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Home , Caroline Norton, Diana of the Crossways, George Meredith, The House on the Beach, The Tale of Chloe, Thomas Love Peacock

(1828-1909): Champion of women, writer, novelist, and poet

The research carried out for 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 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 and took articles with Richard Stephen Charnock, a 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 , 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 . 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 but Mary and George quarrelled frequently. By 1857 their relationship broke down completely and Mary Ellen left to join the painter 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 . 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, and . In 1860 became a reader for the publishers Chapman and Hall, in this capacity he gave encouragement to new writers Olive Schreiner, and as well as roundly dismissing others such as (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. The view advocated by Meredith in the poem illustrates how far he was influenced by the ideas of (Mill’s essay On the subjection of women had been published in 1869). Notions of chivalric nostalgia seem to pervade the poem, this has echoes of the similar ethos underlying the ideals of the pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts movement. It is not any wonder then that George Frederic and Mary Watts eagerly enjoyed his writings. In her diary Mary Watts is fulsome in her praise of which she and her husband read together. Although Meredith’s writing was already highly regarded, it was not until 1885, with the publication of his Surrey based Diana of The Crossways that Meredith achieved popular acclaim. The inspiration for the novel was the notorious tribulations of the society beauty with Lord Melbourne and Sidney Herbert. Meredith was introduced to Caroline Norton by Lady Duff-Gordon and was captivated by her situation, intelligence and beauty. She was an educated, literate woman, the daughter of Thomas Sheridan and granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, of Polesden Lacy. In 1827 Caroline married George Chapple Norton, a barrister and Guildford MP, the younger brother of Lord Grantley. Unfortunately, George Norton proved to be a drunkard who was controlling and jealous of his wife’s popularity. The resulting marriage was stormy due to his behaviour, with the couple constantly fighting about money worries (he was not a successful barrister). Of necessity Caroline began to write in order to provide herself with some means of financial support. Caroline was not a feminist in the modern sense, she believed in the natural superiority of men. However, she was prepared to fight the injustice of children being removed from the care of their mother at their father’s whim. She also challenged the right in which a husband was able to control the money earned or inherited by their wife. As a writer, Caroline was also concerned about the fact that her husband had legal copyright of works which she had written. Caroline’s campaigning on these concerns lead to the passing of the Married Woman’s Property Act in 1882. Diana, the Irish heroine of Meredith’s novel, was based on Caroline. Crossways Farm at Abinger provided the inspiration for the farm owned by Diana. In the novel, the farm was her property which she inherited from her father. It was as central to her independence as her ability to write. Diana was a woman of her time, as such she was able to give Meredith a way to examine two controversial issues of the day; home rule and women’s rights. The Surrey author F.E. Green, who knew Crossways Farm well, wrote regarding the atmosphere of the old farm in Diana of the Crossways: “So real has Diana become to so many of us that we can clearly imagine that moonlight night. With the temperature 15 degrees below zero when Redworth rang and knocked and banged at the heavy oak door; and now, as in despair, he was leaving by the garden gateway, a voice from the open window called him back. We can picture Diana kneeling by the side of the great old dogs, lighting a fire, and Redworth hungrily eying her in the fierce fire glow.” Because Diana was clearly based on recent real events and people, there was a real risk of legal action, which led the publishers of the Fortnightly Review to stop the serialisation of the novel after twenty-six chapters in 1884. The completed novel, consisted of three volumes and with seventeen more chapters than the serial, was published by Chapman and Hall in February 1885. The novel’s success meant that two further editions were produced before the end of the year. In 1906 G.M. Trevelyan stated, in his analysis of George Meredith’s work in The poetry and philosophy of George Meredith, that “It is a favourite theme of Mr Meredith the novelist, that true love must be based on equal rights; that woman must be a free agent; that she must be allowed to have a mind, and without a mind she cannot have a soul for perfect love. Clara Middleton [heroine of (1879)] and Diana of the Crossways were protagonists in that struggle. Those champions of the emancipation of women as conceived by Mr Meredith, were not dowdies; and though Diana was justly proud during a short part of her career to work for her living, neither she or Clara discarded any of the qualities of their sex. On the contrary, Mr Meredith regards ‘beauty’ as a weapon of deliverance, meaning thereby not the formal beauty alone, but all the manifold and subtile attractions which enable women to command a price and so make terms with men.” Sadly, Marie developed cancer of the throat and died in 1885. She was unable to enjoy the literary acclaim that this novel brought Meredith’s way. Meredith was grief- stricken and typically gave vent to his emotions in his poem A Faith on trial. At the time of Marie’s death, their headstrong daughter Mariette was only fourteen. It seems that Meredith was a somewhat over protective father, as a widower he had to ensure that Mariette was suitably brought up, so employed a governess to ensure that she was never without a chaperone. Following the success of Diana, his publishers, Chapman and Hall revisited his previous work and throughout the rest of the 1880s ‘new’ editions were published. Meredith, however, chose to have his poetry published by Macmillan and a number of volumes were published by them. By the mid-1890s, following his son William’s advice, Meredith had decided to bring all his work under one imprint, that of Constable (William became his literary agent had joined Constable in 