Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  55. BP Journal (21 November 1883), 56–7.

  56. Ibid. (24 November 1883), 57–8.

  57. Ibid. (29 November 1883), 58; (5 December 1883), 58–9; (10 June 1882), 17–19.

  58. Dianne Sachko MacLeod, Art and the Victorian Middle Class: Money and the Making of Cultural Identity (1996), 267–325.

  59. BP Journal (8, 9 February 1884), 67–8. Eventually Rupert owned eight from this series, framing them all together, and over time owned about thirty illustrations. BP’s Art, 12: BP/AW, 45. BP to Jacqueline Overton, 7 April 1942, Letters, 441. BP to NDW, 15 July 1902, Letters, 64. BP Journal (15 December 1883), 60.

  60. Ibid. (15 November 1884), 117; (13 January 1883), 28, 30.

  61. Ibid. 28–31. BP’s Art, 80–81. Irene Whalley, ‘The Young Artist and Early Influences’, in BP/AW, 40. Waterford, a watercolour artist of considerable talent, did a series of biblical scenes and illustrations of the lives of good children. Bonheur was famous for her realistic painting of wild animals.

  62. BP Journal (note of 1886 to entry of 13 January 1883), 31; (3 March 1883), 32. The note indicates that until 1883 Beatrix had been exposed only to contemporary British paintings and drawings, and only rarely to the work of Renaissance and Reformation artists. She was 16, not 17 at the time of the Old Masters exhibition.

  3 Transitions

  1. BP Journal (25 April 1883), 39; Leslie Linder, ‘The Code Writing’, ibid., pp. xvii–xxiii. The extant journal begins on 4 November 1881 when she was 15, but there is evidence that she began her code writing at least a year earlier, and destroyed those pages at later reading, judging them unworthy. The last entry in the journal is dated 31 January 1897, some fifteen years later, when she was 30. In between there are some 200,000 words. There was no ‘title’ given to the scraps of paper found by her executors in various chests at Hill Top after Potter’s death. Potter’s observations were not always written daily. Some were written days, even weeks after the events they describe.

  2. BP to CC, 15 November 1943, NT.

  3. BP Journal (15 November 1884), 117; ibid., appendix B. Leslie Linder, ‘Beatrix Potter’s Code Writing’, The Horn Book, 39/2 (April 1963), 141–54. In 1958 Potter collector and bibliophile Leslie Linder broke her code after years of effort. After more years of painstaking transcription, he published her journal in 1966. This edition omitted a number of passages at the request of Potter’s executors. They were restored in the 1989 edition.

  4. Maurice Sendak, ‘Beatrix Potter/I’, in his Caldecott & Company: Notes on Books and Pictures (1988), 64. This essay first appeared in Publisher’s Weekly (11 July 1966).

  5. See Susan Denyer, At Home with Beatrix Potter: The Creator of Peter Rabbit (2000), 8, 36.

  6. BP Journal (8 May 1884), 84–5; (20 April 1882, 11 May 1882), 15, 16.

  7. Ibid. (10, 21 July 1882), 20–21. ‘John Bright in the Highlands’, Pall Mall Gazette, 7501 (2 April 1889), 2.

  8. BP Journal (10, 21 July 1882), 20–21. Ian Gordon, ‘A History of Wray Castle’ (n.d.). Bruce L. Thompson, The Lake District and the National Trust (1946), 132–3.

  9. Gordon, ‘A History’. Rawnsley set up a mission in Bristol to the poor, and while there was instrumental in preserving a fourteenth-century church tower. However, his unorthodox methods provoked the church hierarchy and he was dismissed from the parish; Rosalind Rawnsley, ‘HDR — A Lover of His Fellow Men’, Cumbria, 37 (October 1987), 409–11.

  10. Elizabeth Battrick, ‘The Most Active Volcano in Europe’: Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (1995). John Simpson, ‘The Most Active Volcano in Europe’: A Short Life of Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, Vicar of Crosthwaite, Keswick 1883–1917 (n.d.), 3–7. Alan Hankinson, ‘Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley’, Cumbrian Life, 30 (September/ October 1993), 25–7.

