www.guildofstgeorge.org.uk ISSN 2053-8715 (print) ISSN 2053-8839 (online) The Guild of St George The Companion No. 16 (2016)
Beautiful Peaceful Fruitful
Front cover: ‘New life in the Wyre Forest’, photograph by Lynne Roberts, 2015.
The Companion is edited, designed & The charity for arts, crafts and the rural economy, founded by John Ruskin in 1871. published by the Guild’s Communications Registered charity 231758. Limited company no. 12583. Officer, Dr Stuart Eagles.
CONTENTS
(Editorial) TREASURES OF THE RUSKIN COLLECTION Stuart Eagles 3 THE GUILD A LETTER FROM THE MASTER OF THE GUILD Clive Wilmer 5 Master: JOHN RUSKIN’S BOTANICAL BOOKS David Ingram 7 Clive Wilmer (Review) Eagles, Miss Margaret Knight & Sheepscombe James S. Dearden 11 Directors: RUSKIN IN SHEFFIELD 2015: AN INTRODUCTION Janet Barnes 13 Janet Barnes RUSKIN IN SHEFFIELD & FREEMAN COLLEGE Carole Baugh 17 Rachel Dickinson ON LECTURING AT WALKLEY & TOTLEY Mark Frost 19 Chris Harris POP-UP RUSKIN MUSEUM, WALKLEY Ruth Nutter 20 John Iles BOOTS, FRESH AIR AND GINGER BEER Sally Goldsmith 21 Peter Miller REMEMBERING ST GEORGE’S MUSEUM & SWAN Richard Watts 24 Jenny Robbins (Speech) THE FOUNDATION OF ST GEORGE’S MUSEUM Clive Wilmer 25 (Speech) REMEMBERING HENRY SWAN Clive Wilmer 26 Clive Wilmer COMPANIONS’ DAY, SHEFFIELD, 2015 Jacqueline Yallop 27 Robert Wilson RUSKIN, POETRY, & THE POP-UP MUSEUM Fay Musselwhite 29 NA Officer: THE THIRD JOHN RUSKIN PRIZE Peter Miller 33 Sara Atwood ON WINNING THE STUDENT PRIZE Robin Sukatorn 34 Administrator: GRANDPA’s PEACH Bob Steele 35 Martin Green AMERICAN NOTES Jim Spates & Sara Atwood 38 Communications Officer: (info box) RUSKIN ART CLUB, LA 40 Stuart Eagles THE VICTORIAN WEB Jim Spates 41 USING YOUR MONEY FOR GOOD: A SYMPOSIUM Catherine Howarth 42 The Editor would like to thank all THE SECOND WHITELANDS RUSKIN LECTURE Bernard Richards 42 contributors to this issue of the magazine—writers, photographers (Film review) MANY BEAUTIFUL THINGS Jim Spates 45 and illustrators. Special thanks are (Review) Ings-Chambers, Louisa Waterford . Sara Atwood 46 due to the editors of American Notes, (Review) Dawson, Benjamin Creswick Robert Hewison 47 Jim Spates and Sara Atwood. Sara ON GIVING THE RUSKIN LECTURE (2015) Marcus Waithe 48 has also proofread the entire THE RUSKIN LECTURE Carole Baugh 49 magazine, as have Martin Green, (Speech) IN THE MAKING [exhibition] Clive Wilmer 50 Chris Eagles, James S. Dearden, THE BELOVÉD REVISITED: RUSKIN LAND IN THE WYRE Neil Sinden 51 Peter Miller and Clive Wilmer. All PAST MASTERS: GEORGE BAKER Stuart Eagles 53 of them have been painstaking in their attention to detail. Ruth (Review) Cambridge Companion to John Ruskin ed. O’Gorman Sara Atwood 58 Nutter has provided valuable help (Review) Atwood, ‘The earth veil’: Ruskin & Environment Alan Davis 60 with the pages dedicated to the (Review) Ruskin Proust ed. & tr. Jérôme Bastianelli Cynthia Gamble 62 Ruskin in Sheffield project. Everyone (Review) Gamble, Wenlock Abbey James S. Dearden 63 has been unfailingly generous and SCUOLA SAN ROCCO VENICE IN SHEFFIELD Clive Wilmer 63 endlessly patient. The Companion is (Speech) Guardian Grando of Scuola San Rocco Franco Posocco 64 a collaborative effort that relies on (Review) Ken & Jenny Jacobson, Carrying Off the Palaces Sarah Quill 66 the goodwill and co-operation of a (Sermon) St George’s Church, Venice Clive Wilmer 69 team of people working together SECRETARIES OF THE GUILD OF ST GEORGE James S. Dearden 70 to record the Guild’s activities for posterity. Thank you. All errors OBITUARIES: Derek Hyatt Howard Hull, Helen Kippax 74 are the responsibility of the Editor Peter Emmet Luke Emmet 75 (sincere apologies). Readers’ Lord Asa Briggs John Spiers 76 feedback and contributions are Suzanne Varady Jim Spates 77 always welcome. Van Akin Burd Jim Spates 79 Please direct any queries about The Companion and the Guild of St George to the Communications Officer, Dr Stuart Eagles
TREASURES OF THE RUSKIN COLLECTION One of the motivations behind my Calendar of Treasures of the Ruskin Collection—the daily selection of images I have been sharing on social media—is purely selfish. I have felt for a long time that I ought to know more about the Ruskin Collection. I realised that I could satisfy this need and at the same time add usefully to what is known about some of the artists whose work is represented in it. When I read in the online catalogue put together with meticulous care by Louise Pullen, Curator of the Collection, that, ‘Little is known about [Frank] Randal’ (1852-1917) -– an artist who, with at least 137 works in the Collection, was vital to its identity and history – I realised that the challenge had been set. I may not have found out much in my subsequent diggings in the genealogical soil, but I can assert with some degree of confidence that Randal’s family history throws some light on his upbringing. Members of his extended family seem to have come together in a closer-than- usual union in the face of adversity, principally as a result of a number of premature deaths. This undoubtedly had ‘At Vignetta, near Lecco, Italy’ (1885), one of dozens of beautiful studies an impact, because as a consequence by Frank Randal in the Ruskin Collection. Frank found himself surrounded by his more artistic relatives. lost their mother, Frances Randal née marriage to William Bowles, a widowed Frank Randal was born at 2 Arnold (1828-1857) when Frank was not house steward, in 1879. We know from Marlborough Place, Harrow Road, yet five years old and she was only 30. the 1851 census that she taught piano. Paddington, and was baptised at Holy Frances’s death in June 1857 was the result When she died a widow in 1906, the Trinity Church on September 8th 1852. of complications from childbirth; worse executor of her will was her nephew, He had an older brother, Charles Randal still, the baby boy, named Arthur, died four Frank Randal, the artist represented in (1851-1928) and a younger sister, Fanny months later. the Ruskin Collection, so we can Scott Randal (1856-1941). The boys lost The three children continued to live with speculate that the two were close. their younger brother, the infant Arnold their now widowed father, Charles Hayter To some extent, history had repeated Randal, in 1855, but it must have been Randal (1823-1906), who was a Collector itself in the Randal family. Frank’s an incomprehensible tragedy also to have of Rates for a Gas Company. The evidence paternal grandfather, John Randal, of the 1861 census is that he drew in seems to have died before 1841, thus his extended family to help him care beginning a pattern of family life which for the children. Both Charles’s brought distant relatives under one roof. mother, Mary Randal, née Bromley John Randal’s premature death threw (c. 1796-1878), and his maternal together his widow, Mary, and her aunt, Sophia Wilson, née Bromley sister, Sophia, many years before Frank’s (1787-1869), came to live with them own mother died so young. John Randal at their new home in Woodfield was apparently remembered as an artist, Terrace, Paddington. Sophia gives the at least on his children’s marriage first indication of the extended certificates, filled in at a time when he family’s artistic nature, as she was (or, was of course deceased. What type of more likely, had been) a dance artist he was I have been unable to teacher. A sister-in-law to Charles, ascertain. His children’s baptism records Gertrude Arnold, was also living with make for interesting reading, as they them: she was 19 and no occupation is track his changing status. He shifted listed for her. Possibly the most from being a self-declared Artist living significant member of the extended in Marylebone in 1819, to life first as an family residing with them, though, ‘Attorney’ in 1821, then as a so-called was Charles’s sister: Elizabeth Maria ‘Gentleman’ living in the district of St Randal (1828-1906) was working as a Pancras in 1823 (when Frank’s father, Ruskin and Frank Randal, detail of a sketch in a teacher of music and singing, and Charles Hayter Randal was baptised) to letter from Frank’s brother, Charles, to Fanny probably continued to do so until her life as a ‘Law Writer’ living in Gower Randal (1882). 3
Enjoy the daily posts from the Ruskin Collection on social media, and download the free monthly PDF Calendars of Treasures from the Guild’s website
Street North in 1828. John and Mary’s of buildings in France and Italy that survive background reveal little of their personal daughter, Sophia Maria Randal (1818- in the Ruskin Collection. motivations and preferences, but they 44) who died before Frank was born, Frank and his brother Charles both do tell us that Frank lived among artists had been, like the maternal aunt after became artists, though Charles’s preferred of different kinds in his extended family, whom she was named, a dance teacher. medium appears to have been sculpture. It and we might speculate how far the And John and Mary’s son, John was in a letter to his sister Fanny that legend of his paternal grandfather, John Lawrence Randal (1821-1890) was an Charles drew the sketch of Frank with Randal, might have inspired his life architect; it is tempting to think that Ruskin and W. G. Collingwood, calling it choices. Frank learnt a lot from him in view of ‘Modern Artists’. It’s one of the more One artist about whom I have been his splendid watercolours and drawings comical items in the Ruskin Collection. able to find out nothing is Charlotte C. Frank also had a half- Murray, responsible for so many sister, Emily Hayter exquisite works in the Ruskin Louise Randal (1876- Collection. Her flower studies, in 1945), the issue of particular, are strikingly beautiful and Charles Hayter Randal’s remarkably detailed. Many others second marriage, to Emily besides me would be delighted if anyone Gatsell (sic) (b. 1834). reading this had any information about Like Frank, neither of the her life and background. I live in the half-sisters married, and hope that I have inspired someone to the 1911 census shows make it their business to find out! Rise that Fanny, a dressmaker to Louise’s challenge and help us to in partnership with enrich the Ruskin Collection by telling Catherine C. Blaskett, had the story of its artists, subjects and her half-sister Emily living donors. In the meantime, enjoy its with her at 27 Talbot treasures both in the Millennium Road, Paddington, Emily Gallery, Sheffield, and online. then being a clerk in the Stuart Eagles civil service. This Stuart Eagles and Companion was the house in Paul Dawson in conversation. which Fanny died Photo: Kay Walter. thirty years later. Fanny bequeathed her entire estate to her half-sister, so it seems likely that they remained close for the rest of Fanny’s life. Such details of an individual’s family
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A LETTER FROM THE MASTER OF THE GUILD Dear Companions, to be admitted that, without that sale, the 2015, Ruskin in Sheffield, planned, When our former Secretary Cedric Guild would not be in anything like such a nurtured, guided and energised by the Quayle became a Companion in 1969, state of health as I am happy, as Master, to wonderful Ruth Nutter. The first phase he was (he tells me) one of just nine report on now. This year, many of us have, of Ruskin in Sheffield with its emphasis on Companions. In those days, there was to our great delight, seen the Verrocchio craftsmanship and the meaning of wealth no Board of Directors and, apart from hanging in Sheffield again, on loan from the concluded with the exhibition I have the Master and Secretary, no officers. In National Gallery of Scotland for the six- mentioned, In the Making, and has since truth the Guild had never been a large month duration of our third and last embarked, still steered by Ruth, on its organisation—certainly nothing like the Triennial exhibition, In the Making: Ruskin, second phase, with ‘Make Good utopian league that Ruskin had imagined Creativity and Craftsmanship. Special Livelihoods’ as its title. when, in 1871, he set up St George’s congratulations for obtaining it are due to It seems to me that the achievement of Fund. the Curator of the Ruskin Collection, Ruskin in Sheffield has been to show that But it had done good work. St Louise Pullen, who is currently on the Ruskin Collection belongs in George’s Museum in Walkley had been maternity leave. The Verrocchio’s presence Sheffield—that its presence there is not an early success, as is amply demonstrated in a recent and much- recommended Guild publication: Benjamin Creswick by Companions Annie Creswick Dawson and Paul Dawson. That booklet tells the story of a young knife-grinder who, inspired by the Museum, went on to become a successful sculptor. In Worcestershire the land donated by George Baker in 1877 went on to nurture an agricultural community that was genuinely Ruskinian. One of those early Companions was Cedric’s grandfather and, through the Quayles, something of their original idealism has been carried on into our work in the Wyre Forest today. In the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century well- wishers donated property in Barmouth, Westmill and Sheepscombe. The Barmouth cottages were eventually sold to the local council (for a little over £5000 as the Guild Report for 1972 notes) but the other two properties The Master scrutinises a volume of Ruskin bound by William Morris when he was a student at remain in the Guild’s care. So, in 1969, Exeter College, Oxford, in whose library this photograph was taken (June 2016). though Ruskin was largely forgotten in the culture at large and though the Walkley Collection had lost its Sheffield in the exhibition struck me as a symbol of merely arbitrary. Ruskin’s choice of home—it was at Reading University, the Guild’s revival: its recovery from the Sheffield as a home for his Museum was and most of it was in store—the Guild vast neglect of Ruskin in the mid-twentieth inspired by both its beauty and its and its ideas were still alive. They were century. That recovery is I think due to the ugliness, by the majesty of the Peak just not terribly visible. depth and vitality of Ruskin’s teaching, District surrounding it and by the It was in the late 1960s that Ruskin’s especially as embodied in the Guild. squalor of the industrial wastelands, reputation began to revive, thanks The revival would not have been possible from which he wanted to liberate the largely to two Americans, Van Akin without some sense of continuity with our local craftsmen. He admired the Burd, whose death at the age of 101 we origins. This was most obviously metalworkers, seeing Sheffield cutlery as record and lament in this issue, and John exemplified on June 27th 2015 when we met justly famous—which it was and still is D. Rosenberg, and to one Englishman, in Walkley to unveil two new plaques of all over the world—but he did not Jim Dearden, my predecessor as Master, Cumbrian slate, one on Ruskin House believe that fineness could long survive who like his friend Cedric retired from where St George’s Museum was originally the misery of working people when their the Board in 2014. In 1975 the Board of located, the other on the grave of the lives were cut off from the very beauty Directors made the momentous decision museum’s first Curator, Henry Swan, in that to outsiders so evidently to sell the Guild’s most valuable Walkley’s semi-rural cemetery. The placing surrounded them. So nearly a hundred- possession: The Virgin Adoring the Christ of those plaques, designed and cut by and-forty years ago, he took action. He Child by Andrea del Verrocchio, a Richard Watts (a local craftsman, a key did so in a surprisingly modest way, but painting bought by Ruskin for St figure in the late twentieth-century what he did has had a profound impact. George’s Museum. I think most of us regeneration of central Sheffield and now a What we in the 21st century Guild have agree that the Guild should do all it can Companion), served to focus the done in Sheffield is to uncover the to avoid the loss of such things, but it has significance of the Guild’s main project of effects of Ruskin’s action. We have dug
