Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  12. BP to HW, 4 June 1913, Letters, 208; BP to E. Wilfred Evans, 10 July 1913, Letters, 208.

  13. BP to ALW, 4 July 1913, FWA. One of the most contentious issues was whether the Potters would have to give up their London home if she married Heelis. Beatrix argued that there was no reason for her father to live in London any longer and that she could manage their care if they too moved to the Lake District.

  14. BP to FC, 9 October 1913, NT; BP to HW, 25 July 1913, Letters, 210.

  15. HWBP, 213–14. BP to Andrew Fayle, 22 January 1910, LTC, 141. BP to Joy (surname unknown), 26 September 1913, PC.

  16. The signpost appears both on the last page and in the frontispiece, suggesting that Potter saw it as symbolic of her choices for happiness and a country life. HWBP, 213–17; Ruth K. MacDonald, Beatrix Potter (1986), 122–7. BP/AW, 148–52. Peter Hollindale, ‘These Piglets Fled Away’, Signal (May 1994), 141–8.

  17. HWBP, 213–17. BP/AW, 148–52; MacDonald, Beatrix Potter, 120–27. ASC, 134. BP to Gertrude Woodward, 24 September 1913, Letters, 213. The Tale of Pigling Bland, copy dedicated to William, 27 October 1913, LDM@TA. BP to Margaret Hough, 4 November 1913, LTC, 170.

  18. BP to HW, 13 September 1913; BP to Gertrude Woodward, 24 September 1913, Letters, 210, 213. Thomas Haygarth Baines to Helen Beatrix Heelis, 30 December 1913. The 66 acres of the Sawrey House Estate included Moss Heckle (Eccles) Intake and part of the Tarn; see Schedule of Beatrix Heelis’s conveyances, BPS.

  19. BP to FC, 9 October 1913, NT.

  20. Ibid. See Anthony Wohl, ‘Unfit for Human Habitation’, in H. J. Dyos and Michael Wolff (eds.), The Victorian City, 2 vols. (1973), vol. ii, pp. 603–24, and his Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain (1983), 1–9, 136–7. These essays on hygiene and disease make it clear why Beatrix was so often ill when she returned to London.

  21. BP to FC, 9 October 1913, NT; BP to Gertrude Woodward, 24 September 1913, Letters, 212.

  22. St Mary Abbots: The Parish Church of Kensington (1992).

  23. TMH, 3. A studio photograph by C. E. Fry & Sons of Gloucester Terrace, South Kensington, undated, was taken with Beatrix seated on an elaborate chair and William perched beside her. She appears to be wearing the same blouse and skirt as in the photograph taken on 14 October. Beatrix sent a copy of a photograph to Millie Warne saying that it was ‘taken on my wedding day, but nobody likes it, the side of the face seems puffed out’ — a description corresponding to the studio photograph cited above. Beatrix Heelis (hereafter cited as BPH) to ALW, 7 November 1913, FWA.

  24. Interview with David Henry Beckett by Judy Taylor, 13 November 1989, and with Elizabeth Battrick, 11 May 1990, Hawkshead. The officiating curate, called to perform a mid-week ceremony, was not the notable Somerset Edward Pennefather, the incumbent Vicar. Heelis—Potter certified copy of marriage register, 15 October 1913, St Mary Abbots Parish Register, London.

  25. Judy Taylor, interview with Beatrix Moore, c. December 1985, quoted in ASC, 134. TMH, 2–4. Once married, Beatrix was insistent that she be addressed only by her married name.

  26. Heelis—Potter, marriage notice, The Times, 18 October 1913. The same notice was printed in the Westmorland Gazette.

  27. BPH to ALW, 21 October 1913, FLP.

  13 Partnerships

  1. BPH to ALW, 3 November 1913, FLP; BPH to Mrs Martin, 28 October 1913, Letters, 213.

  2. BPH to ALW, 7 November 1913, FWA.

  3. BPH to Edith Gaddum, 6 November 1913; BPH to ALW, 3 November 1913, FLP; BPH to ALW, 7 November 1913, FWA.

  4. BPH to ALW, 23 December 1913, 15 April 1913, PC; BPH to Barbara Ruxton, 6 November, 31 December 1913, LTC, 152–4, 160.

  5. BPH to ALW, 15 April 1914, PC. Millie had sent Beatrix a gift of a handsome card case and was forwarding another belated wedding gift. BPH to ALW, 23 December 1913, PC. TMH, 24–7.

