Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  Charmed by her stories, Alexander McKay, like Harold and Fruing Warne before him, immediately asked Beatrix for another book of country tales. Surprisingly, Beatrix seemed willing to consider it. But she was inclined to ‘appease the English public and publishers’ with something she could cobble together quickly, ‘and make a sequel to the caravan the year following, if spared; which would give time for more adequate illustrations.’ She felt duty-bound to remind McKay of her publishing history: ‘I am not a prolific scribbler. I wrote myself out on the rabbit series.’ For material, Beatrix turned to a new story based loosely on Edward Lear’s rhyme, ‘The Owl and the Pussy-Cat’, with liberal amounts from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and excerpts from various stories of her pet pigs. Her tale was about a country pig sent to town by his overly portly aunts Dorcas and Porcas, who was taken to sea against his will and gratefully rescued from either starvation or becoming table fare by the ship’s cat. Pig Robinson eventually finds his way to the Land of the Bong Tree, where he presumably lives happily ever after. The Tale of Little Pig Robinson, which would be the last in the Peter Rabbit series, was an early tale; its origins derive from Potter family vacations in the 1890s. Beatrix had sketched it at various harbour towns on the south coast of England. She embellished the story, adding a few coloured drawings, and many more in pen and ink.39

  When McKay visited Sawrey in December 1929, they agreed on the revised tale of the foolish pig. But out of loyalty, and a guilty conscience, Beatrix also offered the story to Warne’s. That may have been good public relations, but it proved more difficult than she anticipated to please both publishers with the same tale. Stephens and McKay liked different drawings and favoured different parts of the story. Revisions and alterations seemed endless, and everyone was dissatisfied at one point or another. Final drawings were delayed when Beatrix went to bed with a bad case of bronchitis. The resulting book was an amalgam both in style and narrative. Her writing lacks the concentrated intensity of her earlier books, and while there are scenes reminiscent of the local Sawrey countryside, there is more fantasy than reality in the tale.

  In July 1930 Beatrix learned that the Warne edition would lack many of the black-and-white illustrations, including some which Beatrix considered among her best work. ‘I hope you may care to include them in the U.S.A. edition,’ she asked McKay, and was pleased when the American edition contained twelve additional black-and-white drawings. William was angry about this decision by Warne’s, which he believed violated their contract, but Beatrix was philosophic. ‘F. W. & Co have always been inclined to save expenses at the expense of the appearance of the book,’ she explained to McKay. Beatrix and her Philadelphia publisher did have one disagreement: it was over a word that was not in the dictionary. Beatrix had used the word ‘fatterer’ as the superlative of the word ‘fat’ when of course she knew there was no such word. For her, it was a matter of rhythm and sound, and, as she told him, ‘it is expressive! If you don’t like it, say “fatter and fatter and more fat”. It requires 3 repeats to make a balanced ending.’ McKay acquiesced and ‘fatterer’ remained.40

  The Tale of Little Pig Robinson was published in Britain and America in September 1930. Warne’s published only 5,000 copies and were soon caught short, as the book proved more popular in Britain than in America, and they had to reprint several times. Beatrix told McKay, ‘I like the appearance of the book extremely — the head & tail pieces give it much more character than the English edition; and it is grand print. It might make a hit. It is much more concise and understandable for children than The Fairy Caravan.’ Although she thought it could be improved by a few more illustrations, she wrote to him, ‘I think P. R. looking into a shop window is the best black & white I ever did.’41

  The unexpected income from her two American publications could not have come at a better time. The worldwide economic depression began to affect agriculture and food exports long before the collapse of the financial markets. Over the past several years the prices for wool and mutton had fallen sharply. Livestock farmers were discouraged and tenant farmers in the north were having a difficult time holding on to their land. Such things were on her mind when Beatrix wrote to McKay in anticipation of a royalty payment from the September publication of Little Pig Robinson in America. Asking him to hold off sending the funds, she explained: ‘I shall be reinvesting something presently, and I will ask for it later on.’ She further instructed that payment go directly to Messrs W. H. Heelis & Son, ‘who invests clients money for them’. Shrewdly, Beatrix and William were negotiating to buy more land.42