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deeper into the place and found his work the Master can see, growing happily. The Gray Brechin, Tim Holton and Jane still living beneath the surface. policy is to dig deeply into the assets we McKinne-Mayer) in Berkeley and San The evidence is to be found in what have, but also to be open to the world Francisco. In December I went out to has followed. I was able to announce at around us. We have already created some Berkeley again to speak in a programme last year’s AGM that 24 Sheffield people bonds between Bewdley and Sheffield. John I arranged in collaboration with had applied to become Companions. Iles has long been committed to Care Companion Nicholas Friend. We held Most of them were present to sign the Farming, the process whereby marginalised four meetings there with two lectures roll along with a good number of other and psychologically challenged people are (one by him, one by me), a poetry new Companions. In all, last year, we encouraged to recover their sense of hope reading (by me) and a dialogue between elected a total of 44 Companions, and worth by working in the countryside. the two of us. One marvellous bringing the total roll-call to more than Inspired by Companion Bernard Richards, connection I have established for us is 200. It now stands at 220. we hope to approach a range of related with the Swedenborgian Church in San The Triennial exhibition included problems by making our land available to Francisco, an Arts and Crafts building of three works of craftsmanship (in particular) children cut off from the profoundly Ruskinian character, where I commissioned by the Curators, Kirstie benefits of life in the natural world. Nothing have now spoken three times. Hamilton, Alison Morton and Louise could be closer to Ruskin than that! Swedenborgianism influenced a number Pullen: a large decorative drawing by In my own life as Master I have been lucky of important Americans in the Hannah Downing, stained glass by enough to share Ruskinian ideas and the nineteenth century, including several Amber Hiscott, and an installation by Guild’s values with many friends abroad. with Ruskinian sympathies: for instance, Sheffield artists Mir Jansen and Henk Most of you will be aware that I have been the first Minister of the San Francisco Littlewood. All three works were building up connections with Venice. Last church, Joseph Worcester, who inspired by the beauty of the Guild’s year, I spent five months in that city as a together with the Arts & Crafts architect land in Worcestershire – the work by Visiting Professor at Ca’ Foscari University. Bernard Maybeck probably designed it, Jansen and Littlewood, indeed, is made This year I have spent a further two months and such famous names as the from all the wood of a Wyre oak tree. there as a schoolteacher: teaching the philosopher Emerson and the explorer The connection between rural Bewdley history of Venetian art to 13 and 14 year- and naturalist John Muir. After my last and urban Sheffield is one I want to olds at the Liceo Marco Polo, just round the talk, to my great delight, the Minister of deepen, and in the coming years our corner from the Accademia. Importantly for the church, the Rev. Junchol Lee, asked work in the Wyre is in place to develop the Guild, we have been forming a close to become a Companion of the Guild. as energetically and as radically as that in relationship with the Scuola San Rocco, the Junchol is American but a native of Sheffield. Director John Iles has built up charitable institution whose building was so South Korea. It was wonderful to talk a loyal team of local volunteers who lavishly decorated by Ruskin’s hero, Jacopo the language of Ruskin to someone appear to be working enthusiastically on Tintoretto. This year, on February 19th, a whose outlook had its roots in Buddhism a wide range of projects, in the delegation of 25 confratelli and consorelle and Taoism. environment, in craftsmanship, in (brothers and sisters) of the Scuola came I am conscious that I have not even education and in matters of social over to Sheffield to see the Ruskin mentioned important aspects of the conscience and social responsibility. Collection and the Triennial exhibition. Guild’s work over the last year. I think, Companion Tim Selman has taken over They stayed for a colloquy, which was for example of this year’s John Ruskin the leadership of the Wyre Community addressed by both their Master, Franco Prize exhibition, shown at the New Art Land Trust and collaboration with the Posocco, and myself, by our Sheffield Gallery, Walsall, and then at Trinity Trust is deepening. (Watch this space!) Director Janet Barnes, by Companion Buoy Wharf, and of the symposium on Other Companions, Lynne Roberts and Emma Sdegno (also a consorella) and by our economics organised by our Treasurer Neil Sinden, are living at St George’s Acting Curator Hannah Brignell. They then Chris Harris and Companion Catherine Farm and working on various Guild went on to see the Cathedrals of York and Howarth of ShareAction. More recently, projects. Neil is recording the Lincoln. in June, we enjoyed a Companions’ movements of life there from day to day And then there is North America. Our Weekend in Sheepscombe and Bewdley in a blog, News from Ruskin Land, which transatlantic branch is developing fast under and, a fortnight later discussed, at a you can access from the Guild’s website the guidance of Companions Sara Atwood, roundtable organised by Director Rachel homepage. One field at the Farm has our North American co-ordinator, and Jim Dickinson in collaboration with now been turned over to wildflower Spates. We have had two symposia in Manchester Metropolitan University, meadow and another has been planted Berkeley, California, and one in Roycroft, Ruskin’s influence on aspects of with fruit-trees, very much along the New York State. Last year I paid two visits sustainability. Neil Sinden and Lynne lines of the orchard that was there when to California to address new and potential Roberts have recently run a series of the Guild first owned the land. We shall Companions there. In September I was varied consultation seminars in which be installing a small saw-mill on what invited to Los Angeles by the Ruskin Art aspects of the planned developments on was long a waste part of the land to Club (which incidentally dates back to Ruskin Land have been discussed. Two maximise the income we derive from 1888) to lecture to them on ‘Ruskin’s of these took place at the Ruskin Studio the sale of timber and, before too long, Language’. While there, I gave another at Uncllys Farm. The first engaged we hope for cultural activity on the site: lecture on Ruskin and the Environment at people in the community art world, a library and study-centre perhaps— the University of Southern California. The especially those from Sheffield. The there is also hope for some craft Club’s Director Gabriel Meyer and its second was aimed at education providers workshops, too. Already the educational President Ron Austin, have since become in the Wyre region. A third seminar activity in the Ruskin Studio at Uncllys Companions, as have three of their took place at the Ikon Gallery, Farm is developing into a full colleagues: Edward Bosley, Elena Karina Birmingham, and those involved in the programme. Byrne and David Judson. I then went on to region's arts and culture services took So the Guild is growing and, as far as lecture to our friends (led by Companions part. Finally, the Campaign to Protect
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Rural England hosted a seminar at their have lost a number of Companions since our Officer, he is responsible for our offices in Southwark, which involved last issue: Van Akin Burd, Peter Emmett, website and social media and, of course, nationally prominent environmentalist Derek Hyatt, Michael Hudson, Suzanne edits this magazine, the very existence of organisations, plus media and arts Varady and Asa Briggs. They will be greatly which is a mark of his perseverance. people. There is also much else. Such missed. I send warm congratulations to Stuart remains your first point of contact events are either discussed elsewhere in Louise Pullen and her husband on the birth as a Companion or friend of the Guild. I this issue or will be in next year’s. I of their son, Leo. And I’m sure I can would also like to welcome to our team wanted, myself, to talk about what I confidently speak for all of you when I Martin Green, who joins us as think of as the encouraging growth of praise our former Secretary Stuart Eagles Administrator. the Guild. I think we have much to not only for his dedication, imagination and Good wishes to you all, celebrate this year. industry but for the extraordinary courage Clive Wilmer. Before I sign off I would like to and determination he shows in the face of mention some personal matters. We adversity. Now our Communications
JOHN RUSKIN’S BOTANICAL BOOKS: NEW DISCOVERIES AND WORK IN PROGRESS David Ingram
In August 2015 the Secretary wrote to (1903), is also referred to by Ruskin in a Companions with the exciting news that letter dated 1855, to Jane Carlyle, in which the Guild had purchased two sets of he says that while writing Modern Painters botanical books, which had once belonged ‘… I became dissatisfied with the to John Ruskin. The books were Linnaean, Jussieuan, and Everybody-elsian subsequently transferred, temporarily, to arrangement of plants, and have accordingly Fig. 2. Margaret Ruskin’s the Ruskin Library in Lancaster [1] to arranged a system of my own; and unbound signature in Vol. 1 of Baxter. enable me to carry out a preliminary my botanical book, and rebound it in survey, but they are now permanently brighter green, with all the pages through Library, written during the 1860s. Although housed in the Guild’s Ruskin Collection in other, and backside foremost…and am now the Baxter was signed over thirty years Sheffield, and some volumes are currently printing my new arrangement in a legible previously, there is no doubt that the on display in the gallery. manner, on interleaved foolscap. I consider signatures were by the same hand. The first set turned out to be a missing this arrangement one of my great Ruskin clearly intended that the re- link in the chain of Ruskin’s botanical achievements of the year … … ’. ordered Baxter should be put to good use, studies, which ultimately found full, The copy of Baxter I studied was indeed for he took great care in numbering and idiosyncratic expression in the two bound in bright green morocco, the cross-referencing the descriptions and volumes of Proserpina (Works 25). It individual volumes being numbered and plates. He retained the original page comprised the six volumes of a 2nd edition lettered in gilt on the spine. The contents, numbers of the descriptions of genera and of British Phaenogamous Botany [Flowering if not ‘backside foremost’, were certainly species in Volumes 1 to 3, which were Plants], by William Baxter (Curator, not as Baxter intended. His original six sequential throughout, but gave each a two- Oxford Botanic Garden), published volumes included all the plates, arranged in part cross-reference number comprising the between 1834 and 1843. Ruskin’s copy the random order in which they had been new volume and plate number for the (Fig. 1), which is listed in James Dearden’s produced, with each being followed by a illustration of the genus or species referred catalogue of Ruskin’s Library (2012), and description of the species illustrated. A to. Moreover, since the plates in volumes IV mentioned by Collingwood in Ruskin Relics series of indexes in the final volume then to VI had been re-ordered, each was given a unified the whole work, taxonomically and new plate number and a two-part cross- alphabetically. In Ruskin’s copy, all the reference number, the latter leading the descriptions had been separated from their reader back to the relevant volume and page corresponding plates and bound together in in Volumes 1 to 3. Volumes 1 to 3, in their original order and Thus, for example, page 1 in Ruskin’s with their original page numbering. The Vol. 1 of Baxter, which carries the coloured plates were bound separately, in description of Fritillary, has the cross- Volumes IV to VI (sic), and had been reference number 5.8. This leads the reader completely re-ordered and re-numbered. to Ruskin’s Volume V, Plate 8, which is a It was evident that the volumes had at one coloured engraving of the typical chequer- time been owned by Ruskin’s mother, patterned flowers of Snake’s Head Fritillary. Margaret, since several of the early pages of The accompanying cross-reference number Volume 1 had been signed by her in black 1.1 then leads the reader back to the ink and dated 1837 (Fig. 2). Some of these description of Fritillary on page 1 of Volume signatures show evidence of cropping, 1. which presumably occurred during Ruskin’s For me, the most thrilling discovery was rebinding of the work. The signatures have that the plates in Volumes IV to VI had been been confirmed to be those of Margaret re-arranged by Ruskin into entirely new Ruskin by Stephen Wildman and James Classes and Orders with interleaved sheets Dearden, who compared them with of pale blue foolscap paper cut to size, just Fig. 1. The re-ordered and re-bound signatures on two letters in the Ruskin as he says in his letter to Jane Carlyle. volumes of Baxter. 7