  6. The tarn was created sometime around the turn of the century by damming the lower end of the beck which drained the higher moss. BPH’s portion of the tarn was the smaller part. The individual closes are listed in the Assent created after BPH’s death. Conveyance deed of 30 December 1913, NT; descriptions refer to plot numbers on the 1914 Ordnance Survey map.

  7. BPH to ALW, 12 March 1914, PC; BPH to HW, 20 March 1914, Letters, 217.

  8. BPH to HW, 9 May 1914, Letters, 217–18. Sir Alfred Downing Fripp (1865–1930), certified death certificate, Rupert Potter, 8 May 1914, General Register Office.

  9. BPH to ALW, 19 May 1915, PC.

  10. Conversion to 2002 equivalency from ‘The History of Money’, www.ex.ac.uk. The third codicil was made on 11 December 1913 when Miss Hammond was still living. ‘Rupert Potter, deceased. Lists of shares debentures of companies, stocks or funds, stock funds and bonds of foreign countries, dependencies and colonies’; ‘Debts due at the death’; material from executors of the estate, July 1914, BPS. BPH to HW, 3 August 1914, Letters, 219.

  11. ‘Beatrix Potter’s Housekeeper Looks Back on Life at Sawrey’, Westmorland Gazette (29 July 1966). Mary Agnes Rogerson (Mrs Thomas) had been overseeing both properties before Potter’s marriage. BPH to Barbara Ruxton, 31 December 1913, LTC, 160.

  12. The other stories were ‘Pace Eggers’, ‘Mole Catcher’s Burying’, and ‘Carrier’s Bob’, a tragic but true story of a faithful dog being run over by a cart, which the editor did not think ‘happy’; HWBP, 376–83.

  13. BPH to HW, 23 February 1914, 20 March 1914, Letters, 216, 217; BPH to HW, 21 March 1914, quoted in HWBP, 218.

  14. BPH to ALW, 19 May 1914, PC; BPH to HW, 10 June 1914, FWA; BPH to HW, 12 July 1914, Letters, 218.

  15. Sue Beckett, Judy Taylor and Elizabeth Battrick, ‘David Henry Beckett’s Recollections of Beatrix Potter’s Family’, interview, n.d. January 2002, NT; BPH to ALW, 11 September 1914, FLP.

  16. Rupert’s estate could not be entirely cleared until the two mews properties were disposed of a decade later. Jackson-Stops & Staff, Estate Agents, circular, ‘Lindeth Howe, Windermere, Westmorland’; BPH to HW, 18 May 1915, Letters, 221.

  17. BPH to ALW, 11 September 1914, FLP. Information on Bertram’s military status is from ASC, 136, but unconfirmed. Pamela Horn, The Changing Countryside in Victorian and Edwardian England and Wales (1984), 226–42.

  18. BPH to ALW, 21 December 1915; BPH to FW, 18 (?) December 1915, FWA.

  19. BPH to HW, 3 August 1914, Letters, 219; BPH to HW, 8 May 1915, FWA; BPH to HW, 18 May 1915, Letters, 221.

  20. BPH to FW, 18 (?) December 1915, Letters, 221–2.

  21. Ibid.

  22. BPH to ALW, 21 December 1915, FWA.

  23. David B. Grigg, English Agriculture: An Historical Perspective (1989), 40–58. Times report cited Pamela Horn, Rural Life in England in the First World War (1984), 114–39. The WNLS was unsuccessful, but its successor, the Women’s Land Army, placed about 23,000 women on the land.

  24. BPH to Augusta Burn, 10 January 1916, PC.

  25. BPH (A Woman Farmer), ‘Women on the Land’, 10 March 1916; The Times (13 March 1916).

  26. Eleanor L. Choyce, ‘Louie’ (1876–1963); her initial reply is lost. Selwyn Goodacre, ‘Beatrix Potter Writes to The Times’, BPSN, 8 (15 January 1985). TBP, 101–3. BPH to ELC, 15 March 1916, ELCL.

  27. Nigel Gee, Introduction, ELCL. LTC, 177–8.

  28. ELC to Mrs Choyce, 25 May 1916, ELCL; quote from TBP (letter now lost), 134–5.

  29. BPH to Denys Lowson, 3 October 1916, LTC, 178.

  30. BPH to ALW, 10 January 1916, PC; BPH to ALW, 15 December 1916, Letters, 228–9.

  31. BPH to HDR, 5 February 1917, Letters, 230.

  32. Rawnsley’s son Noel was the source of this view; ASC, 151. Graham Murphy, Founders of the National Trust (1987), 52, repeats the notion. Speculation increased when Eleanor’s 1923 biography of her husband contained no mention of his friendship with the Potter family or with Beatrix, nor any of their common endeavours; Eleanor F. Rawnsley, Canon Rawnsley: An Account of His Life (1923).

