George Meredith (1828-1909): Champion of Women, Writer, Novelist, and Poet
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George Meredith (1828-1909): Champion of women, writer, novelist, and poet The research carried out for Surrey Heritage’s March of the Women project has discovered much regarding the campaigning activities of Surrey’s women and men on all sides of the Women’s Suffrage debate. One figure stands out who was described by campaigners as a champion for women’s suffrage, namely, George Meredith. Meredith had little sympathy for the methods used by militant exponents of female enfranchisement and so the importance of his writing to activists in the campaign has been largely overlooked even though he was an influential writer, novelist and poet who became known for his views on women and their rights. His views, as well as his emotional response to the events in his personal life, were issues for which he found an outlet through his writing. His published works, including his novels, contain strong heroines who often struggled with the confines and restrictions of contemporary society. He was a prolific correspondent contributing to influential journals and newspapers, as well as writing copious letters to his many personal friends and admirers. George Meredith was born in Portsmouth in 1828 and attended St Paul’s School, Southsea, before he was sent to a boarding school in Suffolk. From 1842 onwards he attended the School of the Moravian Fathers in Neuwied, near Koblenz, on the Rhine. In her biographical entry for George Meredith in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Margaret Harris speculates that it may have been the influence of his time at Neuwied which gave rise to his strong views on the need for women to be educated, as the school was attended by both boys and girls (although separately accommodated and taught). In 1844 he returned to England and took articles with Richard Stephen Charnock, a London solicitor. However, Meredith had little interest in the law and soon began to follow his inclination towards a literary career. Whilst living in London he met Edward Gryffydh Peacock, the son of Thomas Love Peacock, and it is through this friendship that he met Thomas’ dashing young widowed daughter, Mary Ellen Nicolls, who was sharing rooms with her brother near the British Museum. Both Mary Ellen and her brother Edward, like Meredith, were contributors to the Monthly Observer. In 1849 Meredith and Mary Ellen married at St George’s Hanover Square. After a long honeymoon travelling in Europe the couple settled in rooms at ‘The Limes’, Weybridge, a convenient location from which Mary could visit her father who lived nearby. It was here that Meredith and his wife met with fellow guests of their landlady Mrs Elizabeth Maceroni, including Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the artist, William Frith. Mrs Maceroni’s daughter was immortalised as the musical heroine in Meredith’s novel Sandra Belloni (1864). At first the marriage appeared to be happy, as reflected in Meredith’s Poems (1851). It was this debut publication that began his recognition as a literary figure, however later, after the problems in his marriage came to a head, he tried to destroy all the privately published copies of this book. It was around this time Meredith decided to abandon his embryonic career in the law in favour of pursuing his literary ambition. Meredith went to some lengths to conceal his family’s humble beginnings from Mary, weaving a web of fictional ancestors from Welsh nobility. The couple became estranged and lived apart for a while but they attempted to continue the marriage. Ellen endured two still-births as well as the death of her mother in 1851. Eventually she gave birth to their son Arthur Gryffydh at her father’s house in 1853. Shortly after, the couple and their baby moved to “Vine Cottage” in Shepperton but Mary and George quarrelled frequently. By 1857 their relationship broke down completely and Mary Ellen left to join the painter Henry Wallis in Wales, as she was expecting his child. Wallis was known to both Meredith and Mary as Meredith had been the model for Chatterton in Wallis’s painting The Death of Chatterton, exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1856. Meredith’s novel The Ordeal of Richard Fevere (1859) reflects on the shame of a deserted husband. It was recognised as a startlingly original novel, but due to the scandalous subject matter Meredith found that he gained unwanted notoriety. Mudie’s Circulating Library had placed an order for 300 copies but swiftly withdrew them from circulation due to the explicit content. Many of Meredith’s other novels also work through issues in his personal life, as well as the relationships of friends and associates. His novels are now regarded as wordy, however during his lifetime their originality ensured