Although he had retained the Linnean genus Class 3. Hoods draughts.’ [E.g. Wild Thyme.] and species names (the binomials) used by Orders: 8. Young Ladies’ Hoods. Baxter, he completely ignored existing 1. Monk’s Hoods. ‘Apt to be ‘Generally pleasant to behold, taxonomies for the higher levels of dangerous, and connected with and serviceable in households classification and grouped the plates into Snaps of Dragons, and Gloves of [e.g. Dyer’s Green-weed]; but five Classes of his own devising: I. Foils Foxes. Type, the Arum; when … apt to be very troublesome in (flowers with un-joined petals); II. Bells [unreadable word] … and well the form of Tares [e.g. Prickly (with bell-like flowers); III Hoods (with hooded as the Arum, very Rest-harrow]. Sometimes hooded flowers); IV Grasses (true grasses beautiful.’ [E.g. Monk’s-hood and showing inclinations towards gay and plants that look like grasses); and V Purple Foxglove.] bonnets’ [e.g. Everlasting Pea]. Waywards (plants which he could not fit 2. Knight’s Hoods. ‘Known by The pages of Baxter are also scattered into the previous four classes). Each of the attached Spurs.’ [E.g. with cross-references and marginal and these Classes was then subdivided into Columbine]. textual notes written in black ink in ‘Orders’, the equivalent of modern plant 3. Sailor’s Hoods. ‘Arranged in Ruskin’s unmistakable hand. The most Families, on the basis of a variety of clusters on Masts, above leaves set common, over forty, are cross- unrelated, idiosyncratic and subjective like Mast heads on “Tops”.’ [E.g. references to what is cryptically referred criteria including, variously: petal number, White dead-nettle]. shape and colour; plant size or form; habitat 4. Monkey’s Hoods. ‘Having a (dry/wet land or water); flower form or strange gift of Imitation.’ [Mainly similarity to the apparel of particular Orchid family; e.g. Bee Orchid and people; inflorescence structure; uses, Monkey Orchid.] especially as medicines or food; undesirable 5. Clustered Hoods. [E.g. Blue- properties (e.g. poisonous, weedy, spiny); bottle (now Cornflower).] and supposed representation of particular 6. Branching Hoods. [Common Fig. 4. Two cross-references to ‘F’ in human traits or conditions (e.g. chattiness, Marjoram.] Baxter. Also note the cross- reference 4.26 spitefulness, gender or old age). Explicitly 7. Old Ladies’ Hoods. ‘Generally above the page number, indicating that a male (stamens) and female (pistil) stooping or creeping; and very good plate of ’STATICE LIMONIUM’ (Sea Lavender) may be found on page 26 of characters, which were used in all scientific for making tea, or medicinal Volume IV. classifications at the time, were completely ignored. to as ‘F’ (Fig. 4). These Most of Ruskin’s are always in the form of characteristics were too a number sequence, but variable, too subjective written in various ways, and therefore too including, for example: unreliable to be used as F.6.922; F. V. 722; the basis of a scientific F.972 (6); F. 758/V; classification that takes F.V.722; F. 7. 1/90 proper account of [=1090]; and F. 8. 1266. biological relatedness The identity of ‘F’ was a among families, genera puzzle to begin with, for and species. Nevertheless, it could refer to any one the scheme does provide a of a number of floras and witty and picturesque, other botanical books in rough and ready set of Ruskin’s library, but by a criteria that a non- process of elimination I scientist or young person found that it always trying to put a name to an referred to a plate in Flora un-named plant specimen Danica, a flora of great might find useful. beauty in which most of It is not possible to the plants illustrated are reproduce the details of reproduced life-size. I the whole of Ruskin’s new was able to find a copy of classification scheme, but this enormous, classic Fig. 3 gives a sense of work, edited by G. C. how the descriptions were Oeder between 1776 and laid out on the pale blue 1865, in the Library of interleaved pages. The the Royal Botanic Garden following transcription of Edinburgh. Moreover, the Orders included in the the plates in this copy class ‘Hoods’, however, were grouped in exactly gives a glimpse of the same volumes as in Ruskin’s ‘medieval Ruskin’s own copy. fantasy’ (and somewhat The reasons for these offensive) taxonomic cross-references were language of knights, Fig. 3. An interleaved page of foolscap in Baxter showing the description of the first rarely given, but most dragons and monks. of Ruskin’s new Orders. were to a plant of the
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same genus as that described in Baxter. the only book of pressed plants by Ruskin few plates in Volume IV. Ruskin's hand- ‘Conf.’ and ‘conf.’, which sometimes that I know of, nor, so far as can be written notes and comments are fitted precede ‘F’, presumably mean ascertained, to his Savoy Flora, referred to in around the illustrations and mainly relate ‘Confirmed’, referring maybe to an the diary notebook for 1856-9. The identity to the habitat, the origins of names or uses. identification, etymological derivation of this work therefore remains a mystery. A typical example is shown in Fig. 5. It or idea. Since Ruskin did not acquire his An example of an internal cross-reference seems that having written comments on copy of Flora Danica until 1866, it is forms part of the description on p. 201 of these few plates Ruskin lost interest in the presumed that these cross-references the genus Drosera – the Sundews – which are enterprise or found another, more were inserted during or after 1866, carnivorous plants. Beside Baxter’s footnote attractive project to absorb his energies. more than ten years after the volumes about the [protein degrading enzyme] Conspicuous by their absence in the were re-ordered and rebound, perhaps exudates from their leaves Ruskin has annotations and cross-references in the re- during a period of feverish botanical written in the margin ‘Conf 209’, a ordered Baxter, or in the new classification activity following his acquisition of Flora reference to a page concerned with another itself, are any references to the works of Danica. genus of carnivorous plants, Pinguicula—the the many eminent late eighteenth- and Most other cross-references and Butterworts. At the top of this page Ruskin early nineteenth-century plant annotations in Baxter were to other has written ‘Conf. Drosera. 201’, taking taxonomists. By turning his back on earlier botanical or Classical works in Ruskin’s him back to Drosera. This is notable for classification schemes and the work of Library (as listed by Dearden, 2012) or being one of the very few annotations contemporaries, and by failing to recognise are comments on the text, sometimes in suggesting any scientific curiosity and also and build on their strengths, Ruskin missed Greek script. Most concern the origins because several plants of Pinguicula, one the opportunity, both in re-classifying the of botanical names or terms, a popular with characteristic violet flowers, appear in plants illustrated in Baxter and later in subject of study at the time, as the bottom right foreground of the portrait writing Proserpina (1875-86), to make an evidenced by the large number of of Ruskin by John Everett Millais, started in enduring contribution to plant taxonomic Baxter’s own etymological footnotes. 1853 during their ill-fated trip to Scotland study. However, as Collingwood observes Others concern the medicinal or and completed in 1854. in Ruskin Relics: ‘[His botanical books all practical uses of various species or are A nicely aesthetic observations. I will quote just a calculated insult few that stand out in my mind. to an artist occurs A typical etymological cross reference on p. 177, verso, may be seen on the plate of Andromeda where a footnote polifolia, Marsh Andromeda, where marked by Ruskin Ruskin has written ‘ … Named tells the story of Andromeda by Linnaeus, because its how the haunts [mountain marshes] are so seventeenth- exposed and desolate … For account of century French it, see Loudon’s Arboretum p. 1105.’ artist Charles Le A most delightful non-etymological Brun left a cross-reference is to Ruskin’s first painting with a edition of Gerarde’s Herball, published in thistle in the 1597. On page 334 of Baxter, which foreground to dry deals with the genus Rubus (Blackberry outdoors, [R. fruticosus] and Raspberry [R. idaeus]), resulting in the Ruskin has written: ‘ … Gerarde 1089. canvas being Note his odd taste 1090. 1.’ Again I eaten by a passing located a copy in the library of the Royal donkey. The Botanic Garden Edinburgh and much writer suggested enjoyed the privilege of looking up that Le Brun well Ruskin’s reference in this legendary deserved this high herbal. On Page 1089, Gerarde refers to praise from ‘Of the Bramble or black Berrie Bush’ nature, but and ‘Rubus ideus (sic) The Raspis bush, or Ruskin clearly Hindberrie.’ In the first note, on p. disagreed and 1090, he alludes to the taste of added: ‘!! Of Le ‘Bramble’ as being ‘between sweet and Brun of all men! sower, very soft and full of grains’ and The least able or the taste of ‘Raspis or Framboise’ as ‘of willing to do a bit taste not very pleasant’. Odd taste of still life.’ indeed, as Ruskin suggests. In addition to The most intriguing cross-reference is the annotations to ‘My Flora 1.21’, on the page of Baxter on the text, that deals with the Genus Delphinium. twenty-four No reason for the cross-reference is plates are given. The fact that no author is annotated to mentioned suggests a personal collection greater or lesser of pressed plants or botanical drawings. extent, in Fig. 5. Annotated Plate 12 of Lily of the Valley in Baxter. Note the cross- It is not, however, the Flora of Chamouni, particular the first reference 1.78, indicating that the description of this species may be found on page 78 of Volume 1. 9
species are listed in The London number of the first species of that genus Catalogue. Each plate has been illustrated and the page number in Volume I given a number, in pencil, this where the genus is described (Fig. 7). being the number in The London There are also numerous, scattered Catalogue of the species marginal annotations written lightly in illustrated. The numbers pencil in Volume I and on the plates in Vols. appear to be in Ruskin’s hand, II-VII. Many of these refer to places close to the distinctive sevens and eights Cambridge and appear to be in the hand(s) being particularly useful in of someone other than Ruskin (Fig. 8). coming to this conclusion. Perhaps, by 1874, all Ruskin’s creative Bound in at the end of and critical botanical energies had been Volume I are several narrow- exhausted in the writing of Proserpina and by lined manuscript pages divided illness, so that he was willing to accept into columns with faint pencil without challenge H. C. Watson’s elegantly lines. Listed in these, in black uncomplicated and pragmatic, but certainly Fig. 6. The re-ordered and re-bound volumes of Sowerby. ink, in ‘Ruskin’s best hand not simplistic, 1874 scheme of classification writing’ (according to Stephen of plants in his London Catalogue. Whatever showed] his purely artistic and unscientific Wildman) are all the Genera, in the reason, he was apparently prepared to re interest in natural history’, and it is alphabetical order, together with the -order a second edition of Sowerby according Ruskin’s plant classification from the point number of the Volume in which the plates to its recommendations and to devote of view of a nineteenth-century artist, for the genus may be found, the plate considerable time and energy to compiling a rather than a scientist, that makes the re- ordered Baxter, and the two volumes of Proserpina, so fascinating and revealing. The most significant cross-reference of all appears on p. 14 of the descriptions, which is devoted to the Willowherbs, where Ruskin has written ‘Sowerby 4. 495 … ’. This leads us to the second set of books purchased by the Guild: the first seven volumes (dealing with flowering plants) of a second edition of J. E. Smith & J. Sowerby’s English Botany, published in parts between 1832 and 1840, and usually known simply as Sowerby (Fig.6). Ruskin is known to have owned first and third editions of Sowerby, but this second edition has not previously been listed. Bound with the Sowerby is a seventh edition of The London Catalogue Of British Plants, published in 1874 by The London Botanical Exchange Club, showing that the Sowerby cannot have been re-ordered before this date. This short work of only 32 pages, with each species listed being numbered in sequence, was edited by the great taxonomic editor, H. C. Watson, and was intended as a standard for botanists, especially amateurs, assembling and classifying their own herbaria and collections and exchanging specimens with fellow enthusiasts. Volume I of the re-ordered and re- bound Sowerby comprises, firstly, the unaltered London Catalogue, followed by the descriptions of the genera and species of all the flowering plants included in the first seven volumes of Sowerby, in the order in which they were originally printed, but with all the plates removed. Each of the pages of descriptions has been numbered, in pencil, in a hand that resembles that of Ruskin, in sequence up to number 646. Volumes II-VII contain all the plates of the flowering plants described in Volume I, but rearranged in the order in which the Fig. 7. The first page of the hand-written index at the end of Volume I of Sowerby. 10
clear end point to have been a Cambridge botanist) and signed Ruskin’s botanical ‘W.G.R.’, of Aston Botterell, Salop. Most explorations. of the text is taken up with lists of plants, To return to the which were found while the writer was with significance of the the recipient between ‘Aug 26 and Sept 11’. Sowerby cross- Some species are marked with a ‘w’, which reference in Baxter, the writer says ‘stands for Wicken’ (a fen which had been re- near Cambridge). It is possible that ‘Frank’ ordered in 1855 or was responsible for some or all of the pencil earlier: this is a annotations in Sowerby, many of which link reference to Plate particular species with locations close to 495, of Chickweed Cambridge (e.g. Fig. 8), but this cannot be Willow-herb concluded with certainty. The identities of (actually in Volume ‘W.G.R.’ and ‘Frank’ (there were at least 3, not 4 as Ruskin four eminent botanists named Frank with mistakenly wrote) in Cambridge connections alive in 1920) the re-ordered remain to be discovered, as does the second edition of authorship of the pencil annotations in Sowerby purchased by Sowerby—work still in progress. the Guild. The cross -reference in Baxter NOTE must have been 1. I thank the Master and former Secretary inserted after 1874, for making the transfer possible and the staff the earliest date for of the Ruskin Library for their invaluable the re-binding of the help and support throughout the period of Sowerby, and study, and the staff of the Royal Botanic provides strong Garden Edinburgh Library for access to early evidence to support botanical books. A full account of the the assumption that research was published in the Spring 2016 Ruskin owned and re issue of the Ruskin Review and Bulletin. -ordered the volumes of both David Ingram is Honorary Professor, Edinburgh Baxter and Sowerby. A and Lancaster Universities. previous owner of the books has noted The Guild extends its thanks to David for his this important cross- work on these volumes and to all Companions and reference, for a note friends who contributed to their purchase. on a slip of paper has been inserted at FORTHCOMING LECTURE plate 495 of Sowerby, Some of these volumes are currently on Fig. 8. A plate of Pasque Lily in Sowerby. Faintly visible at the top of which reads ‘Cross- display at the Ruskin Collection gallery in the page is a pencil note that this species was observed on the chalky ref. from Baxter Sheffield. Professor Ingram will be giving a dyke of the Devil’s Ditch, near Cambridge. 1.14.’ talk on ‘John Ruskin and Flora’ at the Finally, and Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, on October detailed, comprehensive and neatly intriguingly, slipped into one of the volumes 3rd 2016 at 1pm. See the events page on the written index to facilitate the use of the of Sowerby was a separate, four-page, hand- Guild website for further details: volumes. In short, the re-ordered written letter, dated ‘October 3rd 1920’,
Stuart Eagles, Miss Margaret E. Knight & St George's Field, Sheepscombe. (York: Guild of St George Publications, 2015).