1895). Meredith believed that his poetical works were more significant than his fiction and that literary interest in the poetry would endure beyond that in his novels. Throughout the 1880s Meredith began to suffer with his health. He had always suffered from digestive problems but now his active lifestyle was limited, possibly by osteoarthritis, although medical opinion at the time diagnosed motor ataxia. This condition worsened and must have been highly frustrating to him. He also struggled with increasing deafness. He became increasingly paralysed and by 1905 struggled to walk. In 1892 Meredith replaced Tennyson as President of the Society of Authors, a sign of how his reputation as a writer had risen. In 1905 he was awarded the Order of Merit for services to literature. His circle included literary luminaries such as J M Barrie and Sir , Henry James and Thomas Hardy. He became what we might today view as a celebrity pundit, earning the title ‘The Sage of Box Hill’. He occupied himself making idiosyncratic Liberal and anti-imperialist public pronouncements in letters to the papers. He gave vent to anti-clerical statements voicing the view that the clergy were against progress because the treated Christianity as an institution. By inclination Meredith was a Liberal. He appears to have had some involvement in the local Liberal Association, when on the 30 March 1904, he wrote a letter to Mrs A E Fletcher of the Women’s Liberal Association that demonstrated his views on the equality of women and his support for the cause of women’s suffrage: “At this present time Women need encouragement to look upon affairs of national interest, and men should do their part in helping them to state publically what has been confined to the domestic circle – consequently a wasted force. That it can be a force men are beginning to feel. That the exercise of it is an education we see already in the enlargement of their view of life and of the country’s needs. So there is hope that the coming generation will have more intelligent mothers. This holds true whatever side in politics they may take, and it is the main point....By studying public matters diligently you will soon learn to perceive that there is no natural hostility between the sexes, their interests are one when they step forward together.” On 1 November 1906 Meredith wrote to the editor of on the subject of the increased militancy amongst female campaigners for suffrage: “Sir, Women, and for this they incur our severe disapprobation, are excitable. They desire to have the suffrage; to that end they storm the House of Commons and clamour for the right to assist in voting for members of the august Assembly. It was unwise on their part; a breach in good manners, an error of judgement, proof that they have not yet learnt how to deal with men. For until men have been well shaken at home, and taught that woman is a force to be reckoned with, they will not only resolutely bar the fortress they hold against feminine assailants, they will punish offenders sharply. But let it be remembered that men are also excitable. London town bore witness to the fact one day not so very ancient, when they skirmished along the streets at night, even as an incessant procession of omnibuses, whelmed by the police, and indulged in every form of loutish extravagance, merely to celebrate a happy event [the relief of Mafeking]. Now in the case of the women the intemperateness of which they are guilty held an idea, going some way to excuse them. In the case of men it was sheer animal exuberance, a headlong smashing of things handy for the blow, all in jollity. But, if we are asked which of the sexes is the more open, in these two instances, to the temporary form of insanity known as hysteria, can we say it was the woman? Or can we say that women of the Christian day are given to be disorderly in a body? Rather are they in their present development given to be subservient to laws written or unwritten. Men have called them slavish. Consider, too, that the cause for which these imprisoned women are suffering is on its way to be realized. Men have only to improve their knowledge of women, and it will be granted speedily. Sentimental prattle of the mother, the wife, the sister is not needed when we see, as the choicer spirits of men do now see, that women have brains, and can be helpful to the hitherto entirely dominant muscular creature who has allowed them some degree of influence in return for their servile flatteries and the graceful undulations of the snake – admired yet dreaded. Women must have brains to have emerged from so long a bondage. Will they be nervous in excess during a period of crisis, acting as one body and forming a torrent where but a flow of the stream was wanted? Danger was there, we might say, if it were anything like a new danger. We have experienced it with the voting man; history is full of examples. But by providently throwing open the avenues to occupations demanding practical mental activity, we should offer women the way to govern emotions and learn to state a case. In the present instance, it is the very excellence of their case that inflames them. How can they doubt it when they know they are supported in their claim by so thoughtful a man as the chief of the Conservative party, and have the countenance of the chief of the Liberal party, a voice on their behalf from the Secretary of State for India, one weighs what he utters, however warm his feelings? The mistake of the women has been to suppose that John Bull will move sensibly for a solitary kick. It makes him more stubborn, and such a form of remonstrance with him alienates the decorous among the sisterhood, otherwise not adverse to an emancipation of their sex. It cannot be repeated, if the agitating women are to have the backing of their sober sisters. Yet it is only by repetition of this manner of enlivening him that John Bull (a still unburied old gentleman, though not much alive) can be persuaded to move at all. Therefore we see clearly that the course taken by the suffragists was wrong in tactics. It may be argued likewise that the punishment inflicted on them has magnified the incident foolishly; and the act proposed for escape from punishment instigated martyrdom. George Meredith.” It is clear that Meredith’s writing was held in high regard and was even recognised by militant suffrage campaigners (even though he opposed militancy as a tactic) as crucial in building support for the women’s campaign for the vote. Following the arrest of fifty suffrage protesters, including Emmeline Pankhurst, at a demonstration in the House of Commons during February 