  18

  Ventures

  One beautiful autumn sunday in late October 1929, Beatrix wrote to her young friend Henry P.,

  After dinner Mr Heelis & I are going to Coniston. There is a lovely stretch of mountain and valley to sell there and the National Trust are trying to buy it… I am very interested because my great grandfather had land there and I have always longed to buy it back and give it to the Trust in remembrance. I was very much attached to my grandmother Jessy Crompton and said to be very like her, ‘only not so good looking!!’ Perhaps I will be able to help out of this book [The Fairy Caravan] — it would be like a fairy tale, would it not?1

  Although her remark was offhand, Beatrix and William were already seriously negotiating to buy Monk Coniston Park, a large, dispersed property north and east of Coniston, with the National Trust a silent partner to their efforts. Before their Sunday drive, Beatrix had taken Samuel Hamer, secretary of the Trust, into her confidence, informing him that ‘J. Marshall has been to the office when Mr Heelis was out, talking in rather a desperate way about selling. It may be my hand will be forced at Coniston… The rough lands are a very big thing; but if Jimmy is really desirous to clear out — there might be a bargain.’ Beatrix knew from experience that it was ‘better for one businesslike person to buy all, and resell part… I could lift it… but it would be too big for me to hold intire [sic]. Too much money to tie up — and such a lump of land… We shall see what he is up to.’2

  The following week Beatrix reported on their excursion: ‘Mr Heelis says the purchase is quite sure to go through. He is getting out a plan — but it is the most perplexing business… It is an enormous scattered piece — we did not attempt to go to Tilberthwaite [a separate area], or to the south end. We went through the Tarns roads (where we met about 15 cars with no room to pass.)’ Beatrix found Tarn Hows, the large teardrop-shaped lake long famous for its scenic beauty, ‘too theatrical for my own taste; like scene painting. I think the south bank of the Brathay is very pretty.’ But she was impressed with the property, advising Hamer: ‘The more money you can find, and the more land you can take — the better and simpler in the long run… It is a bewildering place. I do prefer a single large valley like Troutbeck. But it appeals to the public to judge by the numbers yesterday.’3

  Beatrix conservatively estimated that the roughly 700 acres of forest, including some fine larch plantations, would be worth thousands of pounds one day. She urged Hamer to come up as soon as possible and to bring John Bailey, the chairman of the National Trust. ‘[I]t is a very big thing and worth looking at,’ she told Hamer, though she admitted that it might take them more than two days to see it all, and without better maps than she had at present, or the headman’s identification of the many enclosures, she could not tell how the estate would divide.4

  For many years William Heelis had acted on behalf of James Aubrey Garth Marshall, heir to Monk Coniston Park. It was an enormous tract of land that straddled the Coniston and Tilberthwaite valleys, stretching from the head of Coniston Water to Little Langdale. The estate had been cobbled together piecemeal by James Marshall, a wealthy Manchester industrialist. Around his home at Monk Coniston Hall he had installed a pleasure ground: damming the bogs to create Tarn Hows, establishing conifer plantations, and siting picturesque hill farms in the shadow of Holme Fell and the summit of Wetherlam. Marshall’s holdings embraced more than seven farms, myriad cottages, numerous quar
ries, extensive timberlands and open fell land extending down to the town of Coniston. All in all, the estate consisted of nearly 4,000 acres. One of the farms, Holme Ground at Tilberthwaite, had once belonged to Beatrix’s great grandfather Abraham Crompton, and the opportunity to purchase this property had pricked her desire to buy and preserve the whole.5