  11. H. A. L. Rice, ‘The Happy Warrior’, in his Lake Country Portraits (1967), 122–42. Christopher Hanson-Smith, ‘Beatrix Potter and the National Trust’, BPS Studies, 1 (1985), 5. Rawnsley published nearly forty books.

  12. Eleanor F. Rawnsley, Canon Rawnsley: An Account of His Life (1923), quoting from Robert Somervell, 48.

  13. BP Journal (9 October 1882), 24. Rawnsley, Canon Rawnsley, 47.

  14. Bruce L. Thompson, ‘The Guardian of the Lakes’ (c. 1971), CRO/K. ‘The Proposed Permanent Lake District Defence Society’, May 1883, CRO/K. Records of the Lake District Defence Society, correspondence regarding the Braithwaite & Buttermere Railway Bill, CRO/C.

  15. Simpson, ‘The Most Active…’, 5.

  16. BP to Rupert Potter, 3 April 1883 from Ilfracombe, Letters, 12–13. Rupert joined the family later in the week, having been again to Brighton where his brother, Edmund Crompton, was seriously ill.

  17. BP Journal (18, 25 April 1883), 38, 39, 40.

  18. Ibid. (17 July 1883), 49.

  19. Rupert had been Crompton’s executor, but a codicil in 1883 replaced him with John Bagshaw, a partner in the Edmund Potter Company. This was a practical consideration.

  20. BP Journal (15 May 1883), 45. Crompton left an estate valued at £113,714. His art collection fetched £32,558 the following year, while his magnificent collection of cloisonné ware, ‘containing some of the finest specimens to be found in England’, brought an additional £5,117. 16s. But much of that went to pay the debt for his share of the company.

  21. BP Journal (2–6 May 1883), 45. Obituaries of E. Crompton Potter, Manchester Guardian (7 May 1883), 5, (12 May 1883), 7; Inquirer (12 May 1883), 300.

  22. Probated will of Edmund Crompton Potter, 23 August 1883. Third codicil of E. Crompton Potter, 23 April 1883. BP Journal (15 May 1883), 45.

  23. Ibid. (28 July 1883), 49.

  24. Ibid. (4, 20 September 1883), 54; (2 August 1883), 50.

  25. Ibid. (30 October 1883), 55; (5 November 1883), 56.

  26. ‘Mr Edmund Potter, FRS’, Christian Life (3 November 1883), 530.

  27. Will of Edmund Potter, November 1881, probated 17 January 1884. The estate was complicated by the funds owed to Edmund by Crompton for his partnership in the Dinting Vale printworks, a debt that contributed to his widow’s later penury. Rupert received additional money at the death of his mother when her will was probated in 1892, but a larger sum passed down to him at his sister Clara’s death in 1905. Michael Harvey notes correctly that Rupert’s increased wealth made no perceptible change in the family’s conservative life style.

  28. BP Journal (12 June 1884), 93.

  29. Ibid. (12, 14 June 1884), 93–4.

  30. Henry Enfield Roscoe, The Life and Experiences of Sir H. E. Roscoe, DCL, LLD, FRS, written by Himself (1906), 370; Roscoe had recently been knighted for his contributions to chemistry and scientific education. BP Journal (2 January 1885), 124–5. This was one of the passages that the Heelis executors objected to and which was removed in the initial publication of the journal. Before Edmund’s death, Beatrix had written witheringly, ‘privately I think the boy has certainly several loose screws in his system’; ibid. 122.

  31. BP Journal (5 July 1884), 98.

  32. Ibid. (20 April 1884), 82; (8 December 1883), 59; (18 March 1884), 75.

  33. Ibid. (12, 23, 26 October 1884), 109; (13, 25 December 1884), 122–3.

  34. Alexander Grinstein, The Remarkable Beatrix Potter (1995), 22–32. Grinstein, among other psychoanalysts, suggests her depression was caused by ‘lowself-esteem’.