1908, the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) held a Women’s Parliament. The Times reported on 13 February 1908 that the sessions were held and decisions reached and it is interesting that the members present decided to send birthday greetings to George Meredith, in acknowledgement that “many ladies engaged in literary pursuits were among the prisoners. It was decided to send a birthday greeting to Mr George Meredith and an expression of gratitude for his lifetime championship of the women’s cause.” Meredith’s influence was not only significant to the national campaign for suffrage but his endorsement was important to local campaigners too. During the last few months of his life Meredith continued to give the Women’s Suffrage campaign support and encouragement. On 4 March 1909, the Times reported that a letter from George Meredith was read at a women’s suffrage “At Home” meeting, held in Mickleham. The newspaper’s correspondent commented that Meredith advised seekers of votes for women to follow the example of Mrs Fawcett and Mrs Garrett Anderson “who preserved the rule of good manners and understood how the cause was to be won. The combative suffragists played the enemy’s game. I hold that in spite of much to be said in opposition the exercise of the vote will gradually enlarge the scope of women’s minds. Men who would confine them to the domestic circle are constantly complaining of their narrowness. Women have to contend with illogical creatures. The vote will come in time and for a time there is likely to be a swamping of Liberalism and a strengthening of ecclesiastical pretentions that will pass with the enlargement of women’s minds in a new atmosphere.” Meredith, together with a number of prominent men in the political, scientific, literary, artistic, theological and sporting spheres, signed a “Declaration by men in support of women’s suffrage”. The petitioners were listed in the Times (23 March 1909) and had among them some notable Surrey figures including George Meredith, Gerald N Balfour, Sir William Chance, Wilmot P Herringham, Sir Robert Hunter, David Lloyd George, J.M. Barrie, Edwin Lutyens, Halsey Ralph Riccardo, Henry Holliday, K.J. Key (late captain of Surrey Cricket Club), and the publisher, T. Fisher Unwin. After a brief illness, due to contracting a chill during an outing in his donkey cart on 14 May 1909, George Meredith died at Box Hill. His death was announced in the Times on the 19 May. A longer article about Meredith was published in the same issue: “It is difficult to realize that George Meredith is dead. He lived for eighty-one years; for more than half a century his intellectual force had been active in the midst of us; during his later years his published works were few – a notable poem or a generous letter contributed to these columns…Yet his living presence was always felt among us. The mind travelled often to Box Hill where the once great walker, great talker, great writer, the poet with the noble head, the keen eyed, keen tongued foe of pretence and folly, watched with almost unabated interest the life of which so many different features appealed to him, from cricket to tragic love, from old wine to contemporary politics.” The following day the front page of Common Cause (the official magazine of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies), carried the news of his death and a tribute to him (20 May 1909): “George Meredith is dead. The news dwarfs all other. No one has a deeper influence on the thought of the present century than he, and quite peculiarly this thought, affecting ideals of womanhood, has helped on women to freer expression. Not even Mill has done so much, because Mill lacked the two supreme resources of poetic imagination and the comic spirit. Through youthful enthusiasm for Meredith many men have been led to see male prerogative in its ugly nakedness; through sweetening laughter, they have been helped to abandon it. And women, with loyalty and courage shewn them as womanly virtues, have felt their lives enlarged and raised. The petals of his wild cherry are snowing down, but they will come again next year, and in the hearts and minds of English people his work will live. George Meredith is not dead.” The Times reported Meredith’s funeral in Dorking and the subsequent memorial service at Westminster Abbey in great detail on the 24 May 1909. The correspondent noted that amongst the wreaths was one from the NUWSS carrying the words “In grateful remembrance. True poets and true women have the native sense of the divineness of what to the world seems gross material substance”. Mrs Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the Leatherhead Liberal Association and the Leatherhead Women’s Liberal Association also sent wreaths. His ashes, following cremation at Woking Crematorium, St John’s, were laid to rest beside his wife, Marie, in Dorking cemetery. On the 24 May 1909 at the AGM of the Reigate and Redhill Women’s Suffrage Society, Margaret Crosfield spoke of the great loss sustained by suffragists as a result of the death of one of the movements’ famous advocates, the Surrey resident and novelist, George Meredith. Meredith’s reputation as a literary figure and champion of women’s rights did not diminish immediately after his death, a number of his works were published posthumously, as were other tributes by other prominent literary figures such as J.M. Barrie and Thomas Hardy. Many suffragist entertainments continued to include readings of his poem A Ballard of fair ladies in revolt as part of proceedings. On 9 November 1911, Common Cause reported that the Anti-Suffrage campaign had adopted Rudyard Kipling as it’s laureate, the NUWSS was not dismayed by this as the campaign for women’s suffrage already had it’s own laureate in George Meredith, the Anti’s were welcome to Kipling! Common Cause on 27 May 1909 published a personal testimony to Meredith’s influence and how he changed the world: “Beyond everything, what he brought to the younger generation of women was hope and self-revelation…Now woman feels that she belongs to herself, that she possesses herself, and unless or until she does so the gift of herself is impossible.” When some women won the right to vote in the General Election of 14 December 1918, Common Cause published an article designed to encourage all women who could vote to turn out. The article cited the opinion of George Meredith that women in politics were more practical than men. Today Meredith’s reputation as a leading literary figure has not endured, his novels and poetry are wordy by current standards, but his importance as a key figure and advocate in the fight for women’s rights should not be forgotten.