It must have been in the summer of 1990 That morning we were heading for the books, and he gave me the line block used to that Jill and I were pottering about in other side of the valley to visit Ian print the vignette of the Botticelli roses on the deepest Gloucestershire. One night we Hodgkins's bookshop. He specialised in title page of The Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth stayed at a little Bed & Breakfast on the Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites, and I'm Century. side of that peaceful valley at Slad. The sure I bought something! Then I was taken We drove on to nearby Sheepscombe because I following morning we drove back up to downstairs to meet the then very unwell knew the Guild owned a field here, and I wanted the main road, and passed the pub which Mr Hodgkins. Nearby he had a tottering to see it. All I knew about it was that it had been had been Laurie Lee's local. Here the pile of the paper-bound introductions to given to the Guild in the 1930s by a Miss Knight. landlord stocked copies of Cider with Rosie the Ruskin Library Edition which were We stopped at the pub for a sandwich and asked for visiting pilgrims to buy. ‘Mr Lee, distributed to the press as review copies. for directions to St George's Field. I explained sitting over there, will probably sign it for He wouldn't sell them to me because he that I was a Companion of the Guild and we you if you ask him nicely.’ I remember hadn't decided what he was going to do owned the field. ‘Oh no,’ said the landlord, ‘it's the story of the American bookseller who with them. But he did show me a owned by the village; that's where we get our advertised for sale ‘a rare unsigned copy’ of collection of box-wood engravings for mushrooms.’ I didn't argue, and we were the book! illustrations in some of Ruskin's later directed up a lane, somewhere behind the pub, 11
appearing over the horizon just a couple of family. She finally settled in rural paces before delivering the ball! As bidden, Sheepscombe. Writing in his 1936-7 we crossed the field, and there was St Master's Report, T. Edmund Harvey George's Field—even more steeply sloped. reported that the field ‘was in danger of There was, at that time of year, little to see, being utilised for the erection of unsightly but we admired it, and retraced our steps to shacks’. Miss Knight wanted the field to be the pub car park. preserved as an open space ‘for the benefit I was next at Sheepscombe several years of the people of the village’. She bought it later in company with a number of directors of and gave it into the care of the Guild. the Guild and two representatives of Natural Over the years the field was let to local England. Again we lunched at the farmers for grazing. Because of the way it Sheepscombe pub and then in two 4x4s we has been managed over the years it has drove to the field. We were directed to drive become a limestone grassland with an to Far End. My perverse sense of humour exceptionally rich habitat of herbs, grasses immediately linked this to the buses/trams in and butterflies. Its importance was Sheffield which advertised that they went Half recognised in 1971 when it was designated Way’! Having arrived at Far End, where the as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. In lane finished, we then turned left and the following year we leased it to the climbed up the hillside to our field. As I Gloucestershire Trust for Natural remember, it was a very wet day but an Conservation. It is now managed for us, enjoyable visit during which we spotted a with other properties in the area, by which would take us to the cricket field. number of wild flowers and butterflies. Natural England. We had to cross this field and next to it Several times over the years I had I can heartily recommend this was ours. wondered who Miss Knight was, and why fascinating booklet to you. Both Cedric The cricket field had been given to the she had given us the field—but now I know. Quayle and I are honoured to have it village by Laurie Lee and it was fairly In his fascinating booklet, Stuart Eagles, who dedicated to us. steeply sloped. I was reminded of the is a painstaking and successful researcher, James S. Dearden account of the cricket match in England, reveals how he finally discovered that Miss their England, with the bowling blacksmith Knight was related to the Knight's Castile Soap
On June 11th 2016, Companions celebrated the 80th anniversary of St George’s Field being given into the Guild’s care. A copy of the original sign that welcomed visitors to this wildflower meadow was commissioned by the Guild, and made of Wyre oak by carpenter Mac Wassell, with lettering by Robert Cox. Mac and Robert are pictured right and centre in the image (left) with Stuart Eagles far left. Photo: Marcus Waithe. Above is an image of the brass plaque on the back of the sign, marking the occasion. You can see the Editor’s reflection in the brass.
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RUSKIN IN SHEFFIELD 2015 AN INTRODUCTION AND A SUMMARY Janet Barnes
Although Ruskin hoped that public programme might look like, but it the Guild would establish a was understood that it would have to be national network of St delivered in partnership with other George’s museums, the community and cultural organisations Sheffield museum was the only within Sheffield. The Guild was only able one that was successfully to pay for the post of Producer, so realised. It was therefore an external funding had to be sought. One attempt, possibly unique in of Ruth’s key skills was in fundraising, British culture, to ‘seed’ in an however, and she was successful in an environment of undoubted application to the Heritage Lottery Fund technical skill, examples of for £67,100, which enabled the project Europe’s great cultural to go ahead. achievements with the purpose During 2014 Ruth developed an of stimulating a culture that exciting and wide-ranging public could proudly stand alongside programme which reflected the reasons them. This truly makes the St why Ruskin had originally placed his George’s Museum culturally a collection in Walkley. The events and ‘Sheffield experiment’ that activities, most of which were free, were continues to this day. created out of the collective enthusiasm The Ruskin in Sheffield project of many volunteers, community groups was first discussed in 2011 by and cultural organisations in Sheffield. two Directors of the Guild, The main programme of events in the the Master, Clive Wilmer, and project’s inaugural year took place from a former Curator of the May to November 2015 in Walkley, Ruskin Collection, Jacqueline Rivelin Valley, Stannington, Totley and Yallop. Although the the city centre. The project sought to Collection had a prominent explore Ruskin’s legacy in the city in In 1875, John Ruskin chose Walkley in place in the city, being on display in the Sheffield in terms of the environment, Sheffield as the hillside home for St Ruskin Gallery in the Millennium Gallery, education, craftsmanship and social George’s Museum. For fifteen years, it both felt that a deeper awareness of Ruskin’s responsibility. It was achieved by housed the remarkable collection of connection to Sheffield might be fruitfully collaborating with many voluntary hosts, paintings, drawings, architectural casts, awakened in the city. historians and artists, including books and minerals personally assembled Given that historically Ruskin's main InHeritage, Freeman College, by Ruskin himself. Its purpose was to connections with Sheffield were in Walkley GrowTheatre, Totley History Group, educate and inspire the metalworkers of and Totley, both now suburbs of the city of Rivelin Valley Conservation Group, Sheffield, whose skill he declared to be Sheffield, it was agreed that these two Walkley community groups, Cabaret the best in the world. A year later, he communities and their surrounding areas Boom Boom, Poly-Technic, the bought a farm in Totley for a group of would be the focus of the Ruskin in Sheffield University of Sheffield and Museums Sheffield working men to live and work project. Sheffield. The Guild would like to thank on. Both of these ventures were The main aims of the project were to everyone who became involved. experiments—the one primarily reassess the interest in Ruskin and his The attempt here is merely to educational, the other ostensibly impact on these communities during the late summarise the 2015 programme, but agricultural—and they were equally 19th century. In addition, it was to show you can explore much more about radical in their conception. They were how Ruskin’s values could inspire people individual events online at pragmatic expressions of Ruskin’s ideas today. The Guild hoped that the project
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sentence of Ruskin’s: ‘Bread of flour is good, Ruskin Gallery had had on him during the but there is bread sweet as honey…’. 1980s. In May, Dr Mark Frost gave a talk on the Visitors to the original St George’s first curators of the St George’s Museum, Museum – their names are known from the Emily and Henry Swan, who set up the visitors’ books, which date back to the museum in 1875 and ran it until Henry’s 1880s—were researched by volunteers. death in 1890. He was an adventurous Their lives, and where they lived in Walkley, character who was interested in many things were the subject of a professional guided including photography, bicycling and walk and a self-guided trail. This local- boomerangs. In June the Guild unveiled a history project, called Ruskin’s Reach, was commemorative plaque on the building that devised and led by Bill Bevan, a local incorporates the old St George’s Museum, heritage expert. Beeches of Walkley made which expanded in the Swans’ time, and has their shop-window available for an been substantially built on and altered since. exhibition about the lives of the nineteenth- Honouring Ruskin, the Swans and the century visitors. Museum’s many visitors, the piece of carved In September there was a specially Lakeland slate can be seen from Bole Hill commissioned promenade performance Road. Desperately Seeking Ruskin, by Cabaret Boom Henry Swan was commemorated Boom, street-theatre artists who brought to separately by a plaque made of the same life the characters of Emily and Henry slate on his grave in Walkley Cemetery. Swan, and others people intimately Ruskin Honey and different types of Ruskin Swan’s grave had been lost until associated with the early history of the Bread were available from Gerry Pert, of Gerry’s Bakery, Walkley. rediscovered by Revd. Ron Frost who had Museum such as Benjamin Creswick, the Photo: Ruth Nutter. been encouraged to search for it by his son, local knife-grinder who, by his association Mark, who composed the Guild’s new with Ruskin and the Museum, went on to the community hub for the project and inscription. The grave was found to be in be a distinguished sculptor. The its anchor, was opened in Walkley on 16 need of restoration, which the Guild performance took place at key locations in May. Walks, talks and events continued commissioned and funded after winning the the story of Ruskin’s association with through to November. approval of the diocesan council. Both Walkley, including the site of the Museum The Pop-Up Ruskin Museum, situated plaques were designed and carved by local and the houses Creswick and others had on South Road, the main road running craftsman Richard Watts. Richard, who had lived in. through Walkley, was a temporary worked with the neighbourhood space which attracted Council lots of local people who contributed designing public objects, drawings, and photographs for spaces had first display in a sort of people’s museum that been inspired to attempted to marry local memory and seek a career cultural experience with Ruskin’s values change and and interests as exemplified in the become a stone Ruskin Collection. The museum thus carver due to became a significant place where visitors the impact that a found out about Ruskin and his influence visit to the on Walkley. Over the months a local treasure-trove of artefacts, curiosities and creations was brought together. Open three days a week, with a programme of drop-in activities, workshops and special events, there were over 2000 separate visits. The Pop-up Ruskin Museum was embraced immediately by local people. In celebration of the project, a local bakery—Gerry’s, also on South Road – created a loaf inspired by a
Cabaret Boom Boom joined forces with St George, acrobats, and characters from Walkley’s past Desperately Seeking Ruskin in September 2015. Photo: Cabaret Boom Boom. 15
One of the 1877, and meeting en route the radical project. It consisted of the artworks, most thinker Edward Carpenter, fruit grower everyday objects and new discoveries memorable George Pearson (who eventually bought the that had been exhibited in the course of walks was farm from the Guild) and Ethel the project in the Pop-Up Museum. from Walkley Haythornthwaite (who was instrumental in Crucially, exhibits related to the legacy to Stanning- the founding of the CPRE and dreamed of a and enduring spirit of Ruskin in ton. It was led Peak District National Park). Captured on Sheffield—in Walkley, Totley, the Rivelin by Bill Bevan. film, it was later screened at Totley Library, Valley, Stannington and the city centre. This 6-mile and is available for viewing on YouTube: (see On the final day of the exhibition, when walk via the article pp. 21-23). Companions of the Guild were in the Rivelin Valley One of the key partners in Ruskin in city to attend our AGM, many of the key concluded at Sheffield was the University of Sheffield’s Ruskin in Sheffield partners were present the Freeman Festival of Arts & Humanities. We worked to give an account of their part in the College Bio- closely with them on a programme of talks, project. These acts of personal Dynamic walks and discussions entitled Wealthy Cities; explication provided an echo of the Garden, which Re-Thinking Sheffield’s Parks and Public Spaces. museum practices espoused by Ruskin was holding its As one of the main aims of Ruskin in and carried out by the Swans—early first ever Sheffield was to encourage more visitors to visitors to St George’s Museum were Open Day on the Ruskin Collection, it was therefore given private tours of the collection. July 18th. The appropriate that Louise Pullen, Curator of Ruskin in Sheffield has demonstrated tour focused the Collection, made a particular feature of that there is a genuine interest in on the cultural the origins of St George’s Museum in its Ruskin’s relationship to the city. Over heritage summer display. Some of the Collection’s 4000 people were involved in the associated with this beautiful route, most popular pieces were displayed project. It has also shown that the Guild which was much admired by Ruskin. alongside exhibits that would have been has the continuing potential to Other events in Rivelin Valley included: known to its Museum’s 19th-century encourage and support creative projects a Dawn Chorus Walk, led by Chris all over Sheffield, but especially in Baines and Roger Kite; a Rivelin Valley Walkley and High Riggs. Artists’ Colony drawing day; a ramble As you have already seen this year, led by local poet Fay Musselwhite which and as you will see in the build-up to traced the river’s industrial legacy, its Ruskin’s bicentenary in 2019, the unique ecology, and its relationship to Guild continues to raise awareness of Ruskin and the city, by means of Fay’s Ruskin’s legacy to the city and own poetry and that of others. further afield. We will organise The Freeman Bio-Dynamic Garden, in further programmes of events, collaboration with GrowTheatre, working with both established and organised a series of workshops called new partners. Crafting the Land: Seed to Table. Always at the core of the project are Participants were encouraged to make a the values we believe were most hand-forged copper trowel, to learn important to Ruskin: wellbeing; a about the seasonal growing cycle and to sense of connection to the natural bake bread. Over a hundred people took world; the role of art and part. The site, which is owned and craftsmanship in creating social, managed by Ruskin Mill Trust, is a most economic and environmental wealth; wonderful place situated at High Riggs, and our interdependence in a society Stannington, overlooking the Rivelin of mutual respect. Valley. It provides a glimpse of the Inspired by Ruskin’s personal unspoilt landscape Ruskin would have motto, our task now is to concentrate known when he first came to Sheffield. on ‘To-Day’ and Ruskin’s enduring At the Open Day talks were given on relevance to us in the 21st century. subjects relating to Ruskin, Land and Livelihoods. Working the land—the idea of living a self-sustaining life in harmony with nature—was the subject of a talk by John Iles, who manages the Guild’s Review RUSKIN in SHEFFIELD 2015 at woodland and farmland in the Wyre
