Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  As a child Beatrix also enjoyed what she later referred to as ‘trash… goody-goody, powder-in-the-jam’ books. ‘I liked silly stories about other little girls’ doings,’ she remembered. Most of these were didactic stories, written by an older generation of women writers, that emphasized rationality over fantasy. She could hardly have avoided Anna Barbauld, a woman of the Unitarian persuasion, whose Little Stories for Little Children and Hymns in Prose for Children were still popular. Her books were noteworthy because of their small size, designed specifically for young children, an aspect which later became an important consideration in Potter’s concept of book design. Grandmother Potter had an edition of Sarah Trimmer’s History of the Robins, with woodcuts by Thomas Bewick, that Beatrix inherited. It was intended to instruct children in the humane treatment of animals and featured talking birds. Mrs Trimmer was an ardent Evangelical, who as editor of the Guardian of Education at the turn of the century continued Barbauld’s campaign against fairy tales. Beatrix had it as an early primer and later remembered hating its moralism, but had no objection to its anthropomorphism. At Gorse Hall, Grandmother Leech had a set of Miss Edgeworth’s Tales. She was especially fond of Edgeworth’s Simple Susan.25

  Although later in her life Beatrix remembered having only a few books, ‘Miss Edgeworth and Scott’s novels’, that memory, like her poverty of toys, is probably exaggerated, for her appetite for books was large, especially after she started reading for herself. When she had exhausted her own supply, she no doubt went in search of books in her father’s library. Her recollection of learning to read, however, was quite specific. ‘I learned to read on the Waverly [sic] novels,’ she recalled in 1929. ‘I was let loose on Rob Roy, and spelled through a few pages painfully; then I tried Ivanhoe — and the Talisman — then I tried Rob Roy again; all at once I began to READ (missing the long words, of course).’ Thanks to Nurse Mackenzie and her parents, this rich diet of art and literature contributed to a lifelong delight in rhythm, cadence, wordplay, humour, dialect and dialogue: all nourishment for her imagination and the creation of her own literary style.26

  In addition to providing the backdrop for Beatrix’s earliest drawing, reading and illustration, Scotland worked its magic on her artistic imagination by educating her eye and refining her perspective of nature. By the time the Potters began to spend their summers in Perthshire, Rupert was seriously engaged in his new hobby of photography. He had taken it up sometime before his marriage with some seriousness. The holidays in Scotland provided the settings of many of his earliest photographs and soon became a favoured subject for his art. As testament to the seriousness of his engagement with the camera, he was elected a member of the Photographic Society of London in 1869 and contributed photographs to its annual exhibitions as early as 1873. Rupert was not an innovator, but a solid practitioner.27

  Beatrix often went along with her father on his photography outings around Dalguise, happy for his attention. She enjoyed helping him, absorbing the rudiments of photography and composition. These summer outings began a father’s loving pictorial record of his daughter’s childhood, and she was certainly his most forbearing sitter. The ongoing relationship between photographer and subject bound them emotionally and intellectually as the years passed. There is no doubt that Rupert was the most important influence in his daughter’s life. Soon Beatrix also became a proficient photographer, using the camera in much the same way as her father, to record something she wished to draw later. She discovered for herself that the view through the camera’s lens provided a different way of seeing nature and of recording reality. It was a perspective that she incorporated almost unconsciously in her art and underscored her lifelong penchant for artistic realism.28

  In addition to their long summer holidays, there was the required annual evacuation of Bolton Gardens for several weeks each spring while the house was aired and cleaned from top to bottom. When the children were young and Edmund Potter was alive, they often went to Camfield in the spring, but as they grew older, their preference was to holiday at one of the south coast resorts in Devon, Cornwall or Hampshire.29

  In London, life was much more structured. Victorian homes like the Potters’ functioned on an unwavering schedule. There was a mind-numbing punctuality to the daily rituals of the household, beginning in the early morning and ending when the lamps were lit and the curtains closed at dusk. Rupert left the house, either for his chambers or to attend to business elsewhere in the city, at the same hour each day, and usually spent the afternoon at one of his clubs. He was frequently out of town, probably going to the Manchester area either on family or legal business. Helen directed the household staff, set the daily schedule, and was then driven out in the afternoons in the carriage to pay her social calls.

