Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  The first real adult tragedy Beatrix confesses is a loss of place when, in the spring of 1882, she learned that summers at Dalguise would end. Her sadness was not simply the physical loss of a beloved place, but her recognition of the attendant loss of childhood. ‘[T]he memory of that home is the only bit of childhood I have left,’ she lamented. ‘It was not perfectly happy, childhood’s sorrows are sharp while they last, but they are like April showers serving to freshen the fields and make the sunshine brighter than before.6

  Later that summer Rupert found a fitting replacement in what was then the northern tip of Lancashire, in the English Lakes. Beatrix writes simply, ‘Papa took Wray Castle.’ About two weeks later the family, along with their carriages, horses, staff and assorted pets, arrived at Wray Castle, ‘a well known pile’ on the western shore of Windermere, about two and a half miles east of the village of Hawkshead. The only similarity between Dalguise and Wray was the lushness of the surrounding landscapes. While Dalguise was a large, but mostly unpretentious country estate, Wray was a faux medieval castle complete with portcullis, castellated roofs and turrets with arrow slits in the towers. Mock ruins were added after completion ‘for a touch of realism’.7

  The castle had been built in 1845 by a Liverpool surgeon named James Dawson, who used up a sizeable portion of his wife’s family gin fortune on the enterprise. The good doctor had in mind a house that could withstand the inclement weather of the Lake District, but somehow got carried away in an outburst of Romantic enthusiasm. Beatrix assessed the Castle factually: ‘They say it took £60,000 to build’ and ‘seven years to finish. The stone was brought across the lake. One old horse dragged it all up to the house on a kind of tram way. The architect, one Mr Lightfoot, killed himself with drinking before the house was finished.’ (One can understand why, especially when Mrs Dawson apparently took one look at her new home and vowed never to set foot in it.) The Castle had a panoramic view of the western shore of Windermere. It included some 800 acres of land, a fine specimen of Douglas pine, and a mulberry bush reputedly planted by the poet Wordsworth.8

  Edward Preston Rawnsley, Dawson’s nephew, inherited Wray in 1875. Two years later, when the living at St Margaret of Antioch, the church at Wray-on-Windermere, became vacant, Edward offered it to his unemployed cousin, Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, an energetic 26-year-old priest and activist who had been serving the poor in Bristol. Rawnsley settled in at Wray and began a lifelong love affair with the countryside. When the wealthy Potter family came for their three-and-a-half-month holiday in July 1882, they were greeted by the young Vicar, a man who was to have lasting impact on all their lives, as well as on the lives of many still unsuspecting dalesmen of the Lake District.9

  Rawnsley was handsome, approachable, literate and impassioned about the scenic beauty of the Lake District. He had been a student of the great art critic John Ruskin, at Balliol College, Oxford, and was deeply influenced by Ruskin’s philosophy of nature and art. After Oxford he joined with the Unitarian social activist Octavia Hill, working in the slums of London. In the process he became convinced of the benefit of access to open spaces and clean air for the urban poor. When he settled at Wray, Rawnsley kept in frequent touch with his mentor Ruskin at Brantwood on Coniston Water. An organizer rather than a philosopher, Rawnsley soon found his own way of furthering Ruskin’s efforts to preserve the unspoiled landscape and cultural traditions of the Lakes.10

  Rupert Potter was charmed by the young priest. The two had common intellectual and aesthetic interests. Rawnsley was a keen photographer and a collector of literary autographs, as was Rupert, and he had already published two books and a seemingly endless outpouring of essays and verse. Rawnsley had recently returned from a sabbatical to Egypt, Sinai and Palestine. He was working on an archeological inventory of a Roman villa discovered at nearby Ravenglass, had just completed the first of his many writings on Lakeland traditions, and was preparing a paper on the subject for the Wordsworth Society. A man of high confidence and tremendous vitality, one could not help but be caught up in his passions.11

  Rawnsley noticed Beatrix sketching the Castle library and interior corridors, came upon her painting outdoors, and recognized her obvious talent. Beatrix had met no one else quite like him. He eagerly engaged her in conversation about natural history, and shared his extensive knowledge of geology and archeology and his love of the Lake District.12