  33. BPH to ALW, 15 December 1916, FWA; BPH to HW, 19 December
1916, Letters, 229.

  34. Eileen Jay, ‘Beatrix Potter and the Armitt Collection’, VN, 39. BPH to Frederic Fowkes, 19 November, 1 December 1914, n.d. 1916, PC.

  35. BPH to Frederic Fowkes, 19 November, 1 December 1914, n.d. 1916, PC; BP to HDR, 27 August 1913, NT.

  36. Esther Nicholson (1899–1984) became a teacher and emigrated to New Zealand leaving a legacy of educational good will. Nancy Nicholson Hudson (1909–2007), became a Norland nurse (infant and children’s nanny), married Hugh Hudson in 1965 and returned to a farm in Kirkby Thore.

  37. BPH to GN, 18 March 1917, PC.

  38. Esther was most likely able to attend St Katharine’s because of Beatrix’s beneficence.

  39. BPH to GN, 10(?), 11 August 1916, V & A. Judy Taylor to the author, 21 October 2004. The story of the visit was told by NNH to Taylor in an interview in 1990 and is recounted in LTC, 172 and in TMH, 75–7. BPH to NNH, Christmas 1916, in a ring binder, V & A.

  40. BP, ‘The Fairy in the Oak’, c. 1911, text in HWBP, 351–6. She recalls the great oak at Camfield, which was described in the Doomsday Book. HWBP, ‘Oaks’, ‘Acorns’ and ‘Of Timber’, 393–4. These are unfinished fragments intended as letters to Country Life or The Field.

  41. BPH to HW, 12 August 1916, Letters, 227.

  42. Ibid. For Ernest A. Aris (1882–1963), I am indebted to correspondence with Dudley Chignall and to his MS ‘The Man who Drew for Beatrix Potter — Ernest Aris’ (2004). Emma Laws on the exhibit ‘Ernest Aris: Beatrix Potter’s “second string” ’, BPSN, 94 (October 2004).

  43. BPH to Ernest A. Aris, quoted in Dudley Chignall, ‘The Man who Drew…’, ch. 3: ‘An Artlessly Conceited Little Bounder’, V & A. Ernest A. Aris to BPH, 18 September 1916, V & A. HWBP, 240–41. BPH to NNH, September (1917?), V & A. Sketches are in the V & A. NNH to Leslie Linder, 9 August 1966, V & A. William’s fear proved well founded. Aris appropriated the oakman characters after the war in books published under the pseudonym Dan Crow.

  44. BPH to FW, 10 November 1917, Letters, 239.

  45. Ibid. Ernest Aris to BPH, 21 November 1917. Chignall, ‘The Man who Drew…’, ch. 3.

  46. BPH to FW, 13 November 1917, Letters, 240; BPH to Ernest Aris, 23 November 1917 (draft), Letters, 241.

  47. BPH to HW, 12 June 1916, ?end of February 1917, Letters, 225, 231.

  48. BPH to GN, 18 March 1917, PC. Andrew O. Hagan, The End of British Farming (2001), 31–3; Grigg, English Agriculture, 50–58. BPH to HW, 19 March 1917, Letters, 231–2.

  49. Ibid.

  14 Salvages

  1. The Times (3 April 1917), 3.

  2. BPH to ALW, 5 April 1917, FWA.

  3. Ibid.

  4. The Times (11 April 1917), 3; (27 April 1917), 3. See also Alexander Grinstein, The Remarkable Beatrix Potter (1995), 228–31.

  5. ASC, 138, 139–40. BPH to FW, 30 April 1917, Letters, 233–4.

  6. BPH to FW, 28 June 1917, Letters, 235. In the end it was sold to a neighbour and eventually lost.

  7. Ibid.; BPH to ALW, 5 July 1917, FWA.

  8. BPH to FW, 21, 28 June 1917, Letters, 234–6. ASC, 140–41. HWBP, 225–8, 430–31. The first printing of Appley Dapply was 20,000 copies, and the second 15,000; Frederick Warne & Co. catalogue, January 1918, FWA.