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RUSKIN IN SHEFFIELD AND FREEMAN COLLEGE BIO-DYNAMIC GARDEN AT HIGH RIGGS, STANNINGTON Carole Baugh
Introduction understood at each stage in the craft- requirements and social enterprise criteria, Freeman College is part of Ruskin Mill teaching method. Students are encouraged this new small-scale market garden would Trust, a UK-wide charity specialising in to make useful craft objects—a spoon, also include a meadow with a 50-tree education, therapy and residential care stool, scarf and so on. These objects may be orchard. for young people with a range of described as by-products of the PSTE The land was registered for organic use in learning disabilities, emotional needs method. The usefulness of the method 2014. This was achieved by a lot of hard and challenging behaviours. The Trust consists in how a student makes themselves work, clearing the site and building up the knows how far the health, personal and through the process of making the object. soil’s fertility to make it suitable for a emotional well-being, and the social The usefulness of the object serves on its market garden. The hard digging paid off skills of young people with learning completion to reward the student for her or and now fruit and vegetables grown at High difficulties improve when they work his achievement and provides evidence of Riggs supply organic and some biodynamic with artists and craftspeople on their progress. food for the Freeman College kitchens, purposeful tasks rooted in nature. Our Usefulness is not, therefore, confined Freeman’s public café, Fusion, and an experiential curriculum, Practical Skills solely to utilitarian notions, nor is it based expanding Veg-Box Delivery Service. Therapeutic Education (PSTE), is on the price that the object may command High Riggs continues to develop and tailored to the individual student. These in the market-place. Rather, it is the vital provide meaningful education, training and activities enhance the students’ ability to role— the life-giving properties—of craft practical work for Freeman College engage creatively with positive process in society as a whole that is students. The blend of craft, horticultural challenges, to meet the world with important. Students at Freeman College, and nature-based activities gives it a very confidence and to develop their capacity once engaged in a craft, are working with special context, while improving the for personal initiative, all of which foster serious purpose. The process itself requires students’ well- being and providing responsible behaviour. students to respond creatively to the opportunities for them to reimagine and Everywhere the Trust has a presence, materials they are working with, giving develop their potential. it looks to the local historic, social and them an opportunity for self-expression. Freeman College had previously helped economic environments to inform the Freeman College and Ruskin Mill Trust to institute a biodynamic exploratory type of traditional craft practices taught share in Ruskin’s values, believing in the project at John Ruskin’s home Brantwood, in the different colleges. Metal work is efficacy of arts and crafts, the benefits of in Cumbria. Led by the head gardener therefore the signature craft in Sheffield. fresh air and respecting creative work. We there, Sally Beamish, it ran for a period of However, the work at Freeman College think of art as a means to change ourselves seven years from 2007 to 2014. is not intended primarily to train young and, by extension, to change our world. people to become silversmiths and craft- workers. So the question arises, what are Ruskin and High Riggs we teaching our students? This form of If Practical Skills Therapeutic Education craft-based education is a way of re- provides a point of connections with imagining traditional craft process as Ruskin’s thought, then the Bio-Dynamic educational methodologies. Garden at High Riggs, Stannington, roots Students are taught in traditional Freeman College in the practical work of workshops and experience tacit learning Ruskin’s Guild of St George. Ruskin by working next to skilled craft-makers. purchased a 13-acre farm in Totley, on the This experiential method engages all of a edge of Sheffield, in the 1870s, to be run student’s faculties; thinking, feeling and collaboratively by Sheffield working men doing are equally important in the and their families earning a living by process of making. Working in this farming, gardening and making boots. Until manner engages the hand, head and 2013, the 9-acre site of the Bio-Dynamic heart, a vital practice that appealed to Garden was a Garden Nursery. Looking at both John Ruskin and the other the land and its best use for Freeman influential pedagogical figure in the College and its surrounding city Trust, Rudolf Steiner. communities, both staff and students began A further example of Ruskin’s the task of transforming the land into a bio- influence on the teaching methodology dynamic site to grow organic fruit and of the Trust is in our belief in the vegetables. Satisfying both educational usefulness of art and crafts. Usefulness can be
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making hand-forged copper trowels led by Peter. This, along with the bread with a foot-treadle-turned green-wood oven, are an important part of the legacy handle. It is both beautiful and useful, of Ruskin in Sheffield 2015. in particular useful to the aims of the On Saturday, 18th July, we hosted a project; it is craft with a purpose, public Open Day, offering the local and making a functional tool for use on the wider Sheffield community an land. It is a physical manifestation of the opportunity to learn about Crafting the project as a whole. Land, Freeman College and Ruskin in Copper-forger, Andy West, and green Sheffield. Many of the schools and -wood worker, Neil Trinder, set up workshop visitors returned to celebrate workshops on the High Riggs site. the success of the project. The day Forging was in the blacksmith’s and started with speakers including John Crafting the Land wood turning in a dedicated outdoor Iles, from the Guild of St. George, Peter When Ruth Nutter took on the role of workshop. The popularity of these van Vliet and Carole Baugh from Producer of Ruskin in Sheffield it quickly workshops grew throughout the week, and Freeman College and Stannington became clear that High Riggs was the participants returned to complete their Councillor, Vicky Priestly, who ideal location for a collaborative public trowel. formally opened the event. workshop project in 2015. Crafting the Complementing the craft activities was During the day Peter van Vliet gave a Land offered a chance to discover and the bread-making. Built for the project, the guided tour of the 9-acre site to some of interpret the legacy of John Ruskin in bread oven provided the focus at the heart the 350 visitors. Craft-makers Sheffield and embed the relevance of his of each day. Cooking in the outdoors on a demonstrated blacksmithing and wood- philosophy of connecting land, wood-fired bread oven was both a turning, with some dedicated trowel craftsmanship and livelihoods through workshop activity and a means of supplying makers returning for those last finishing practical activity. food for the whole team at High Riggs. touches. Late in the afternoon, those on We wanted to be inclusive of the local Daily picking of seasonal vegetables was led the Ruskin guided walk arrived. Having community and take the opportunity of by the Freeman Bio-Dynamic Garden set off from Walkley, this journey inviting target groups on to the site. In Manager, Peter van Vliet and a group of connected with Rivelin and Stannington. order to offer full access to the site we enthusiastic visitors. The fresh produce was Reflecing the various initiatives and proposed a week of free community then taken to the wood-fired oven and activities of Ruskin in Sheffield 2015, open days for people to experience a added to flat breads or simply cooked in Heritage Interpreter and co-project range of activities, including growing, olive oil. Baker, Mike Quille, served us all leader, Bill Bevan, masterminded a cooking, craft-work, plus outdoor with culinary delicacies and prepared food walking narrative of connections workshops in trowel-making. The in the most simple, yet delicious manner. between historic and contemporary arts project was a creative collaboration In addition to the public visitors, we & crafts in the local environment. between GrowTheatre, an outdoor invited groups to attend the workshops, By opening up Freeman College’s land youth theatre company, Freeman including Sheffield Alcohol Support Service for a wider public to engage with College and Ruskin in Sheffield and ran and local primary schools, Shooters Grove creative tasks in the fresh air, we hope to from Monday 13th July concluding with Primary School and Nook Lane Primary have broadened visitor engagement with talks and an open day on Saturday 18th School. Two classes of nine-year-olds John Ruskin’s values, Freeman College July. visited for craft activities led by and the arts, crafts and the land that we GrowTheatre, and seasonal picking, again cherish. Seed to Table Seed to table encapsulated a crucial aim of the teaching at Freeman College: the importance of the growing cycle, soil health and the social interaction necessary for harvesting, cooking and eating together. Seed to table addressed the aims of Ruskin in Sheffield by reconnecting local families with arts, crafts and the land. It provides a vital link with the Guild’s late 19th-century experiment at Totley, and its work at Ruskin Land in Worcestershire today. They also anticipated and paved the way for Ruskin in Sheffield 2016: Make Good Livelihoods by encouraging self- confidence, personal fulfilment and personal aspiration, something witnessed by each of us working on the public-access side of the project. The main craft focus was on Peter van Vliet giving tours of the Garden on the Open Day. All photos on pp. 17-18: Carole Baugh. 18
ON LECTURING AT WALKLEY AND TOTLEY Mark Frost
It is a commonplace among scholars that obsessive look in my eye. It all entirely extending programme of events for 2015. archival research is a lonely, arduous confounded the notion that archival Not content to work only in Sheffield’s pursuit and that bringing your research scholarship is an isolated and isolating Ruskinian heartland of Walkley, Ruth into direct contact with members of the endeavour. found or forged connections across and public is fulfilling and energising. Whilst It is of course the case that the pleasures, beyond the city. Companions will be my own experience makes me sceptical pains, triumphs, and tribulations that attend familiar from these pages, from the web about the former claim, I can heartily this kind of abnormal and obsessive activity and hopefully from personal experience of endorse the latter. are even greater if their findings can be the dazzling liveliness and inventiveness of Having devoted five years to a shared (after all, what’s the use of finding a the programme of events that began in research project that endeavoured to new group of friends if one cannot late 2014. My small contribution was a find new sources relating to the early introduce them to others?). Scholarly couple of public talks bringing the findings history of the Guild of St George and research is of value in and of itself, but of my research to a receptive public – that took me to many archives firstly in Totley Library on May in the UK and the US, my 20th 2015 and then two days immersion in the abundance later in Walkley Community of correspondence and other Centre. Both of these events traces left by our early Guild were helped by other activities pioneers, was in fact a going on around this time – not distinctly gregarious least the unveiling of plaques experience. Although I spent relating to the Guild’s early many weeks almost entirely history in the city, and the then without company in various recently-opened Pop-Up Ruskin archives, I never felt alone. Museum. Instead, my attempts to As an academic one is used transcribe the letters, articles, either to lecturing to university and newspaper contributions students, an audience of of early Companions sometimes attentive, sometimes immersed me in a community jaundiced, and very often sleepy of distinctive individuals – a individuals who may or may not Companionship – of which I know why they are there; or to felt a part. one’s fellow academics at However, historical figures Mark Frost at Totley (above) and Walkley (below). scholarly conferences and glimpsed through symposia, an exacting audience correspondence only slowly composed of individuals with emerge as distinctive frightening, but often deeply individuals – the touchy, long- helpful and supportive, levels of suffering, proud William perceptiveness, insight, and Buchan Graham, the eccentric knowledge. intellectual William Harrison One of the many pleasures of Riley, the unbelievably kind speaking to a public audience is and admirable John Guy, the unexpected range of Susan Miller, who just would knowledge and interest that one not give up fighting injustice, finds, and one is also deeply and, of course, the appreciative that these people immeasurably complex John have not, like students, been Ruskin, amongst a whole host compelled to attend but have of others. Overhearing given up their own free time and conversations, imagining well-earned rest to turn out on voices and faces, tracing an evening for some unknown connections, uncovering speaker. It was touching, plots, plans, and ploys, and therefore, to see a packed revealing the ongoing dramas audience at both events, to hear of the early Guild companionship was all yields most when it results in various forms a range of fabulous and often testing the more vibrantly felt for my direct of tangible impact. This is sometimes questions afterwards, and to experience contact with the material remains of the measured by scholarly citations and peer the depth and intensity of interest in past – the pale blue notepaper Ruskin esteem, but increasingly universities are Ruskin and Sheffield’s local history. The used, the terrible handwriting of Albert recognising the importance of bringing reputation of the city and the region for a Fleming, the crammed sheets, research out of the campuses and into the strong educational and cultural appetite is corrections, blotches, and last-minute community. clearly well-deserved. insertions in many letters – all of these It was wonderful, therefore, to be invited At Totley, I was preceded as a speaker drew me in, redoubled my sense of by Ruth Nutter, the energetic and far- by Sally Goldsmith, a wonderful member purpose, sent me to the next archive sighted Producer of Ruskin in Sheffield, to of the Local History Group who, with with renewed zeal and a somewhat contribute to her packed and ever- 19
Dorothy Prosser, has been using my anyway, and not just in public talks, but it is from the community centre, to the guided recent monograph as a starting point for particularly helpful when talking about walks by Bill Bevan that took locals to the further research on the individuals and historical and cultural matters. Here, as at houses of those who visited the museum. places I had discussed in my attempts to Walkley, the talks were filmed in order to I hope that my talk encouraged local revise and make sense of the Guild’s leave a longer-term record, and it was a residents to think about the contributions complex early history. This also led Sally new and not entirely comfortable made by the Swan family, the first to produce a walking performance, Fresh experience to find myself being wired for custodians of the Guild collection so Air, Boots, and Ginger Beer, dramatizing sound by the adept young filmmakers generously and obsessively amassed by the area’s radical local history. My talk recruited by Ruth, or to have to stay so very Ruskin for the benefit of Sheffielders; and was an attempt – perhaps too ambitious still while talking to remain in frame. that whenever they are in the centre of – to cover all of the early phases of the The second talk, at Walkley, concerned town they’ll consider nipping through the Guild’s activities at St George’s Farm, the less tempestuous, more harmonious, Winter Gardens to have a quick – or Totley, from its inception as a loose and deeply productive early history of the hopefully not-so-quick – look around the agricultural and shoemaking collective Guild’s museum, set up in Bell Hagg Road latest exhibition of the Ruskin Collection at encouraged by the Guild’s first Guild in that district of the city. Here and at the Millennium Gallery. It’s a wonderful Museum curator Henry Swan, through Totley, it was a particular delight to be able thing that the collection still exists and is its early chaotic (and shoemaking-free) to speak near the scene of the events being still available, even if none of us can ever phase under the United Friends’ described, and Walkley Community Centre experience the delights of being Association (known to all ever since as was a fitting venue, a rather beautiful small accompanied by the wonderful Henry Swan the Sheffield Communists), and the civic building with a long history of local at the original cramped but idiosyncratic poorly-understood next phase involving events, both educational and entertaining. quarters of St George’s Museum at Bell the firebrand Republican-Temperance One of the strengths of Ruth’s approach to Hagg Road. advocate and Christian Socialist, William the Ruskin in Sheffield activities was her Harrison Riley, and Ruskin’s forbidding ability to encourage a host of people in Watch both lectures on the Ruskin in gardener, David Downs. Given the Walkley to make connections between their Sheffield 2015 page on the Guild’s website: amount of information to impart I was own biography and family history, and the