  There were no Unitarian congregations in that part of Lancashire, and St Margaret’s church and the Vicarage were just across the woods from the Castle. Always interested in folk traditions of the places she visited, Beatrix attended the Harvest Festival at Wray church that summer with interest. Rawnsley had induced his parishioners, mostly hill farmers, to march in procession from the village to his little church bearing with them the fruits of their harvests as well as the tools of their trade for blessing and thanksgiving. They came with their hay rakes, forks, ploughs and other time-honoured implements of the harvest. It was part of his delight in the lives of the common people, and of his intention to celebrate their labour as well as the beauty and bounty they all shared. Rawnsley’s wife, Edith, was also artistic and loved crafts, and their son, Noel, barely two years old, provided his own diversions. Beatrix was happily drawn into their activities.13

  Not long after the Potters returned to London, Rawnsley took up the cause of preservation in earnest. The immediate issue was a proposal to construct a railway to connect the Honister slate quarries in the Newlands Valley with the already existing railway line at Braithwaite, running tracks through Borrowdale along the pristine western shore of Derwentwater. Rawnsley sprang into action, forming a ‘defence fund’ to oppose the scheme. His organization succeeded in killing the project. The campaign brought Rawnsley into contact with others opposed to vandalizing the land, and from this time on the country Vicar was a nationally recognized figure in a growing preservation movement. In the spring of 1883 Rawnsley proposed the formation of a Lake District Defence Society whose object was the prohibition of ‘injurious encroachments upon the scenery… from purely commercial or speculative motives’.14

  Rawnsley had been offered the living at Crosthwaite, an ancient parish at Keswick, near Derwentwater, and one of the most beautiful in the area. The poet laureate Robert Southey, among other distinguished writers, is buried in the churchyard, and from every vista there are spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, including the peak of Skiddaw. The Bishop of Carlisle knew his man when he wrote to Rawnsley: ‘the post which I offer you is as near heaven as anything can be.’ Thus it was from Crosthwaite that Hardwicke Rawnsley directed the campaign to protect the Lake District for the next thirty-four years, and it was where Beatrix Potter would next encounter him three summers later when the Potters rented Lingholm, an estate on the western shore of Derwentwater.15

  The spring of 1883 was equally momentous for Beatrix. After her exciting introduction to the Old Masters at the Winter Exhibition, she privately hoped that she could devote herself to her painting. Her private art lessons had ended, and in late March Miss Hammond announced that she had taught Beatrix all she knew and would be leaving after the spring holiday. Bertram, now 11, had his last Latin lesson with his tutor and would soon enter The Grange in Eastbourne. A photograph of Mrs Potter and the children on the beach at Ilfracombe in April shows them bundled in coats and hats against unseasonably cool temperatures, attempting to enjoy a picnic. In a letter to her absent father, Beatrix confirmed both the unseasonable weather and the unsatisfactory view from the hotel, but expressed her pleasure in watching the sea birds. Both Beatrix and Bertram were enthusiastic in their collecting efforts, returning to London with several unusual lizards — ‘Judy’, a beautiful bright green female, and ‘Toby’ — to add to their schoolroom menagerie.16

  With impeccably poor timing, Helen Potter announced the day before Bertram was to leave for Eastbourne that she had arbitrarily engaged a new governess for Beatrix. This lady, a Miss Annie Carter, only three years older than Beatrix,
would tutor her in German, and be a lady’s companion. Beatrix was understandably furious with her mother’s peremptory decision. Three months shy of her seventeenth birthday, she felt betrayed, her powerlessness painfully reinforced. ‘I thought surely we had got into all the difficulties now, but here is another. A nice way, a lively [way], to begin with a new governess… Only a year, but if it is like the last it will be a lifetime — I can’t settle to any thing but my painting, I lost my patience over everything else. There is nothing to be done, I must watch things pass.’17

  Miss Carter took up her tutoring duties as scheduled. Surprisingly, Beatrix found her new governess good company. Although close in age, Carter had experiences Beatrix could only dream of. She had lived in Germany, travelled about as a student, and had been economically independent for some time. Beatrix was an excellent student of languages, partly because of her good ear, but also because of her attention to the nuances of language and her interest in words. She progressed well in German, and discovered she was increasingly fond of Latin. Just before the summer holiday Beatrix confessed: ‘finished Dr Arnold, am doing Virgil, like it so much.’18