  35. BP Journal (28 March 1884), 79.

  36. Ibid. (31 March, 2, 3 April 1884), 80–81.

  37. Ibid. (8, 19 May 1884), 84, 87.

  38. Ibid. (8 May 1884), 85.

  39. Ibid. (26 May 1884), 89.

  40. Ibid. (28 June 1884), 96; (28 July 1884), 104. Bertram’s uncle, William Leech, had a well-known drinking problem and died of it in 1887.

  41. Ibid. (16 July, 1 August 1884), 100, 104; (4 October 1884), 109. The property, like nearby Hatfield House, was owned by Lord Salisbury. See A Scottish Garden in June from Nature, ca. 1882, From the drawingroom window at Camfield Place, 1884 and From the terrace at Camfield Place, Dec
ember 1884, BP’s Art, plates 12, 14.

  42. BP Journal (27 May 1884), 90; (10 June 1884), 93.

  43. Ibid. (25 June 1884), 94; (8 July 1884), 99; (30 January 1884), 66; (19 February 1885), 131. Millais’s portrait was intended for the Hall of Christ Church, Oxford, where it still hangs. Michael I. Wilson, ‘The Potters and Photography’, Linder Lecture, 17 May 2000, BPS. Michael Harvey to author, 25 September 2003. The only other Potter photograph known to have been made into a carte-de-visite was his portrait of John Bright, now in the National Portrait Gallery collection.

  44. BP Journal (16 July 1884), 100; (7 March 1886), 192; (15 March 1895) 138.

  45. Ibid. (19 December 1884), 122; (29 January 1886), 173. M. Harvey, ‘Rupert Potter and Millais’, Creative Camera (February 1973), 62–3.

  46. BP Journal (4 October 1884), 109.

  47. Ibid. (28 November 1884), 120–21; (9 November 1885), 159–60; (6 May 1885), 146. BP’s Art, 7–15.

  48. BP Journal (20 March 1885), 141–2.

  49. Ibid. (3 June 1885), 151. The original of The Private Secretary was a play by the German Gustav von Moser. It featured Beerbohm Tree in the lead, but Hawtrey replaced him with W. S. Penley and the play became a great success, running until 1886, rivalling the popularity of Charley’s Aunt.

  50. Ibid. (9 November 1885), 159–60; (6 May 1885), 146.

  51. Ibid. (5 May 1884), 83; (28 March 1885), 143–4.

  52. Ibid. (29 May 1885), 149.

  53. Ibid. (30 May 1885), 150; (18 June 1885), 152–3.

  54. Ibid. (10 July 1885), 154. ASC, 43. LTC, 12–13. The Moore children in birth order were Noel, Eric, Marjorie, Winifrede (Freda), Norah, Joan, Hilda and Beatrix.

  55. BP Journal (7 September 1885), 156. The Potters would spend nine summers at Lingholm between 1885 and 1907.

  56. BP Journal (7 September, 13 October 1885), 156, 158, 159.

  57. Ibid. (9, 12, 17 February 1886), 179, 182, 193.

  58. Ibid. (24, 27 November 1885), 163–4. Roscoe was defeated in the following General Election of 1886.

  59. BP Journal (23 February 1886), 183–8. Robert H. Kargon, Science in Victorian Manchester (1977), 204–12. Roscoe, 363. Lucy’s photograph was titled The Fisherman and is reproduced prominently in Roscoe, Life and Experiences.