Contributed by Miriam Farr, volunteer for The March of the Women project.

Sources held at Surrey History Centre

Local Studies Library Collection: George Meredith, Last Poems; Constable, 1909 George Meredith, Ordeal of Richard Feveral, Penguin, 1998 George Meredith, Diana of The Crossways, Constable, 1911 George Meredith, [includes: and The case of General Ople and Lady Camper] Ward, Lock & Bowden, 1894 George Meredith, Sandra Belloni, Chapman & Hall, 1892 George Meredith Letters of George Meredith collected and edited by his son, Vol 1 1844-1881; Charles Scribner's Son, 1912 George Meredith, Letters of George Meredith collected and edited by his son, Vol 2 1882-1909; Charles Scribner's Son, 1912 Kathy Atherton, Suffragettes, Suffragists & Antis: the fight for the vote in the Surrey hills, Cockerel Press, 2017 Jacqueline Banerjee, A cut above: George Meredith and the landlady's daughter, TLS, 4 September 2015 Jacqueline Banerjee, Literary Surrey, John Owen Smith, 2005 J M Barrie, George Meredith, Constable, 1909 J M Barrie, Neither Dorking nor the Abbey, [including a poem by Thomas Hardy] Browne’s Bookstore, 1911 Peter Brandon, The North Downs, Phillimore, 2005 Lady Butcher, Memories of George Meredith, OM, Constable, 1919 S M Ellis, George Meredith his life and friends in relation to his work, Grant Richards, 1920 F E Green, The Surrey Hills, Chatto, 1915 J A Hammerton, George Meredith in anecdote and criticism, Grant Richards, 1909 Mervyn Jones, The amazing Victorian: a life of George Meredith, Constable, 1999 Nicholas A Joukovsky, According to Mrs Bennett: a document sheds a new and kinder light on George Meredith's first wife, TLS, 8 October 2004 , George Meredith: his life and work, Bodley Head, 1956 J S L Pulford, George & Mary Meredith in Weybridge, Shepperton & Esher 1849-61, Walton & Weybridge Local History Society, Papers 27, 1989 George Macaulay Trevelyan, The poetry and philosophy of George Meredith, Constable, 1906