  Bertram’s departure for boarding school and the arrival of Miss Carter required certain emotional readjustments, but the deaths of her Uncle Crompton, Grandfather Potter, Grandmother Leech and her old friend William Gaskell, all in less than a year, propelled Beatrix into adulthood with a new sense of loss: now of loved ones, as well as of loved places. Edmund Crompton Potter, the managing partner of Edmund Potter and Company of Dinting Vale, and eldest Potter son, had been in poor health for some time. His doctors recommended lengthy visits to the seaside at Brighton from which he benefited temporarily. Rupert faithfully attended his brother, both at Rusholme House, Crompton’s home in Manchester, and at Brighton, where Crompton died on 6 May 1883 at the age of 52. Rupert, Helen and Beatrix journeyed to the Gee Cross chapel in Hyde where, in a shower of spring snow, Crompton was interred in a new crypt a few yards away from the Potter family vault.19

  Beatrix’s journal provides only the barest details of her uncle’s funeral. But she describes her father’s intense interest in the value and disposition of his brother’s art collection, particularly his Millais pictures and his rare collection of cloisonné ware.20 Crompton’s funeral was prominently reported in the Manchester Guardian, where he was praised as a patron of the arts and an educational reformer. Rupert seemed surprised by his brother’s political and artistic prominence. Beatrix commented ‘there is a good deal in the papers… about poor uncle Crompton. A good deal about him and our family which papa did not know himself. I don’t feel at all “distinguished”, “yet.” ’21

  Although Crompton had hoped that his 18-year-old nephew Edmund Potter, Walter’s orphaned son, would join the management of Potter’s printworks, the factory at Dinting Vale was now overseen by Crompton’s executors. It was effectively the end of the once great family business. ‘The Works are only equalled in one other firm in the world,’ Beatrix wrote. ‘Pride is a bad thing, and this family has made more than enough money out of them… but still it is a pity to think of their going.’ The printworks passed out of the active management of the Potter family in 1892.22

  Beatrix celebrated her seventeenth birthday in July 1883 at Woodfield, a country house near Hatfield, not far from Camfield. Grandfather Potter had not been well, and Rupert felt it wise to remain nearby. Woodfield was a pleasant place with a large pond well stocked with perch and beautifully landscaped gardens. There were horses, several cows and pigs about. Beatrix was especially delighted with the large variety of birds. She reflected rather ominously, however, on turning 17: ‘I, seventeen. I have heard it called “sweet seventeen”, no indeed, what a time we are, have been having, and shall have.’ Sadly, her prediction proved accurate.23

  Beatrix and Bertram enjoyed fishing in the ponds at Woodfield, where Beatrix passed the time usefully studying the habits of newts. She compared their underwater breathing habits with those of landnewts, frogs and toads, surprised to observe that newts squeaked, and remarking: ‘it is as queer as to hear a fish make a noise.’ The several paintings Beatrix made in 1883 of her brilliant green lizard Judy underscore her curiosity about reptiles and amphibians and their habits. She also caught a small scaly lizard, and with Bertram bought a little ring snake. ‘It hissed like fun and tied itself into knots in the road when it found it could not escape, but did not attempt to bite…’ As in Scotland and at Windermere, where she enjoyed the local sheep and cattle shows, Beatrix visited the dog and poultry fairs near Hatfield, but mostly it was a summer of marking time.24

  When Grandfather Potter died on 26 October Beatrix notes the date of his death without comment. His body was taken by train to Manchester and was buried in the churchyard at Gee Cross in the family vault barely five months after the death of his eldest son. Neither Beatrix nor Bertram was present.25

  Manchester newspapers as well as the Unitarian press noted the Potter patriarch’s passing, praising his public service and his nearly legendary success as a manufacturer, benefactor and promoter of arts education. A lengthy obituary in the Christian Life concluded, ‘In his death, Manchester may lament the loss of one of her sons who was a steady friend of education and progress, and whose well-directed scientific and commercial ability made him a credit to his class.’26

  Edmund Potter’s will was very advanced for its time, providing further evidence of his business acumen and, perhaps, Rupert’s legal advice. His estate was valued at £441,970, an immense fortune for any man, but particularly a self-made one. Rupert received £60,000 outright. The greater part remained in trust to his widow, Jessy.27