  60. BP Journal (31 December 1885), 168.

  61. Ibid. (December 1886), 201; (end of June 1887), 204.

  62. This was the only indication that Rupert now had more expendable income. There were 520 boys listed in 1887. Bertram entered Hodgsonsites House for Oration Quarter, Autumn 1886, and left after Long Quarter, Spring 1887, before he sat for any exams. Carthusian (December 1918), 252. M. Mardell, Archivist, Charterhouse, Surrey, letters to the author, 3, 5 September 2003. BP Journal (1 April 1887), 203; (Summer 1887), 204. Beatrix reports he had ‘pleurisy’ but one suspects that Bertram’s respiratory distress was fabricated at best, and at worst related to alcohol abuse. M. Mardell to author, 10 September 2003. ‘Medical Statistics Summary and Report’, April 1887, Charterhouse.

  63. BP Journal (16 September 1884), 106. Bertram Potter to BP, 12 October? 1886, V & A.

  64. BP Journal (25 February 1886), 188. BP’s Art, 37–9.

  65. Ibid. (18 October 1886), 202.

  66. Frances Burney (1752–1840), The Early Diary of Frances Burney (1890). Burney’s diaries were first published between 1842 and 1846. Pat Rogers, in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004). Grinstein, The Remarkable Beatrix Potter, 39–42. BP Journal (May 1890), 211–14.

  67. ASC, 51. Graham Murphy, Founders of the National Trust (1987), 79–80. Murphy repeats here the story that Noel Rawnsley believed Beatrix Potter was the love of his father’s life; a view which is appealing, but almost certainly wishful thinking. The Potters were at Lingholm in 1885, 1887 and 1888.

  68. BP Journal (May 1890), 212.

  69. Ibid. 213. BP/AW, 49–51. Bertram sent a postcard from Paris dated September 1889. It is not known how long he was away or with whom he travelled.

  70. BP Journal (May 1890), 214. This account of her first publishing success is written to ‘Esther’; TNR, 20–21.

  71. ASC, 52. A Happy Pair is undated and is extremely rare. Potter only sold her drawings to this and one other publisher, Ernest Nister, to illustrate the work of another author.

  72. Frederick Warne & Company to BP, 12 November 1891, FWA.

  73. Obituary, ‘Mrs Jessy Potter’, Inquirer (12 September 1891), n.p. It is especially notable that the obituary was titled with her given name.

  74. ‘Memories of Camfield Place’, c. 1891, BP Journal, 444; (2 July 1884), 96.

  4 Experiments

  1. BP Journal (29 October 1892), 305. Charles McIntosh of Inver (1839–1922); the correct spelling of ‘McIntosh’ has latterly been much debated, but all the evidence confirms ‘McIntosh’.

  2. Essential to understanding the relationship of women to science and natural history in nineteenth-century England are Barbara T. Gates, Kindred Nature: Victorian and Edwardian Women Embrace the Living World (1998); her anthology of women’s writing and illustration, In Nature’s Name: An Anthology of Women’s Writing and Illustration, 1780–1930 (2002), and Barbara T. Gates and Ann B. Shteir, Natural Eloquence: Women Reinscribe Science (1997). The best analysis of this ‘craze’ for natural history and of women’s participation and exclusion is Lynn Barber. The Heyday of Natural History (1980), 125–38.

  3. P[hilip] H[enry] Gosse’s popular works on natural history included many fine illustrations and drawings. The Potters would have known his other books, especially A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast (1853) or Tenby: A Sea-side Holiday (1856), which delighted readers with vivid descriptions of the minutest things. As a young person Beatrix had ‘borrowed’ the volumes of F. O. Morris’s A Natural History of British Moths: Accurately Delineating Every Known Species (1872) from her father’s library, and had copied many of them.

  4. See Anne Stevenson Hobbs, ‘Flora and Fauna, Fungi and Fossils’, 71–94; and Joyce Irene Whalley, ‘Introduction’, in BP/AW, 7–8. Hobbs’s critical evaluation in VN, 139–81, is particularly helpful.

  5. John Sowerby and C. Pierpoint Johnson, British Wild Flowers (1882); inscribed volume dated 12 October 1884, Beatrix Potter Collection, Daito Bunka University, Tokyo.

  6. ‘Letter to the Times’ (1888), BP Journal, 206. The letter fragment is one of two entries for that year. This is the first extant ‘letter to the editor’, a writing habit she was to continue all her life. HWBP, 390–92.