POP-UP RUSKIN MUSEUM, WALKLEY Ruth Nutter If Ruskin in Sheffield breathed new life into Ruskin Museum on South Road in Ruskin’s legacy in Sheffield, then the Pop-Up Walkley was created in the premises of a Ruskin Museum was its beating heart. In the former second-hand furniture shop. The course of five months, over 2,500 children purpose was to raise awareness of the and adults wandered in, read about Ruskin, history of the museum, engage people shared stories and anecdotes with Museum hands-on with arts, crafts and nature, Hosts, brought items in for display, drew, and to provide a space in which people sewed, painted, and made it their museum. could share memories and ideas about A stone’s throw away from the location of Walkley. Inspired by Ruskin’s principles the original St George’s Museum, the Pop-Up about local museums, a group of
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volunteers, Pop-Up Museum Manager Bewick. Mary Malaika Cunningham and I set out to Musselwhite curate a space along Ruskinian lines created a stunning which would be ‘an example of perfect tapestry for the order of elegance’ with ‘no museum. Fay superabundance and no disorder’ for the Musselwhite use of the local community. Together initiated drop-in with a permanent ‘heritage cabinet’ and poetry salons and reading corner, wall-displays were a poetry reading changed regularly to reflect developing evening. local interest, and artworks and the The museum’s results of research from Ruskin in Hosts were at the Sheffield projects in Totley and heart of the Stannington were shared with visitors. success of the Pop The museum was the starting point for -Up Museum. Bill Bevan’s Ruskin’s Reach walk, a trail Carrie, Eliza, tracing the homes and lives of visitors to Jodie, Suzie, St George’s Museum. A collection of Helen, Liz P, Liz G, Paul, Mary and Mika connection’ we were trying to draw paintings by a colony of artists based in shared their creativity and knowledge in a between St George’s Museum and the the Rivelin Valley between the world generously sociable and welcoming manner creative self-expression of the community wars curated by Chris Baines drew throughout the project, and thus made a today. visitors from across Sheffield. An place which became part of many people’s When the contents of the Pop-Up Ruskin exhibition of Walkley artists’ work drew daily lives. Nearly all of the Hosts are now Museum were packed into a van and friends and families in to installed at the Millennium the Museum. A Stones of ‘Fun. We only went out for some milk but ended up staying an Gallery for the culminating Walkley photographic hour!’ event of the project, the exhibition captured images ‘This is like meeting Ruskin and starting to know a bit about him.’ Ruskin Re-Viewed exhibition, of local buildings taken by ‘Wonderful. A real sense of history and shared values. A fantastic I wasn’t sure whether the residents in the spirit of Walkley would neighbourhood. The files community resource.’ survive the transition. My on aspects of local history fears were soon allayed grew as people donated sets of plans, Companions of the Guild, among them when a familiar face came in with his elderly booklets and newspaper cuttings about visual artists, historians, a graphic design mother to show her the picture on display Walkley. Sunflower seeds sown by student and a local sixth form student. drawn by her husband, which was still sitting visitors inside the museum were A few abiding memories of the Pop-Up on the Walkey Wunderkammer’s shelves. transplanted outside in summer to Ruskin Museum remain with me. Hosts, Although the Pop-Up Ruskin Museum is brighten up the pavement. during quiet moments, sewed tapestries or no longer on South Road (all Pop-Ups have As the Museum quite literally took poured over the books in the reading to pop down) the legacy of community root, people offered to run their own corner. At the end of the Pop-Up launch spirit—of memories revived and creativity events and activities there, and happily event, I recall my delight in looking at the unleashed—still thrives in Walkley, as all of them are now Guild Companions. Benjamin Creswick cast of ‘The Village contributions to this year’s Walkley Festival Gerry and Gareth Pert, local bakers, Blacksmith’ perched on top of the Walkley (which have focused on Sheffield’s Year of supplied dough for children to make cabinet of curiosities (the Walkley Making) have revealed, but that is a story for dough sculptures during the summer Wunderkammer), surrounded by an array next time … holidays. Suzie Doncaster presented a of vegetable sculptures people had made of Photos: Ruth Nutter. talk on the engravings of Thomas themselves—a symbol of the ‘spirit of BOOTS, FRESH AIR AND GINGER BEER A walking performance about St George’s Farm, Totley Sally Goldsmith
Smack bang in the middle of the view everyday routine dog walk takes us along an appropriately enough, on my bike. I’d from the window of our home in Totley ancient track just below the farm. Carpenter learned about the Farm from an is St George’s Farm, that site of utopian regularly took it too, from Dore and Totley evening class taught by socialist- dreams. We’ve often joked that we live Station on his way home to his back-to-the- feminist historian Sheila Rowbotham. on a wonky socialist ley line – St land smallholding—with working-class friends She told us how socialists a hundred George’s Farm, to Holmesfield Church in tow or some of the most celebrated years before had ridden bikes, much where Joseph Sharp—harpist, socialist progressives of the day—George Bernard like most of us attending the class in and one of the original group renting the Shaw, William Morris, Siegfried Sassoon, the radical-vegetarian-lets-all-wear- Farm from Ruskin—is buried, and down Olive Schreiner, and E. M. Forster, for dungarees 1970s. They had grown the other side of the ridge in the starters. their own food, worn smocks, and Cordwell Valley, the house of Edward I first went to take a look at St George’s had tried (and sometimes failed) to Carpenter—gay writer, socialist, Farm over thirty years ago as a young woman, live collectively. original radical sandal wearer—who fresh from my own spot of utopian, if Despite living only with my partner knew the farm and its occupants. Our argumentative, commune-dwelling. I was, now, I still believe in some of those
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steel who had lived nearby when poor and unknown, I met the farm’s present owners and found old bootmaking equipment in the barn. And I started to write and to gather a cast of local actors. Now, in the spirit of Ruskin and his love of fresh air, and, of course, of Carpenter (who thought nothing of walking miles using a sort of funny goose step and wearing sandals he’d made himself) I knew that the piece had to be a promenade performance. Our routine dog walk, up past the Farm to Woodthorpe Hall with its view over Totley and the moors and back, had to be it. That landscape could tell the story in itself – of the Farm and its self- sufficiency/ campaigning/ trespassing/ environmentalist legacy. It would be a sort of flash mob, nobody quite sure who would pop up as an actor out of the audience. Brearley would join us by the allotments, late, but 120 years too early. Joseph Sharp would play his harp, with lyrics by Shelley (‘We are Many, They are Few’). Gobby Mrs Maloy of the Totley Communists would pontificate and sell strawberries and ginger beer (‘We’re all strictly Temperance’), an Indian Carpenter (played by our friend Rav) would join us, spouting his poetry and telling us about the Bhagavad Gita. Bert Ward, arch trespasser and King of the socialist Clarion Ramblers, would browbeat his wife in an ancient holloway. A modern LGBT choir would sing Carpenter his happy-ever-after gay dreams for the future. Bert and CPRE’s Ethel Haythornthwaite would save the moors from the creep of housing and help to create the National Park. We’d end at Totley Library for tea and cake. And it would be in verse – with some sort of free-form rhyming to weld it all together. Weld We had three performances, it rained, the
values. I have an allotment, I’m an and, for the first time, revealed the names overly fanatical recycler, I believe that of the Guild’s early tenants. I roped in the inequality matters, that people-power is Totley History Group to help with research best and that women’s rights have a long on these people—the self styled ‘Totley way to go. I’m also a poet, a script- Communists.’ I found that none of them writer, an environmentalist, an were quite who the books said they were. occasional broadcaster who believes in Their leader was not a bootmaker but a making creative stuff out of so called Quaker friend of Henry Swan’s (the curator ‘ordinary’ people’s words and I trust in of St George’s Museum in Walkley) and an involving ‘amateurs’ in telling these early building society director. I found that stories. So when Ruth Nutter, the Ruskin Edward Carpenter had written to Walt in Sheffield Producer asked me to Whitman, the American poet, telling him contribute to last year’s celebrations of he wanted to live there, too. I learned, too, all things Ruskin, I jumped at the chance that the land was not poor, as Ruskin later to tell the cranky story of St George’s claimed, and that later—for around sixty Farm and its not insignificant legacy. years – it was run very successfully as a Though I sort of knew the story, none market garden thank-you-very-much, by a of the accounts of what had happened socialist friend of Carpenter’s, George there quite made sense to me. Most of Pearson, and his family. Along the way, I them also said that it failed. Mark Frost’s got some of Henry Swan’s early Pitman’s new book, The Lost Companions, shed shorthand translated, read the biography of new light on it all, dished dirt on Ruskin Harry Brearley, the inventor of stainless 22
Master of the Guild of St George (not Ruskin) fell over in the mud. We hip hoorayed and thanked the people who’d done so much to love and open up our countryside, to keep it green. There’s a little video – an edited version of the performance on YouTube that you can access from the Guild’s website:
A walk through time and space: Sally Goldsmith and her band of players leading keen Ruskinians and locals on a tour of Totley—scenes from Boots, Fresh Air and Ginger Beer, the first two of which are clearly in evidence. The photograph at the top of the page shows St George’s Farm at the top of the slope. Opposite page (top) map drawn by Shimell (bottom right) Rony Robinson of BBC Radio Sheffield with playwright Sally Goldsmith (as Joseph Sharp and Mrs Maloy respectively) singing Shelley. Photos: Ruth Nutter. 23
MARKING ST GEORGE’S MUSEUM, WALKLEY, AND REMEMBERING HENRY SWAN Richard Watts
It was a happy surprise in November terms of type of slate, scale and legibility. suggested that we use green Cumbrian 2014 to be contacted by Ruth Nutter, For Ruskin House (the original home of St Slate with its slightly softer tone to Producer of Ruskin in Sheffield, telling George’s Museum), the challenges were harmonise with the natural environment me that the Guild of St George would twofold. Firstly, it was important that the of the site. like to discuss two possible plaque should be of sufficient size to be It was an immense privilege to be commissions, one to mark the site of St readable from the public pavement and, allowed to carry out these two George’s Museum which was established secondly, that the plaque should read, as far commissions in my home city and I was in Walkley by John Ruskin in 1875, and as possible, as an integral part of the of course pleased that the plaques the other to remember the Museum’s architecture of Ruskin House itself. To seemed to be liked by the people of first curator, Henry Swan—on the site achieve the latter we decided that the Walkley and those from further afield of his sadly dilapidated grave in Walkley plaque would be best vertically aligned with who attended the unveilings. It was also Cemetery the existing arch-topped windows on the a great honour to be invited, after the Ruth invited me to a meeting with the south facing gable, and that the slate should completion of these commissions, to Master of the Guild, Clive Wilmer, on be slightly recessed into the stonework. I become a Companion of the Guild of St November 14th and we discussed the suggested that the arch form would be George. During my previous career, ideas for these commissions over a cup recreated at the top of the plaque by the working for the City as a Landscape of coffee, a stone’s throw from the insertion of spandrels with oak leaves, oak Architect, I was fortunate to work home of the Ruskin Collection in being the dominant native forest tree of the amongst a talented team of designers Sheffield city centre. The Ruskin Gallery Rivelin Valley and a major feature of and city planners who believed had played an important part in my Walkley Cemetery—especially beautiful in passionately in the importance of career, so it felt a real privilege to be their golden autumn colour. As Ruth bringing the beauty of nature and invited to discuss these commissions pointed out, Ruskin had said: ‘PAINT the craftsmanship into the lives of the with the Guild itself. Back in the 1980s leaves as they grow! If you can paint a leaf, citizens of our beloved city. It is now a and 1990s, I was a regular visitor to the you can paint the world.’ As the lintels and privilege to be elected a Companion of Gallery, located then on Norfolk Street, stringcourses on the sandstone elevation on the Guild of St George, which holds this and it was there, at a calligraphy the building had weathered to a dark grey, I same vision and works so hard to exhibition, that I encountered suggested using grey Cumbrian slate for this promote it, both in the life of Sheffield Calligraphy North and ended up location. For Henry Swan’s grave, I and beyond. attending a six-month part- time course which reawakened my long-standing interest in calligraphy and the art and craft of stone sculpture and letter cutting, which I had inherited from my father, Peter. I remember well, how, after the magnificent Ruskin Gallery slate produced by the Kindersley Workshop was unveiled, I would regularly stand and admire it—what a tremendous source of inspiration! At our meeting, Clive and I looked at photographs of my previous work and discussed the approach to the commission and we quickly agreed on the idea for two plaques, to be carved in Cumbrian slate with all those resonances of the Lake District landscape that were so dear to the heart of John Ruskin. In some small way, we also hoped that we could achieve some sort of ‘connection’ with the Kindersley slate. A few days later, I visited the sites with Remembering Henry Swan: plaque, in the workshop, and in situ Ruth and we pondered on on the Swans’ restored gravestone(Walkley Cemetery). Photos: Richard Watts & Ruth Nutter. what would be appropriate in 24
MARKING THE FOUNDATION OF