  More losses followed. In June, while on a visit to their friends the Wilsons in Oxford, Rupert was informed of William Gaskell’s death. On this occasion Beatrix wrote openly of her feelings, recalling her childhood affection for Gaskell. ‘Dear old man, he has had a very peaceful end. If ever any one led a blameless peaceful life, it was he. Another old friend gone to rest. How few are left. There has always been a deep child-like affection between him and me. The memory of it is one of the past lights bound up with the old home.’28

  Gaskell’s death triggered a reverie of her childhood at Dalguise. She recalled the minister in his grey coat and old felt hat sitting in the warm sunshine on the doorstop there and herself as a little girl ‘in a print frock and striped stockings’ bounding to his side with a ‘bunch of meadowsweet. He just says “thank you, dear”, and puts his arm round her. The bees hum round the flowers, the air is laden with the smell of roses. Sandy lies in his accustomed place against the doorstop… Shall I really never see him again?’ Gaskell’s death allowed Beatrix to grieve for her other loved ones, and for the unwelcome changes of the past two years: the loss of Dalguise, and Gorse Hall, the inevitable loss of Camfield in the months to come, and most of all, the loss of childhood innocence. Answering her own question, she continues:

  but he is gone with almost every other, home is gone for me, the little girl does not bound about now, and live in fairyland, and occasionally wonder in a curious, carefree manner, as of something not concerning her nature, what life means, and whether she shall ever feel sorrow. It is all gone, and he is resting quietly with our fathers. I have begun the dark journey of life. Will it go on as darkly as it has begun? Oh that I might go through life as blamelessly as he!29

  Exactly a year after Grandmother Leech’s death, Beatrix records the unexpected death of her 21-year-old cousin, Edmund Roscoe, the only son of Rupert’s sister Lucy and Henry Enfield Roscoe. Teddy, as the young man was known, was a popular and able student at Magdalen College, Oxford. He died from complications of a ruptured appendix. For the Roscoes, Teddy’s death understandably ‘changed the current of their lives’. Beatrix, only two years younger than her cousin, had not much good to say about him, or about her Aunt Lucy, to whom she ascribed Teddy’s flaws of character. She was undoubtedly reflecting the view of at least one of her parents, rather than much personal knowledg
e of her cousin; even so, her remarks demonstrate real callousness. She expressed no sympathy for her aunt and uncle’s loss.30

  The Roscoes were the objects of a good deal of backbiting in the Potter household in the mid-1880s. On learning of Uncle Harry’s knighthood, Beatrix wrote derisively, ‘how it makes us laugh…’ It is hard to know the origin of this ill-will: how much was merely in response to what they considered Henry Roscoe’s pretentiousness, and how much derived from Rupert and Helen’s resentment of his professional prominence, his real achievements and his enhanced social status. Henry Roscoe came from distinguished and quite wealthy Liverpool Unitarians, and his appointment as one of Edmund’s executors reflected the regard in which he was held by the family patriarch. It did not help that Lucy was Rupert’s youngest sister, and had undoubtedly been her parents’ favourite.31

  Beatrix also mourned the passing of some of her favourite animals. The green lizard Judy from Ilfracombe had brought ‘a great deal of pleasure’, while the loss of a whole ‘Bill family’ of garden snails was ‘an awful tragedy. I am very much put out about the poor things, they have such a surprising difference of character.’ Punch, the little green frog, survived extensive travels with Beatrix for five or six years and had become quite a fixture in her life. ‘How time does go,’ she wrote, ‘and once past it can never be regained.’32

  The loss of so many family members depressed Beatrix. On the first anniversary of Grandfather Potter’s death she wrote: ‘if the next year takes away as many dear faces it will bring death very near home. How strange time is looking back! A great moving creeping something closing over one object after another like rising water.’ At the end of 1884, after leaving Camfield, anticipating yet another unhappy Christmas in London, Beatrix confessed: ‘I do wish we lived in the country… I wish for many things, and yet how much I have to be thankful for, but these odious fits of low spirits would spoil any life.’ On Christmas Day Bertram was home from school, sullen and sick with a bad cold. Beatrix too was depressed, and more than a little maudlin, asking, ‘I wonder how they all feel underground?’33