  7. The journal was published 1865–93; Cooke was editor 1872–93. Cooke drew his fungi sections one step behind the main drawing, a practice Beatrix did not employ until later. It chronicled the immense popular interest and participation in natural history during the later nineteenth century. See VN, 141.

  8. See Robert McCracken, ‘Beatrix Potter, Scientific Illustrator’, Antiques, 149/6 (June 1996), 868–77.

  9. Two extant watercolours of 1887 are Stropharia aeruginosa, or verdigris toadstool, 12 October 1887, and Clitocybe geotropa, 27 October 1887. They are part of the Beatrix Potter Collection of fungi paintings Beatrix bequeathed to the Armitt Trust Library, Ambleside. The Library is now part of the Lakes Discovery Museum @ The Armitt (hereafter cited as LDM@TA). Mary Noble, ‘Beatrix Potter and Charles McIntosh, Naturalists’, VN, 60–61.

  10. Rupert Potter to CMI, 3 March 1887. M. Noble to the author, 16 July 2000.

  11. BP Journal (28, 29 July 1892), 248–9.

  12. Ibid. (27–9 July 1892), 247–9; (9 September 1892), 264. Cuthbert Graham, ‘Beatrix Potter’s Birnam in Code Diary’, Perthshire Advertizer (1966). Clippings file, Dunkeld Cathedral Archives.

  13. BP Journal (4 August 1892), 251.

  14. Ibid. (1 August 1892), 250.

  15. Ibid. (12 September 1892), 266.

  16. Ibid. (28, 30 July 1892), 248–9. Nister had a London office at 24 Bride Street; ABP. Leslie Linder, ‘Summary of Fungi drawing by year’, Linder Archive, V & A. Linder’s meticulous summary sho
ws six fungi paintings for 1892.

  17. BP Journal (29 October 1892), 305, 306–7. Beatrix had been up to Inver to see Kitty MacDonald, even sitting outside Charlie’s humble house on a bench. Colin Gibson, ‘The Postman Naturalist’ (1999), Dunkeld Cathedral Archives.

  18. To play the cello, he used the edge of his injured hand in place of fingers to slide up and down the fingerboard; he also used the same technique to play the bass notes on the organ. ‘Charles Mackintosh’, in J. Murray Neil, ‘The Scots Fiddle: Tunes, Tales & Traditions of the North-East and Central Highlands’, unpublished MS (1998), PC.

  19. Gibson, ‘The Postman Naturalist’, 118–22. Henry Coates, A Perthshire Naturalist: Charles Macintosh of Inver (1923), 96–140. Coates, a student of McIntosh’s, argues that he was ahead of his time in such important botanical areas as identifying the larch canker disease, understanding ecological relationships, and concern for environmental destruction. McIntosh died in 1922 at the age of 83.

  20. John Clegg, Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller and Scientist (1989), 8–9. Interviews with Dr Mary Noble, 10, 16 April 2000. Noble, an expert in plant pathology and a passionate Potter scholar, died in July 2002. The Stevenson volumes are now in the Perth Museum. BP Journal, 306, n. 78.

  21. Ibid. (29 October 1892), 305–6.

  22. Ibid. 305.

  23. Ibid. Mary Noble, ‘Beatrix Potter and Charles McIntosh, Naturalists’, VN, 62–5, and ‘Beatrix Potter and Her Funguses’, BPS Studies, 1 (1985), 41–6. Noble discovered the sketchbook with the initials ‘HP’ on the spine along with the correspondence between Beatrix and Charlie. The watercolours from that sketchbook are now at the Perth Museum. Mary Noble to W. P. K. Findlay, 7 July 1978, BPS.

  24. BP Journal (29 October 1892), 306. Potter’s tone throughout her journal account of their initial meeting is somewhat condescending, not of McIntosh’s knowledge, but about his strange appearance and lack of social grace.