  William had learned that the asking price was to be somewhere between £15,000 and £18,000. At the lower price Beatrix thought it ‘a price to snap’. ‘I will say at once I cannot afford to present anything to the Trust, much as it would please me to do so — because this speculation means selling out what is the mainstay of my income and replacing it by rents… What makes me afraid of being all in, is not so much possible loss of income as being so much more fond of Troutbeck than Coniston…’ She knew she should tenant Troutbeck in her lifetime but admitted to Hamer ‘it would break my heart to part with my colly dogs and the galloways and the sheep while I can stagger on… Apart from a sentimental interest in Holme Ground — and a strong desire to help save a most picturesque region — I have no feeling of affection for Coniston at all.’6

  Few people could afford to buy the land for farming, but the demand from developers for holiday houses, villas, bungalows and small tourist establishments close to the tarn and with picturesque fell-side vistas was intense. The piecemeal purchase of Monk Coniston would mean the disintegration of traditional hill-country farms, intakes and commons, the loss of livelihood to farmers, tenants and cottagers, and the scattering of livestock, particularly of hefted sheep. Both the National Trust and the Forestry Commission were potential buyers, but neither entity could act quickly or had the immediate cash resources to make an offer for the whole, and therein lay Beatrix Heelis’s advantage.7

  Beatrix promised to get a plan to Hamer on how she might purchase the estate and then sell part of it to the Trust. But she forthrightly explained why the obvious solution — giving the land to them at the outset — was not possible. Although Rupert Potter had been one of the first Life Members of the National Trust, her miserly mother would neither contribute to the National Trust efforts nor loan her daughter the money. ‘Tarn Hows is such a favourite walk that on the face of it you might think it was a case for public subscription; but it would not work. My mother is known to be so wealthy that nobody would subscribe to help me! She is hopeless.’ Beatrix needed to know how much financial help she could expect from the Trust. If Marshall stuck to the high figure, she admitted she would have to ‘stand over’. But Beatrix knew how to apply pressure to the Trust, telling Hamer, ‘I might reasonably expect to be in a stronger position someday,’ but ‘Against that there is the risk of his selling to a speculator. Then we would both be sorry when it was too late.’8

  Two days after the Heelises’ Sunday visit, Beatrix decided to make Marshall an offer to buy the whole of Monk Coniston Park. Her scheme hinged on an unofficial partnership with the National Trust. If she were successful in purchasing the estate, the Trust would raise an appeal for half the purchase price, and buy back some 2,090 acres. Beatrix told Hamer, ‘You can tell your friends that the matter is urgent… The thing must be done somehow. Mr Heelis is very strongly for it. He thinks it would be a good bargain for both of us, but too dear at £18000 so he may have to haggle.’ Negotiations between William and Jimmy Marshall were at a delicate point and as far as Marshall knew, Beatrix was acting on her own.

  Over the course of the next week, the deal threatened to unravel several times. Marshall, it would seem, cared little who eventually owned his ‘little green farms’, so long as he was able to maintain the right to fish for trout in Tarn Hows. Beatrix cautioned Hamer, ‘Mr JM does not know it is the Trust. He is swayed by the hope of money paid down and the fishing. Let him fish for life!’ The next day Beatrix’s bulletin to the Trust secretary warned, ‘We may all end in a lunatic asylum.’ Beatrix enjoyed sending unofficial information to the Trust secretary, punctuating her accounts with her own idiosyncratic opinions. When Marshall came to Castle Cottage with another set of conditions, Beatrix confessed, ‘I was listening behind the dining room door…’ ‘One [condition] was that he and his step son should hatch trout for two generations (trout or step sons?) in the private water supply of Monk Coniston house which he has sold to a man he has quarrelled with.’

  But it was poor William who was doing all the hard work. Negotiating with the childish Jimmy, his socialite wife, their estate agent McVey, whom Beatrix described as ‘a fat little man lately promoted from selling furniture’, and the Marshalls’ London solicitor, required immense skill and even greater patience. Beatrix often made fun of her deliberative husband, but while sometimes frustrated in her desire for faster action, she had great admiration for William’s thoroughness. One night even the usually calm William had ‘had a panic about the size of the Estate’, and nearly lost his nerve. But Beatrix was confident, telling Hamer, ‘It is no bigger than the Park but more bother.’

