. Indifferent to his personal appearance, he had a sharp and inquiring mind. Among his loves were Grand Opera and Gilbert and Sullivan. He would sing arias from the former, and tackle lyrics from the latter in the midst of Northampton shopping centre at the slightest provocation. He knew and loved the buildings of Northampton and could show you a new vantage point from which to see them.” Dr. Reynolds crammed a lot into his life. He was born on September 13^th, 1910, to parents Alfred and Fanny and although he travelled to improve his mind, he returned to Northampton after the First World War. Before returning he obtained a BA degree at London University in 1930 and a PhD at Cambridge in 1934 which made him a doctor of philosophy. He had served for the British Council abroad in Portugal and worked as the First Principle of King Faisal College, Baghdad. He also lectured in English at Birmingham University and won the Kirk White Poetry Prize from Nottingham University. Dr. Reynolds returned to Northampton where he lived in the Abington Park area but instead of settling down to a quiet academic’s life, he fought against bureaucrats he saw as intent on destroying historic buildings. He was the founder member of the Northampton Civic Society and helped save the Guildhall. He also fought against the destruction of the Emporium Arcade in the Market Square and the New Theatre in Abington Street. Dr. Reynolds never married. The great love of his life was opera and the theatre, and he was awarded a lifelong honorary ticket to theatre in Northampton in 1980.’

Finally, an article relating to the burglary at 43 Wantage Road in 1987 from the Northampton Chronicle and Echo (Friday 4^th September 1987. p. 1): ‘Fortune in Antiques Stolen. Callous thieves have ransacked the home of eccentric recluse Dr. Ernest Reynolds – just weeks after his death. Three men posing as furniture removers calmly stole a fortune in antiques from the empty house in Wantage Road, Northampton, while trusting neighbours looked on. They escaped with a priceless haul of china, figures, clocks and rugs – just some of the collectors’ items which crammed the 76-year old doctor’s home. “It was a real Aladdin’s cave worth of antiques,” said police spokeswoman Pat Percival. “The thieves seemed to have known what was there and helped themselves to the most valuable items. The total value of the property is not known but it is thought to be many thousands of pounds.” The burglars struck last Thursday [27^th August] morning when they pulled-up outside the house in a Ford Luton removals van, it was revealed today. They told the neighbours they had been hired to clear the house and then steadily loaded the vehicle with a wealth of valuables. Dr. Reynolds died at the end of July. A lecturer, playwright and journalist, he loved poetry and opera and had been known to burst into Gilbert and Sullivan arias in the middle of Northampton town centre to the surprise of shoppers. He did not marry. It is believed his surviving relatives live in Sussex. The red and white removals van, registration number SKU 519S was found abandoned in Manfield Hospital on Wednesday [2^nd September] morning and was being examined by police forensics experts. Campbell Square CID are appealing for information from anyone who might have seen the three men – one elderly and the other two younger – or who might have been offered antiques from the haul.’

Locating the Grave of Ernest Randolph Reynolds:

I am grateful to the curate, Reverend Tracy Pegram of St. Peter & St. Paul Church, Abington for her assistance in the matter of finding the grave of Ernest Randolph Reynolds.

The plan below of the section of the churchyard of St. Peter & St. Paul, Abington, shows where the grave is located.

 

 

 

Entering the churchyard from Abington Park (north of the church) and facing the church doors.

 

You will see the Gunning Memorial on your left, the stone monument with a crucifix on top which commemorates all those who fought in the wars.

 

Continue along the path, past the memorials to various members of the Gammage family and in a short distance you will see a distinctive white war grave, its headstone with the RAF symbol surmounting a cross. This is the grave of Flight Sergeant R. L. [Ronald Lewis] York, pilot, Royal Air Force, who died 28^th March 1942, aged 22.

 

Behind the headstone of R. L. York is the headstone for Henry William Patrick and Lilian Emily Patrick. Directly behind the Patrick monument, is a tombstone (not upright, ‘Page’) and beyond that is a forlorn, unmarked grass plot. 

This grave is where Ernest Reynolds’ father, Alfred, came to first rest in 1942, aged 63, followed by his mother, Fanny Reynolds, who died in Brixworth in 1966, aged 82. Finally, the cremated ashes of Ernest Randolph Reynolds, author and notable scholar of Northampton, was interred in the grave on Thursday 6^th August 1987. It is sad that there is no monument to Reynolds and that he is not remembered today.

 

To further distinguish you are standing at the correct grave plot, you will see in front of you (with the Gunning memorial to your left) an empty space (the unmarked grave of ‘Andrews’) with the monument to ‘Senior’ on your left and ‘Hemmings’ on your right; set back between them is the ‘Warden’ monument.