  9. BPH to FW, 4 May 1918, Letters, 247.

  10. The Frederick Warne Archives hold dozens of fascinating notes from Potter to HW and FW during the period 1905–28 giving her opinions on licences and products. Elizabeth Booth, ‘Beatrix Potter’s Early Merchandise, 1903–1928’, FWA. BPH to FW,? September 1917, FWA; BPH to FW, 17 October 1917, Letters, 238.

  11. Ibid.

  12. BPH to FW, 1 September 1917, Letters, 236–7; BPH to NNH, ? September 1917, V & A.

  13. BPH to FW, 3 September 1917, Letters, 237. E. Booth, inventory, FWA.

  14. BPH to GN, 7, 23, 30 August 1917, V & A.

  15. BPH to NNH, Monday, ?September 1917, V & A.

  16. BPH to GN, 7 August 1917, 11 August 1916 (?), V & A; BPH to NNH, 15 September 1917, V & A.

  17. BPH to GN, 29 March 1918, V & A.

  18. BPH to EN, 2 April 1918, LTC, 24.

  19. BPH to Tom Harding, 21 December 1917, LTC, 80. She enclosed a copy of Appley Dapply. BPH to FW, 1 February 1918, Letters, 245.

  20. BPH to FW, 26 February 1918, FWA.

  21. BPH to FW, 18 March 1918, Letters, 246.

  22. BPH to FW, 4, 6 May 1918, Letters, 247–8. Scafell is a peak of 978 metres in the Wasdale fells, approached from Langdale or Borrowdale.

  23. HWBP, ‘The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse’, 243–4. There were at least two Mary Rogersons of Sawrey. One owned Duchess, the Pomeranian, the other, her daughter-in-law, was the Heelises’ housekeeper after 1911. The Mrs Rogerson of Eeswyke appears to be the one who owned the dogs and who is drawn. BP/AW, 156–7. One critic calls the tale ‘an unusually strident argument on the virtues of country living’ and wonders if Potter intended it to justify her retreat from active publication and public life, a comment which ignores the reality of Potter’s life at the time; Ruth K. MacDonald, Beatrix Potter (1986), 78–81.

  24. Quote from Bookman in FW to BPH, 31 December 1918, FWA.

  25. BPH to ALW, 30 June 1918, BPS.

  26. ‘General Disposition & Settlement of Walter Bertram Potter, Ashyburn, Ancrum, 1918’ (the will was signed 8 October 1915), PC. Liz Taylor, ‘Bertram Potter and the Scottish Borders’, BPS Studies 2 (1986), 43–6; and ‘The Tale of Bertram Potter’, Weekend Scotsman (11 November 1978), 6; interview with Liz Taylor, Melrose, Scotland, 4 April 2000. Certificate of Death, Ancrum, 1918. Bertram died on 22 June 1918 at 7.30 a.m. Witnessed by Robert Robertson, a neighbour and sometime farmhand; BPH to FW, 2 July 1918, Letters, 250.

  27. BPH to HDR, 13 September 1918, Letters, 251.

  28. BPH to EN, 16 July 1918, LTC, 75.

  29. BPH to NNH, 2 October 1918, V & A.

  30. BPH to ALW, 8 November 1918, FWA.

  15 Opportunities

  1. BPH to ELC, 1924 June 17, ELCL.

  2. Melvyn Bragg, Land of the Lakes (1983), 79–83. BPH to FC, 14 December 1925, NT; BPH to Ivy Steel, 27 November 1924, DIDJ. Interview with Bruce Logan, n.d., CRO/K.

  3. J. D. Marshall and John K. Walton, The Lake Counties from 1830 to the Mid-Twentieth Century: A Study in Regional Change (1981), 55–66; David B. Grigg, English Agriculture: An Historical Perspective (1989), 53–86; Alun Howkins, Reshaping Rural England: A Social History, 1850–1925 (1991), 222–75. BPH to Ivy Steel, 27 November 1924, DIDJ; BPH to FC, 14 December 1925, NT; BPH to Kate Wyatt, 15 November 1920, FLP. See E. M. Cleland, ‘How Peter Rabbit’s Creator Nearly Became a Canadian’, Toronto Globe & Mail (4 February 1956), reprinted in Judy Taylor, ‘So I Shall Tell You a Story…’: Encounters with Beatrix Potter (1993), 40–43.