  By the end of October, Marshall was anxious to get a deposit from Mrs Heelis. William sent for Ordnance sheets and copied out the whole estate to send to the Trust. After that they could plan for the division of the property. ‘Mr Heelis considers it absolutely certain to go through,’ Beatrix reported. ‘They were so very anxious for money they will not be likely to wreck it over fish or rabbits.’9

  It was a happy circumstance that all these negotiations came at the back end of the year. Troutbeck Park was now running smoothly in the capable hands of George Walker and Anthony Benson. Much of the harvest at Hill Top had already been gathered, and the sheep fairs were almost over. Although Beatrix thrived on the excitement of the negotiations, she now realized she would have to put down the entire deposit amount. ‘I have plenty at the bank,’ she assured Hamer, ‘thanks to the October [sheep] fairs, and we will pay the deposit as soon as possible.’10

  Nearly every day Beatrix drove out to various parcels that comprised Monk Coniston, calculating which ones she could sell off, the number and condition of the quarries and the amount of usable timber. Her mind was full of how the various farms and cottages could be tenanted and by whom. She relied on Marshall’s head man, an ageing Scotch forester who had been at Monk Coniston for a very long time as overseer, to show her the various farms, and she had wisely decided to keep him on. She was happily surprised to find much more timber than she expected.11

  And so Beatrix embarked upon a ‘quixotic venture’ in land preservation and management by which she assumed the mantle of her mentor Hardwicke Rawnsley both as public advocate and as land agent. With the purchase of Monk Coniston, Beatrix not only became one of the largest landowners in the Lake District, but also a major benefactor of the National Trust. As manager and agent both for herself and for the Trust, she had the opportunity to implement her ideas on land use and preservation and thus leave an indelible imprint on the future of hill-country culture and farming. Her success in this would never have been possible without her partnership with William. Although they were not always of one mind, they shared the same objective of preserving the landscape and culture they loved, and they agreed that the National Trust was ‘the only salvation for the Lake district’. The Trust was, as Beatrix aptly put it, ‘a noble thing, and — humanely speaking — immortal’.12

  Beatrix paid the deposit money, approximately £7,000, on 5 November. Then for the next two months she worked to understand the condition of the estate, its agricultural and livestock potential, its various natural environments and how it could best be managed. The rest of her time was occupied with the thankless but crucial job of identifying wealthy individuals as potential donors, and advising the Trust on the best way to mount a public appeal in the Lake District. But raising money was difficult in the widening economic depression. As she looked back over the year, Beatrix was particularly grateful for the additional income from sales of The Fairy Caravan, telling Hamer, ‘that Book may save my financial situation… I have been accustomed to solace myself with two mis-quotations from the Scriptures. “Bles
sed are they that expect very little for they shall not be disappointed” and “The Lord helps them that help (i.e. assist) themselves”.’13

  On 21 January 1930 the Monk Coniston Park estate, consisting of 3,738 acres 0 rods and 12 perches in the parishes of Coniston, Church Coniston and Skelwith, was conveyed to Helen Beatrix Heelis for the price of £15,000. It was over twice the size of Troutbeck Park Farm. The complicated conveyance document, copied out in William’s fine hand, listed over one hundred and thirty-seven separate parcels. Like Troutbeck Park, it was a property of unparalleled beauty, and it was essential to protect it from development.14

  On 15 February The Times carried a signed article by Trust chairman John Bailey, praising the ‘generous and public spirited action of Mrs Heelis’ in preserving the Monk Coniston estate and in giving the Trust the opportunity of acquiring 2,600 acres of it for the public. He then announced that ‘Tarn Hows, Holme Fell, and Yew Tree Farm may be regarded as definitely secured’, leaving only the Tilberthwaite portion to be given for a remaining £3,500. Noting that the Trust had acquired many properties in the Lake District in the last thirty years, Bailey wrote that ‘not one of them… was better worth saving and holding than this glorious stretch of mountain, moor, and tarn’.15