Archives:

Reigate, Redhill and District Society for Women’s Suffrage branch scrapbook compiled by Helena Auerbach, c.1908-1913 (SHC ref 3266/1: https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHCOL_3266_1 _1_1_1).

Feature of George Meredith in the Abinger Women’s Institute Scrapbook (SHC ref 7744/1: https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHCOL_7744_1 _1_1_1)

Letter from Sir Hubert Parry to Susan Lushington, chasing some of Meredith’s poems he wished to set to music, 5 April 1906 (SHC ref 7854/4/29/1/28a-b: https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHCOL_7854_4 _29_1_28)

Newspaper article to mark the centenary of birth of George Meredith from The Times, 11 Feb 1928 (SHC ref 3735/2/3 (1-3): https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHCOL_3735_2 _2_1_1) Postcards showing George Meredith’s home ‘The Chalet’, Box Hill, Dorking (SHC ref PC/53/ALB2/59-61: https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHILL_PC_53_ 187)

Photograph of George Meredith’s home, ‘The Chalet’, Box Hill, Dorking, by Frances Frith, 1924 (SHC ref 6316/5604: https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHFRI_6316_41 _361)

Family settlements of the Norton family of Grantley Park, Ripon, formerly of Wonersh (SHC ref 1275/1-2: https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHCOL_1275)

Colour photograph of watercolour sketch of Copsham Cottage, Esher, c.1873, by John Lamb primus (1799-1875), (SHC ref Z/412/1: https://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/collections/getrecord/SHCOL_Z_412_ 1_1_1_1)

Full details of all records held at Surrey History Centre relating to George Meredith see https://www.surreyarchives.org.uk/

Other References George Meredith, Diana of The Crossways, Virago, 1980 Lucy Ella Rose, A feminist network in an artists' home: Mary and George Watts, George Meredith and Josephine Butler Journal of Victorian Culture, Vol 21 no 1, online available at http:/dx.doi.org/10.1080/13555502.2015.1123172 (https://academic.oup.com/jvc/article- abstract/21/1/74/4095590?redirectedFrom=fulltext) [accessed Jan 2020] Gale Vault, The Times, accessed via Surrey Libraries Online Reference Shelf Times Digital Archive, accessed via Surrey Libraries Online Reference Shelf Common Cause, British Newspaper Archive accessed via Surrey Libraries Online Reference Shelf Margaret Harris, George Meredith (1828-1909), Online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed via Surrey Libraries Online Reference Shelf K D Reynolds, Norton [née Sheridan], Caroline Elizabeth Sarah (1808-1877), Online Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed via Surrey Libraries Online Reference Shelf Francine Ryan, Meet Caroline Norton, Open University http://law- school.open.ac.uk/news/meet-caroline-norton-fighting-women%E2%80%99s- rights-it-was-even-cool George Meredith, A Ballard of fair ladies in revolt, Fortnightly Review, 1876 https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-ballad-of-fair-ladies-in-revolt/ and https://www.poeticous.com/meredith/a-ballad-of-fair-ladies-in-revolt Maura C Ives, George Meredith’s essay “On ” and other New Quarterly Magazines Publications, Associated University Presses, 1998 C L Cline, Nineteenth Century Fiction Vol 16, no 3, Dec 1961, pp 231-243, University of California Press Houses of Parliament https://www.parliament.uk/about/living- Heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/