  Until she was about six, Beatrix was attended by Nurse Mackenzie. They took daily walks in Kensington Gardens. Sometimes these included ‘Sandy’, the brown Scotch terrier who had come from Dalguise who was Beatrix’s first, much-loved dog, or a Springer spaniel, ‘Spot’. The usual cutlet came up to the nursery at lunchtime along with a pudding; occasionally it was served on a china plate onto which Rupert had reproduced a bird he had copied from one of his many books of natural history.30

  Beatrix remembered being decked out in clothing that was ‘absurdly uncomfortable; white pique starched frocks just like Tenniel’s Alice… and cotton stockings striped round and round like a zebra’s legs’ and high-buttoned black boots which were much in the fashion then. Rupert’s photographs of her at about four years old show a very pretty child with thick, naturally wavy light-brown hair that fell to shoulder length and was kept back from her face by a hair ribbon, ‘black velvet on Sundays, and either black or brown’ on weekdays. It was ‘fastened with a bit of elastic looped over a button behind the ear’. The fastening hurt and frequently gave her a headache.31

  Beatrix recalled only two toys she ever cared about: ‘a dilapidated black wooden doll called Topsy’, probably named after the character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and ‘a grimy, hard-stuffed, once-white, flannelette pig’ which belonged to Grandmamma Potter and was kept in a locked drawer of her secretaire at Camfield. Beatrix entertained herself with resourcefulness and without apparent unhappiness. She was shy but not uncomfortable in the company of adults and on those occasions when she was invited downstairs she was a keen observer of character and social nuance.32

  After Walter Bertram, known as Bertie, was born in March 1872, Beatrix’s life became more lively. She was nearly six then and a loving sister from the outset. Although it would be some time before brother and sister became true companions, their mutual affection was assured. The new baby also meant that Beatrix had more time with her father. Rupert took a good-natured, caring interest in both his children. As he had with Beatrix, he went out of his way to write to the young Bertie about things that would interest him when he was away from home. Helen’s involvement with her young children is more difficult to characterize because we have less evidence of it, and much of that reflects her over-protectiveness and presages her later rigidity. Since her domain was the house and social schedule, Helen had little to do with her children’s early lives when the nurse was in charge. She sometimes felt imposed upon by Rupert’s rather impromptu schedule, and the stress of managing her household, which, in all fairness, was often in transition from one holiday place to another, depending on the season.33

  When Bertram was old enough to toddle about after his sister, Rupert and Helen were forced to tolerate a growing collection of animals and reptiles that the children brought back from their adventures, and to travel back and forth on holiday with them as part of the family retinue. They were certainly aware of these collections, indeed it would have been difficult to ignore them, even if the occasional species was smuggled up the back stairs. Nothing escaped the children’s artistic efforts, from wild flowers to the dead game that were returned after the day’s sport to Dalguise, and sentiment was not tolerated. Rabbits were caught, tamed, sketched, painted. Whe
n their animals died, they were boiled and their skeletons preserved. The bones were then articulated, measured, drawn, labelled, and preserved.34

  The third-floor nursery menagerie included, at various times, rabbits (Benjamin Bouncer and Peter), a green frog called Punch, several lizards, including Judy who was a special favourite, water newts, a tortoise, a frog, salamanders, many and different varieties of mice, a ring snake, several bats, a canary and a green budgerigar, a wild duck, a family of snails, several guinea pigs and later a hedgehog or two. Bertram’s tastes ran to the less domesticated: bats, a kestrel and a mean-tempered jay. Some treasures, like Sally, a snake, were store-bought, and some suffered inadvertent misfortune. ‘Sally and four black newts escaped overnight,’ Beatrix reported. ‘Caught one black newt in school room and another in larder, but nothing seen of poor Sally, who is probably sporting outside somewhere.’ Such domestic adventures required considerable patience on the part of the adults, and testify to their considerable indulgence.35