Meredith’s status as a leading literary figure. His poem sequence Modern Love (1862) in which he fictionalised the trauma of the death of his estranged wife, as well as the ending of their problematic marriage, offended contemporary sensibilities and attracted critical acclaim from others, such as Algernon Swinburne. Meredith was an energetic man who often embarked on long walks with his friends. Following the breakdown of his marriage these took on a therapeutic role. Among his walking companions were Algernon Swinburne and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. During the time he lived in Weybridge, where he met the Duff-Gordon family. The rescue of his son Arthur from a runaway horse by Janet Duff-Gordon cemented a lifelong correspondence and friendship, it is possible that Janet was the distraction mentioned in the poems in Modern Love (1862). Frank Burnard a friend and later editor of Punch described his first meeting with Meredith thus: “George Meredith never merely walked, never lounged; he strode, he took giant strides. He had…crisp, curly, brownish hair, ignorant of parting; a fine brow, quick observant eyes, greyish – if - I remember rightly – beard and moustache, a trifle lighter than the hair. A splendid head; a memorable personality. His laugh was something to hear; it was of short duration, but it was a roar; it set you off – nay, he himself, when much tickled, would laugh till he cried (it didn’t take long to get him crying), and then he would struggle with himself, hand to open mouth, to prevent another outburst.” After his marriage foundered Meredith left Mary’s daughter by her first marriage, Edith Nicholl, with her paternal grandmother, Lady Nicoll and took his son Arthur to live with him, first in Chelsea and then to ‘Copsham Cottage’ Esher, in 1859. In 1862 Arthur was sent to the King Edward VI School in Norwich, of which the headmaster, The Rev. Augustus Jessopp, was one of Meredith’s correspondents. While he was living in Esher, Meredith met Captain Frederick Augustus Maxse and they formed a lifelong friendship. Maxse appeared in fictional guise in Beauchamp’s Career (1875) along with another of Meredith’s friends, the barrister and later editor of the Morning Post, William Hardman. As the son of a bankrupt, Meredith was mindful of his requirement for a regular income and sought regular employment. He became a leader writer in the Ipswich Journal earning £200 p.a. He wrote regularly for periodicals such as the Morning Post, the Pall Mall Gazette and the Fortnightly Review. In 1860 became a reader for the publishers Chapman and Hall, in this capacity he gave encouragement to new writers Olive Schreiner, Thomas Hardy and George Gissing as well as roundly dismissing others such as Ellen Wood (Mrs Henry Wood). Three years after the death of Mary Ellen in 1861, Meredith proposed to Marie Vulliamy (1840-1885). On 13 July 1864 he wrote about this relationship, and his betrothal, to his close friend William Hardman and his wife, whom he had met when they stayed at Littleworth Cottage, Esher, during the summer of 1861. The letter is quoted by C L Cline in his article The Betrothal of George Meredith to Marie Vulliamy (published in Nineteenth Century Fiction vol 16 no 3 Dec 1961 pp231-243): “...and here is Marie writing a race with me, by my side: and difficulties have been smoothed; we have indeed been plunged through powerful conflicts; and verily, by Shadrack, Meshack and Abegnego! We likewise have passed through fire, and by miracle we bear out our Rose from it, fresh and fragrant – did ever man have such a reward”. They were married at Mickleham Church on 20 September 1864. To begin with they moved between rented properties in Esher and Norbiton but in 1867 they moved to their permanent home at Flint Cottage, Box Hill. Their son, William Maxse, was born in 1865, followed by a daughter, Marie Eveleen, known as Mariette, in 1871. The small cottage was extended with a small chalet being built in the grounds in the 1870s, thanks largely to the improvement in Marie’s income following the death of her father. The chalet became Meredith’s retreat, and it was here that most of his best work was written. In A Ballad of Fair Ladies in Revolt (Fortnightly Review, 1 Aug 1876), Meredith deals with the issue of women’s disadvantages in contemporary society. It is in this poem that Meredith gives voice to the aspiration of women to be treated equally with men. He reveals his interest in the subject of female representation and proposes two possible responses to the activities of women campaigners. The first, that men should argue against women’s aspirations and deepen the conflict; the second that men should listen to the women’s case in favour of representation and then support women in achieving these aims. In the poem he appears to advocate a collective charm offensive on behalf of women’s rights.