  4. The new firm was registered on 25 May 1919. They offered, and Potter approved, a combination of cash and debentures to repay their debts. BPH to FW, 10 April 1919, Letters, 256; BPH to FW, 17 May 1919, FWA. Letters, 257n.

  5. FW to BPH, 19 May 1919; BPH to FW, 23, 29 May 1919, FWA. The Tale of the Faithful Dove was published posthumously in 1955.

  6. HWBP, 245. BPH to FW, 29 May 1919, Letters, 257–8.

  7. BPH to FW, 5 August, 3 November 1919, Letters, 258–9.

  8. BPH to FW, 11 March, 7 May, 12 October 1920, Letters, 261, 263. HWBP, 246: BPH to Kate Wyatt, 15 November 1920, Letters, 264.

  9. BPH to FW, 28 February 1919, Letters, 254; BPH to FW, 6 February 1922, FWA; BPH to FC, 27 December 1924, NT.

  10. BPH to NHH, 8 November 1919, V & A; BPH to Edith Gaddum, 13 February 1922, PC; BPH to FW, 6 February 1922, FWA.

  11. William Rathbone VI, Mrs Paget’s brother, founded district nursing in 1858 and established a training school modelled directly on Florence Nightingale’s system. In 1887 the successful District Nursing Association had been granted royal patronage as Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Institute for Nurses, hence the term Queen’s Nurse for someone who had been trained in that system. BP Journal (5 February 1893), 312. Rosal
ind Paget (1855–1948) was named DBE in 1935. Gwen Hardy, William Rathbone and the Early History of District Nursing (1981), 4–7; June Hannam, ‘Rosalind Paget: Class, Gender and the Midwives Act’, History of Nursing Society Journal, 5 (1994–5), 133–49.

  12. Canon Thomas Henry Irving was Vicar at St Michael and All Angels in Hawkshead from 1909 to 1927. Initially £92 6s. was promised in annual subscriptions, and £270 in endowments, much of that amount contributed anonymously by Beatrix. Ambleside, Brathay & Hawkshead Parish Magazine (June, August, September, December 1919), LDM@TA. Susan Ludbrook, ‘The Foundation of the Hawkshead District Nursing Association’, 3 February 1988, V & A. Barbara Crossley, The Other Ambleside (2000), 70–72. TBP, 158–9. BPH to GN, 1 December 1919, 16 September 1920, V & A.

  13. BPH to GN, 11 August 1922, V & A. Miscellaneous letters about purchase of Hanniken cottage from Jas. Walker, courtesy of Eileen Jay. Ambleside, Brathay & Hawkshead Parish Magazine (February 1920), LDM@TA.

  14. BPH to Mrs Edwards, 11 February 1924, PC. Ambleside, Hawkshead and Brathay Parish Magazine (September 1924), LDM@TA. Transcripts, ‘District Nursing’, Ambleside Oral History Group, Ambleside Library.

  15. Elizabeth Battrick, ‘Mrs Heelis Settles In’, BPS Studies, 4 (1990), 36–45, and The Real World of Beatrix Potter (1987), 35–8; author interview with E. Battrick, 14 July 2000. Ambleside, Hawkshead, Wray and Brathay Parish Magazine (1925), LDM@TA. BPH to FC, 14 December 1925, NT.

  16. BPH to GN, 6 June 1922, V & A; BPH to ELC, 19 September, 13 December 1922, 2 May 1923, 16 October 1925, ELCL; BPH to FW, 8–9 January 1926, Letters, 294; BPH to Nora Burt, 5 June 1932, NT.

  17. TMH, 31–2. Hawkshead Parish Magazine, April 1920, May 1921, LDM@TA.

  18. Elisabeth Holbrook, ‘Camping at Sawrey’, BPSN, 73 (July 1999), 13–14. Interview with Margery Stevenson, Windermere, 22 October 2000. Judy Taylor, interview with Joy Brownlow, Windermere, 3 July 1985. BPH to Joy Brownlow, 13 August 1943.

  19. ‘Peter Rabbit and the Guides at Troutbeck Park, May 31, 1928’, Chorlton-cum-Hardy Company Log Book, May 1928. BPH to Joy Brownlow, December 1929. Album compiled by Cynthia Forbes, Cumbria South Guide Association. Log of the 1st Chorlton-cum-Hardy Guide and Ranger camp, Hawkshead, Ambleside, 17–25 May 1929, BPG. ASC, 166. Susan Benson, Guiding: The Magazine of Girl Guiding, UK, CRO/B; Girlguiding Collection, CRO/B.