  The family’s strong identification with Unitarianism accounted for a certain social isolation. Although the Potters’ wealth qualified them as upper middle class, their regional background and religious affiliations excluded them from social acceptance among the more fashionable London society. Beatrix was probably alluding to this sense of exclusion when she commented that in London society the Millais family was in a ‘different light, we in none at all’.36

  Nonetheless the Potters seem to have had a comfortable, if narrow, circle of friends and associates that they entertained, and a steady stream of house guests and family. Certainly Rupert had social connections from his law practice and his clubs, and Helen went out almost daily to call upon Kensington friends, to leave her card, and to have tea. When the Potters entertained at Bolton Gardens, they appear to have done so in good style. Mr Cox, the butler, set a perfect table with ‘cocked hat table napkins, immaculate silver and precision of cutlery’.37

  Bolton Gardens was an enclave of prosperous professionals, businessmen and rising government officials. In the early years the Potters’ immediate neighbours at number 1 were Sir Louis Mallet and his family. Mallet was a free trade authority who later sponsored Rupert for the Athenaeum. On the other side, in number 3, was the noisy Herbert Saunders family. Saunders, who was later appointed Queen’s Counsel, and his wife had seven children below the age of 11, and six servants. The Saunderses were topics of comment because they had difficulty keeping their servants in line, and frequently held some sort of prayer meeting in their home. Curiously, Beatrix never gives any indication that there were young children living next door during a great part of her childhood, and clearly she was not encouraged by her parents to interact with them. When the Saunderses vacated number 3, the Honourable Mrs Henry Trench, a widow, and her unmarried daughter took their place.38

  The John Paget family lived across the Old Brompton Road, at 28 The Boltons, a slightly older enclave of prosperous families. Mrs Paget and her three daughters used the same milliner as Mrs Potter, and, apparently through the children who delivered hats to both houses, Beatrix got to know the Paget family. Beatrix reports borrowing ‘the sultan of Zanzibar’, one of the eldest Miss Paget’s ‘swarms’ of guinea pigs, to sketch in 1893 with disastrous results.

  This PIG… this wretched pig took to eating blotting paper, pasteboard, string and other curious substances, and expired in the night. I suspected something was wrong and intended to take it back. My feelings may be imagined when I found it extended a damp — very damp disagreeable body. Miss Paget proved peaceable, I gave her the drawing.39

  All three Paget daughters, however, including ‘Miss Nina’, about whom Beatrix writes with fondness, were between ten and twenty years older than she; women closer in age to her mother than to herself. Miss Rosalind was a certified midwife and nurse at London Hospital. She was one of the founders of the Royal College of Midwives in 1881. Beatrix describes her as ‘something of a ghoul’ in her enthusiastic preparation for a cholera epidemic in 1893 that never materialized, but she clearly admired her dedication.40

  Mr Paget was a barrister of distinction who had acted as secretary to several Lord Chancellors, and had subsequently served as a magistrate in police courts, including that for West London. Paget and his family socialized with some of the most distinguished men in science and medicine. One frequent guest was Sir William Flower, who had begun his career in medicine, but was in the 1880s and 1890s the distinguished Director of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington. William Rathbone was also a frequent guest and a distant relative. Rathbone, a Unitarian philanthropist from Liverpool, had, among many other accomplishments, founded the London National Association for Trained Nurses in 1874, later the District Nursing Association, which helped bring nursing care to the rural areas of England. Beatrix was busy making sketches of Miss Paget’s fine guinea pigs and did not pay these worthies much attention, but she would later value her association with the Paget family.41

  The Potters regularly attended Unitarian services on Sunday, and, like their parents on both sides, were conspicuous in their membership. Before the children were born, Rupert and Helen had attended Little Portland Street Chapel, where Rupert’s beloved mentors John James Tayler and James Martineau were co-ministers. Little Portland Street was much favoured by both grandmothers as well. After Martineau retired, the Potters frequently attended Essex Street, Strand, the first openly Unitarian chapel, which from 1774 was a place of resort for the well-connected and liberal religious types of London. When Beatrix was in her late teens, the family sometimes attended services at the Free Christian Church in Notting Hill Gate, a thriving congregation on the edge of Kensington. Quite fortuitously, the Essex Street congregation moved to Kensington following wealth and fashion, and merged with the one at Notting Hill in 1887. At all these churches Beatrix would have heard both good and bad preaching and fair-minded debate of the major social issues of the day.