ST GEORGE’S MUSEUM A speech at Ruskin House, Walkley, by Clive Wilmer, June 27th 2015 In 2010, shortly after I became Master museum,’ he wrote – meaning the hills of the Guild of St George, I happened to above the Rivelin valley (he was fond meet a young woman who worked in of such exaggerations) – ‘was the museum world. She had grown up in originally chosen, not to keep the Sheffield in the 1980s and ’90s and collection out of the smoke, but become interested in art as a result of expressly to beguile the artisan out of visiting the Ruskin Gallery, then in it.’ Norfolk Street. I was fascinated and In 1875 he paid a visit to his friend asked her how as a child she had Henry Swan, who had recently moved discovered the Gallery. ‘My parents from London to this house. In the late used to take me,’ she said. ‘And what 1850s and early ’60s Ruskin had taught sort of people were your parents?’ I drawing at the Working Men’s College asked. ‘They were foundry workers,’ in London. The College had been she replied. I confess I had expected her founded by philanthropists like himself to say they were teachers or artists or to provide free education for men who professionals of some kind, and I through poverty had missed out on thought rather ill of myself for that education. Swan was a journeyman automatic reaction. She was, after all, engraver who had turned up in telling me something I should have Ruskin’s class and the two men expected, for Ruskin had created the became friends. Ruskin not only liked Collection—– St George’s Museum, as Swan but admired him too, and it was it originally was—not for those who in his house that the setting for his already know about art, but for the Museum first came to him. He had working people of Sheffield, above all been thinking about it for some time metalworkers. and had drawn up plans to build it in Ruskin created the Museum in this rural Worcestershire, where the Guild very house, now known as Ruskin has land, but he had begun to consider House, in 1875. He had founded the that an industrial city—particularly the Guild of St George four years before in rural edge of an industrial city – would despair at the condition of England, be more appropriate. The setting here, blighted (as he saw it) by industrial with the Rivelin valley visible from the capitalism. He was appalled by the windows and smoky Sheffield far down operations of the market that had made the hill behind it, seemed to him the nation theoretically wealthy and left almost ideal, especially when he most of its people in poverty, oppressed realised that Swan and his wife Emily by mechanical labour and living for the would be willing to run it for him. most part in inhuman conditions, often Sheffield was right too. The hills St George’s Museum plaque in the workshop. without access to clean water and fresh around the city reminded him of Photo: Ruth Nutter. air. He was equally appalled by the Florence and even—rather impact of industry on nature itself—the extraordinarily—of the Alps, and he had London and elsewhere. He founded a small pollution of air and water and the long been an admirer of Sheffield dynasty of artists, one of whom, his great- violation of natural beauty. Ruskin craftsmanship. The little mesters making granddaughter Annie Creswick Dawson, is wanted to restore a flourishing rural cutlery in their workshops were the public with us here today. economy in which working people lived he most valued. What we have sought to do with the in a healthy relationship with the world So the Collection was set up here, and project called Ruskin in Sheffield is to show around them. metalworkers made their journey up the that that same Sheffield spirit which Ruskin But the Guild was also concerned with Bellhagg Road to see it in large numbers, called forth in 1875 is alive in Sheffield art and craftsmanship. Ruskin believed their names recorded in the Visitors’ Book. today. I think we have succeeded. That we that beauty in design was only possible if Among the most frequent visitors, to give a have done so is a huge tribute to the project the craftsman was acquainted with notable example, was a young knife-grinder Producer, Ruth Nutter, but it is also due to natural beauty. Great art and fine named Benjamin Creswick. Swan soon the people of Sheffield who are still ready craftsmanship derived from appreciation discovered that Creswick wanted to be a and willing to campaign for beauty and of the world God made for us. The sculptor and recognised real talent in his justice. collection in St George’s Museum was a work. He recommended him to Ruskin, I would like to express the Guild’s thanks teaching collection, designed above all who commissioned a bust from him, and to several people: to teach the workman by example and, then recommended him to friends in —to Ruth Nutter for the wonderful work in so doing, to satisfy his need for fresh Birmingham. Creswick soon moved to she has done under the banner of Ruskin in air and green fields, beauty and justice, Birmingham, where he became famous as a Sheffield, and to those who have worked with all of which Ruskin saw as related to one sculptor of public monuments and got her; another. ‘The mountain home of the involved in the Arts & Crafts Movement in —to John and Joy Smith, landlords of 25
Ruskin House, for their willingness to in the traditions of craftsmanship which of the Ruskin in Sheffield project; accept this plaque and, indeed, their Ruskin taught; —to everyone in the Walkley community enthusiasm for it; —to Marcus Waithe, who set up the who has supported Ruskin in Sheffield from —to John O'Brien, building manager of website Ruskin at Walkley the outset; Ruskin House, for his constant
The Master addresses Companions and local residents at the unveiling of the plaque at Ruskin House, Walkley. Photo: Ruth Levene. REMEMBERING HENRY SWAN A Speech at Walkley Cemetery by Clive Wilmer, June 27th 2015 There’s a fresco in Siena called The across the trees and the fields. I think it was was warm, humorous, loyal, original and Allegory of Good and Bad Government. It’s precisely that feeling that Ruskin had when he careless of the opinions of others. When he by the fourteenth-century artist looked from Swan’s house to the hills beyond, met Ruskin at the Working Men’s College Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Ruskin now of course covered with building. he was a journeyman engraver. In that role, admired it a great deal. A crucial Appropriately enough, this is where Henry he had worked for Isaac Pitman, the section of the picture shows how good Swan is buried. It’s a pity he is not here with inventor of what is now the most widely government is associated with a his wife Emily, because as Dr Mark Frost has used system of shorthand. He was interested healthy, productive interchange shown us, she was very much his co-curator at in spelling reform and new systems of between city and countryside, and the St George’s Museum, but she died long after musical notation. He valued traditional picture at that point focuses on the him and in another place. The Swans had four crafts—he was a skilled illuminator, for place where the city ends and the children, one of whom is buried here with his instance—but he was also keen on country begins. I am reminded of the father—Laurence Swan, who died sadly innovations—on photography, for picture by this place: when you come young. instance—and he was one of the first people here, you feel you have reached the Henry Swan was a bit of an eccentric— to own a bicycle. Unlike Ruskin, he was a limit of Sheffield and you look out some people thought him a crank—but he Quaker, a pacifist and a vegetarian. 26
in the good work they did and present in the continuing life that drew that work out of them. The social and economic climate of their time was harsh, and they stood against it. They spoke out or acted for the needs and dignity of common people, who have a right to claim beauty and justice as human needs. As the life of our own time grows harsher, as I believe it is doing, they continue to stand for those values as these stones do for them. On behalf of the Guild of St George and Ruskin in Sheffield, I would like to thank the following: —the Rev. Melanie Fitzgerald, Irving Smith and Hugh Waterhouse for their support, help and enthusiasm, and the work they did to secure permission for the new gravestone; —Ruth Nutter of Ruskin in Sheffield for leading this effort and my colleagues in the Guild for supporting her; At Walkley Cemetery, down the steep slope to the Swans’ grave. —Richard Watts, again, for designing Photo: Ruth Nutter. and carving a beautiful stone, a model of fine craftsmanship; For many years the site of this grave should be restored, the soil built up again —Ron Frost, for re-discovering the was unknown. It was only recently re- and a memorial placed over the stone to stone, and his son Mark for writing the discovered by the Rev. Ron Frost, the record Swan’s presence there, with tribute text that is carved upon it, as well as father of Companion Mark Frost. Mark duly paid to one of the Guild’s earliest and lecturing for the Ruskin in Sheffield had been studying the working-class best employees. project; men and women who worked for In some sense this recovery and —Mick Searcy, for restoring the grave Ruskin and the Guild, and his father, a restoration of Swan’s memorial and the and mounting the new stone; retired clergyman who lives in Sheffield, plaque set on the wall of Ruskin House are —everyone in the Walkley community decided to help. The gravestone he symbols embedded in the programme we who has supported Ruskin in Sheffield found was broken in two, the ground call Ruskin in Sheffield. They signify that from the outset; had subsided and the lettering on the though Ruskin and Swan were forgotten or —Henry and Emily Swan for living and stone had been effaced beyond recall. for periods of time disappeared, they are working among us. Let us remember We in the Guild decided that the grave present among us here in Sheffield: present them with honour and gratitude.
COMPANIONS’ DAY, SHEFFIELD, JUNE 27TH 2015 Jacqueline Yallop
In the display in the Ruskin Gallery last and drawings to a facsimile of the Kelmscott some had come from as far afield as June, there was a lovely case full of Chaucer; we planted seeds or tried our hands Wakefield and Chesterfield; many had been clouds: not actual clouds, unfortunately, at printing bright simple designs inspired by to other Ruskin in Sheffield events. We were but, among others, Bunney’s watercolour the pub signs and brick patterns and weedy undeterred by Walkley’s sometimes of the ‘cloud-topped hills near back alleys of the street outside. In the daunting topography, and off we went, up Serravalle’, Randal’s study of the clouds crowded little shop, dressers and shelves and down, stopping in the ordinary domestic breaking over the mountains in Lecco, overflowed with beautiful things made by streets to hear the often extraordinary and evocative engravings after Turner, people and by nature, and all around there stories of those who had visited the St made for Modern Painters. Featuring the was talk of Ruskin: someone had moved to George’s Museum at Walkley in the 1870s kind of loose, blue, slightly dreamy skies Walkley, they said, entirely because of the and 1880s. Bill and his team of researchers not often seen over Sheffield, even in Ruskin connection; someone claimed their had wheedled human tales from the simple summer, these seem to summon another aunt was given the middle name Ruskin as an signatures in the visitor books, and on the world—but the Saturday when the act of homage. steep slopes overlooking the industrial Companions gathered in Walkley was a At midday, I teased myself away from the remains of the city, he conjured for us day of just such lovely vistas as we’d seen treasure box that was the pop-up museum to glimpses of the stories of those who had in the exhibition, and the perfect day for a join a guided walk led by the archaeologist and lived, and sometimes died, in these cottages. celebration. historian, Bill Bevan. We met by Ruskin Park, I’ve seen the visitor books before, and I’ve And celebratory it was. on the lower slopes of Walkey, which was read the names inscribed there, but it wasn’t At the Pop-up Ruskin Museum on awash with daisies. There were lots of us, but until I was standing on the pavements and South Road, where volunteers had been I was the only Companion. Most of the outside front doors that I began to wooing visitors for months with walkers were only beginning to discover understand thoroughly that these were not Ruskinian ideas, we rummaged among Ruskin: some were Walkley locals who just names and dates, but real people who objects brought in by locals, from shells wanted to know more about where they lived, visited the early museum: the boys from 27
neighbouring streets who called for each Eighty of us gathered to hear Clive Wilmer other on the way to Bell Hagg Road; the and the vicar of St Mary’s, Melanie craftsmen and women whose skill earned Fitzgerald, remind us why Walkley was them a neat, spacious house in which to special to Ruskin, how Henry and Emily live. There were family mysteries, too – Swan continued to make it special, and why puzzling legacies and lost histories – and we it remains resonant today. At Ruskin House loitered for a while outside the plain stone we were lucky to have the company of John terrace cottage at 158 Fulton Road where and Joy Smith, who now own the building Ruskin stayed for a few days in October and who spoke with fondness of discovering 1879, lodging in biblical fashion with a its history: they kindly allowed us to tramp carpenter named Joseph, complaining of round the back to see the original frontage of ‘too much china’ but savouring the bacon the Museum. Standing among the washing and Cheshire cheese. lines and plantpots of the current residents, While some of us were walking, there we could look out over the buildings that was a chance for others to contribute to the have grown up in the last 150 years, and well-dressing at St Mary’s Church which glimpse something of the view that would celebrated Ruskin in Walkley by recreating have greeted the original visitors, pushing some of the most important scenes in their way through the wicket gate, beguiled flowers and seeds. Well-dressing is out of the smoke of the foundries and something you see often in Derbyshire curious to see what this place might be (Above, L-R) Stuart Eagles, Melanie Fitzgerald, parishes throughout the summer, a way of about. Annie Creswick Dawson and Clive Wilmer at giving thanks for natural springs and the Both of the slates are beautifully carved by St Mary’s Church taking part in the Walkley communities that have evolved around Richard Watts, and fully deserving of the Festival Well-Dressing preparations. them, but it is less common in Sheffield and (Below) Bill Bevan (centre) leads the attention they attracted on the day of their Ruskin heritage trail. its urban churches. We were reminded later unveiling. Having fully admired the first, we in the day, however, as we gathered in the made our way down the hill from Ruskin graveyard to visit Henry Swan’s grave, that House to the cemetery and filed along a Walkley is still a place (as it was when narrow path mowed through the Ruskin chose it for the location of St willowherb, brambles and ivy to where a George’s Museum) that straddles city and patch by the wall had been cleared and country, industry and nature, the tamed and Henry Swan’s grave is once again visible. Set the wild. On a June afternoon the memorial horizontally but on a slight incline, the new stones were half hidden by tall summer stone there has a lovely greenish patina and grasses, the trees cast deep shade over the deep, clean letters; we scattered wild seeds graves, birds sang and just beyond us, the on the soil around and talked, in hope, of Rivelin Valley stretched out onto the tracking down Emily’s grave, too, so that it moors. can also be marked in some way. Marking St George’s Museum and Swan’s Companions’ days, in my experience, are grave with their new carved slates was, of always cheerful affairs, with ideas shared and course, the serious business of the day. friends made and Ruskin hovering like a Everyone came together for these two benign chaperone. They are testament to the moments of joy and respectful reflection. work the Guild is still doing, and the liveliness and variety of its activity. And nowhere could have been more lively nor showed more variety than this little corner of Sheffield one Saturday in June: we should be enormously grateful to the residents of Walkley for embracing Ruskinian ideals with such infectious enthusiasm, and welcoming us with such openness and delight. We should marvel that the skies were bright, the views expansive and the clouds high and fine, so that we could see, quite clearly, why St George’s Museum came to be here in this special place. Photos: Ruth Nutter.