  As a child full of imagination and delight in the fanciful, she longed to participate fully in traditional church festivals and holidays. In the Potter household, however, Christmas was acknowledged rather than celebrated. This was apparently more an expression of Rupert’s theological views than Helen’s, and it was an unusual custom even among Unitarians at the time. Although Christmas was just another day, Beatrix, who loved celebrations all her life, found ways of participating on her own terms. She sent and received Christmas cards, especially New Year cards, which she enjoyed designing and creating from a young age. She also drew charming menu- and place-cards for holiday dinners, including at least one for Christmas breakfast, although these little cards depicted secular and seasonal themes usually featuring one of her pets. Her journal reflects her understandable gloom on most Christmases when her feelings of isolation were often reinforced by dreary weather. Occasionally she was invited to the homes of friends where Christmas was celebrated with all the trimmings. The Pagets were one such family. ‘How pretty Miss Paget’s tree used to be with the little doll angel up on the top,’ Beatrix recalled wistfully many years later.42

  The Dissenting tradition of Unitarianism did, however, have certain advantages. From it Beatrix acquired an inner self-reliance, a distinctly pragmatic approach to life, and a tendency towards rebelliousness. From childhood on she exhibited a reticence towards dogma and an aversion to creeds of any sort. The culture of Unitarianism contributed to her compatibility with the ‘application of reason’ as a method of intellectual enquiry. The Unitarian emphasis on the sanctity of the individual conscience, the importance of rational discussion and the application of science as a legitimate means of social improvement indelibly influenced her. Shortly after her eighteenth birthday in 1884 she observed:

  All outward forms of religion are almost useless, and are the cause of endless strife. What do Creeds matter, what possible difference does it make to anyone today whether the doctrine of the resurrection is correct or incorrect, or the miracles, they don’t happen nowadays, but very queer things do
that concern us much more. Believe there is a great power silently working all things for good, behave yourself and never mind the rest.43

  By 1896 Beatrix seems to have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the compromises required of a religious tradition that differed significantly from orthodox Christianity. Her intellectual rebelliousness is evident in her frustration with what she interpreted as Unitarian equivocation. ‘I shall always call myself a Unitarian because of my father and grandmother,’ she wrote heatedly in her journal, ‘but for the Unitarians as a Dissenting body, as I have known them in London, I have no respect. Their creed is apt to be a timid, illogical compromise, and their forms of Service, a badly performed imitation of the Church.’ However, services at Essex Street often amused Beatrix and almost always provided her with an unrivalled opportunity to observe human behaviour. Appreciating this, she dutifully attended and endured, or ignored, the theology.44

  ‘Thank goodness, my education was neglected,’ Beatrix wrote to an American friend in 1929. ‘I was never sent to school… it would have rubbed off some of the originality (if I had not died of shyness or been killed with over pressure).’ And then she added, on reflection: ‘I fancy I could have been taught anything if I had been caught young; but it was in the days when parents kept governesses, and only boys went to school in most families.’ The curriculum offered by schools that were open to female students was decidedly inferior to what a well-educated governess could provide a precocious student. While her education was tailored to her interests, it was certainly not ‘neglected’ and was, by her own choice, rigorous, in part because so much of it was self-directed. ‘I have always found my own pleasure in nature and books,’ she announced.45

  When Beatrix left Nurse Mackenzie’s supervision at the age of about six, her formal education was begun under a Miss ‘Florrie’ Hammond, to whom she became deeply attached. Miss Hammond remained until 1883 when Beatrix was nearly 17, and Bertram went off to boarding school.46