(Left) Custodians of the Ruskin Collection past and present: (L-R) Jacqueline Yallop, Janet Barnes and Louise Pullen in Walkley.
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Fay Musslewhite was among the poets taking part in the Longbarrow Press residency at the Pop-Up Ruskin Museum at 381 South Road, Walkley, Sheffield, throughout September 2015. The salons, free to attend, took place every Wednesday and Thursday between 1pm and 3pm. Poets led discussion of several Ruskin- themed topics with reference to their own and others’ poetry. The residency concluded with a collective reading at the Museum on September 30th, collated by Brian Lewis, featuring Fay Musselwhite and poets Matthew Clegg, Angelina D’Roza, Pete Green and Chris Jones.
THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE RUSKIN, POETRY, AND THE POP-UP MUSEUM Fay Musselwhite (with photographs of the Rivelin Valley by Mary Musselwhite)
The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way… To see clearly is poetry, prophesy and religion, all in one. —John Ruskin, Modern Painters III
Nature, art and work define the prism hoofs’, provides a surface under which we earth through which John Ruskin examined seem to peer, as if through time, or perhaps held and trembled before it gave, and the stumps man’s place in the world, and he not through time at all, but through our howled as they turned their black, prized groins combined them with mathematical own surface layers, into what we are still skyward for the first times in their lives elegance. Art and work require nature made of. Soon after the vow with his twin, Levine as raw material, and through study and ‘Coming Close’ by Philip Levine invites began working part-time in a soap factory, and further engagement, art and nature will more direct contact, with a woman working for many years supported his higher education ask of the mind what work takes from the night shift at a buffer wheel.[4] The by road building, factory and delivery work, the body, while nature and work, for work is dirty, hard and heavy, and has taken until writing and teaching at last provided a Ruskin, provide the perfect subjects for its toll on her body. She’s three hours, and living. His poetry remains fascinated by the art. many years in, her work is steady and streets and people of Detroit. In What Work Is, The last of these equations is conscientious, yet she’d resist it in a we journey with ‘the faces on the bus … each demonstrated by the critical interest moment, should the chance come. Just sealed in its hunger / for … a lost life’[7] to Ruskin took in the Pre-Raphaelites, and before the end of the poem, we’re asked to places where someone must put on ‘wide in JMW Turner. Born and raised at the imagine this: rubber hip boots, / gauntlets to the elbow, a poor end of the Thames fishing trade, … if by some luck the power were cut, plastic helmet / like a knight’s but with a little Turner’s close observations of ‘black the wheel slowed to a stop so that you glass window’ [8] or yearn to ‘climb the barges, patched sails [and] weedy suddenly saw it was not a solid object shaking ladder to the roof / of the Nitro plant roadside vegetation’ were highly praised but so many separate bristles forming and tear off / my respirator and breathe the by Ruskin, who could see no other in motion a perfect circle … yellow air’,[9] then to school, where the painter able to depict ‘the natural way Then she laughs and touches ‘the arm of monoculture sets in: things have of lying about.’[1] This your white shirt to mark / you for your These are the children of Flint, their fathers sensitivity, and the rallying cry of the own, now and forever.’ work at the spark plug factory or truck Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, to paint Philip Levine was born to a middle class bottled water in 5 gallon sea-blue jugs from nature and to reject classical and family in Detroit in 1928.[5] When his to the widows of the suburbs. You can see artificial notions of composition and father died, twelve years later, the already how their backs have thickened. [10] beauty, chime with Ruskin’s revelation, insurance company found an excuse to deny In his youth, Levine believed that manual aged twenty-one, which overturned the major part of the claim, and Levine saw labour would leave his ‘mind and imagination much of the nine-years’ schooling he’d his mother worn out by the effort of free for writing’.[11] This mirrors Ruskin’s had in ‘the mannerisms and tricks’ of keeping the family fed, clothed and desire for St George’s Museum in Sheffield to making a painting. One afternoon, ‘with sheltered. When they were fourteen, he and inspire tired workers with ‘what is lovely in no prospect whatever but a small aspen his twin brother vowed never to ‘participate the life of Nature, and heroic in the life of tree against the blue sky’, he saw the in the corporate business of this country, a Men.’ Situated on Walkley’s north-facing charm of ‘composition’ in the existing business that appalled us by the brutality of hillside, where the furthest view looks world, and the holistic learning journey its exploitation of the people we most northwest over the Peak District, ‘the of capturing it. ‘At last the tree was loved.’[6] Poetry had taken hold of Levine a mountain home of the museum’—as Ruskin there, and everything that I had thought year or so earlier, when his burgeoning lust described it—was chosen to draw local before about trees, nowhere.’ [2] for words fused with feelings of deep grinders up from the toxic air of Rivelin, The poets and visual artists featured resonance that arose from delving into Loxley and Neepsend valleys. [12] However, and discussed in this essay embrace this backyard soil to make things grow, and some knew a more sustained escape was clarity of sight in their spark and rigour. nights spent in woodland. So nature and needed. Seamus Heaney’s sonnet, ‘The Forge’[3] work were implicated from the start, and By his mid-twenties, Levine had his share of begins: ‘All I know is a door into the ‘Innocence’, a poem from his 1991 residual minor injury, was disgusted by the dark.’ Through the doorway, all we see collection What Work Is, sets them in bitter divisive practises that drove industry, and the and hear, such as ‘The unpredictable opposition to each other. A team of workers prospect of a life there, unassuaged by his fantail of sparks / Or hiss when a new have prepared an oak wood for a road to dream to make poetry pay, would have been shoe toughens in water’, make the come through it, foliage and branches have intolerable. Instead, for many decades until he nearby ‘traffic flashing in rows’ sound been removed, then: died in February last year, writing and tinny and ineffectual; while the earthmovers gripped the chained and stripped teaching gave him: juxtaposition of the modern road, where trunks, … some work the blacksmith ‘recalls a clatter / Of hunched down and roared their engines, the to do, something useful and hard, and that they might please 29
their own need to be doing. [13] A hundred years before Levine worked in factories, Sheffield grinders suffered severe damage to their respiration, digestion and posture; many were physical wrecks with terminal illnesses by the age of nineteen.[14] Rivelin knife-grinder Benjamin Creswick was impeded by the symptoms of his trade while his family grew.[15] When St George’s Museum opened in 1875, he was twenty-two, and its exhibits spurred him to try his hand; he discovered a talent for sculpture and invested in lessons. Before long he drew the attention of John Ruskin, who tutored him, helped find commissions, and paid him, weekly, for as long as necessary. Creswick became a sculptor of great national renown. He played a leading role in the Arts & Crafts Movement, and held a senior position in workforce. In poems like ‘Impasse’ and Birmingham Art School for decades. ‘Contra Flow’ the river stands in for the Completing many public and private mind’s ability to break through and move commissions, he made art from on. ‘Flood Triptych: The Loxley’ brings terracotta, marble and bronze, often these notions together: as the harness portraying characters at tasks he’d breaks, human ingenuity turns against performed and observed during his early humanity, and devastation wrought by the working life. river echoes a body’s internal struggle. It’s a credit to the zeal for authenticity John Clare’s poetry pulls you into the that Ruskin passed on in his training, midst of nature, where the work of flora, that with at least six children to support, fauna and river seems never to be done. Creswick initially turned down a major People are often peripheral: a cowboy on a commission to illustrate the manufacture gate, a distant seed-man sowing grain, or of hats, saying he knew nothing of the where ‘the cottage roof’s-thatch brown/ process. He was persuaded, after being Did add its beauty to the budding green’. allowed several weeks of study in the hat [17] factory; and the friezes he made for the Clare observes from pathless land, inside a high-street shop-front, and factory thicket, or by ‘little brooks that hum a entrance behind it, have been called ‘a simple lay / In green unnoticed spots’.[18] magnificent piece of Socialist realism, Removed from human lore, his poetry modelled without sentimentality but reveals the long rhythms of nature, while with great dignity.’[16] The hatters’ melding the immediacy of life, for its building no longer exists, but the scenes creatures and vegetation, with the depicted on the Cutlers’ Hall frieze in breathless joy of the recorder. In ‘Sudden London show the same strength and Shower’, a bee is one of the ‘little things dignity. around, like you and I’, who hurry for Creswick’s great granddaughter, visual shelter, and his allegiance is palpable in this artist and Companion Annie Creswick- stanza from ‘Autumn’. Dawson, has said that the visual impact While from the rustling scythe the haunted hare of the men’s stances, within sections and Scampers circuitous with startled ears from one frame to another, remind her Pricked up, then squat, as by of the flow of the Rivelin. I find this She brushes to the woods Where seeded grass breast-high and undisturbed comparison thrilling for the way it taps Form pleasant clumps through which the into the parallels between man and suthering winds nature that I strive to illuminate in Softens her rigid fears poetry. From the realisations voiced by And lulls to calm repose. the teenage couple in ‘Star’, to the Born in 1793, to a peasant family in the potency of how Sheffield’s fast rivers Northamptonshire village of Helpston, brought its famous industry to town, the Clare grew up in similar poverty to Turner, connections flow. Poems of mine such as with the same kind of exposure to his future ‘Here I spill’ and ‘Memoir of a Working material.[19] He went to school until he River’ imagine a river’s life in terms of a was eleven or twelve, after which money person’s, tracking attitudes and and location left no possibility for further behaviour as they mature, suggesting education; yet Clare was a voracious also the harnessed power of a scholar. He borrowed, or saved to buy, 30
books on history, music, botany, maths; never felt the rage of blundering plough’, out for the best deal, and after his first everything, that is, except Latin and whose ‘only bondage was the circling sky’, collection was published in 1820, he enjoyed grammar which he disdained. Already in where boys picked mulberries, and several years of acclaim as the Peasant Poet. the thrall of reading, writing and story, shepherds found lost sheep. Intact forever, During visits to London, though noticeably when he read The Seasons by James until ‘Enclosure came and trampled on the gauche, he made friends, some generous and Thompson in his early teens, he was grave / Of labour’s rights and left the poor loyal, of writers, artists, etc. There were more seized by the urgent desire to record his a slave’. This and a similar line in ‘The collections of his work, but inexperience and world as poetry, and did so obsessively Village Minstrel’, where he ‘Marks the bad advice lost him money, and it’s likely that from then on. His early inner life also stopped brook and mourns oppression’s his wit and politics eluded much of his has parallels with Levine’s, and the power’—a line that could have been contemporary readership. When delays and poetry of both are underpinned by deep- written somewhere in the world any year charlatans had squandered his most accessible rooted threads of human equality and since—typifies his fluidity between a lost assets, his popularity waned. Meanwhile, the nature’s supremacy. They also share the detail and the irrevocable hijacking of severity of his mental frailty, and homesickness endearing strategy of telling you their resources. His way of speaking for and as when away, went unrecognised or tale as though you were stood beside the landscape and its creatures makes his misunderstood for too long. Conversely, he them. Here are some lines from Clare’s politics always personal, yet he is usually missed London friends and city life when he ‘The Nightingale’s Nest’: shedding light on an ugly facet of his only connected with them by letter. Hark! there she is as usual—let’s be hush— nemesis. When ‘The Fallen Elm’, which Three years after the publication of his first For in this blackthorn-clump, if rightly always grew comfortingly close to his collection, Clare suffered his first bout of guessed, home, and ‘murmured in our chimney depression. This coincided with the death of a Her curious house is hidden. Part aside top / The sweetest anthem autumn ever rural labouring-class poet from Suffolk, a few These hazel branches in a gentle way made’, was felled without any warning, he decades his senior. Robert Bloomfield’s work And stoop right cautious ’neath the rustling boughs notes the dangerous rhetoric of those who had been immensely popular for a while, but ‘Bawl freedom loud and then oppress the the man had died penniless and losing his The fields and gardens where Clare free’. He goes on: sanity. Fourteen years later, aged forty-four, worked weren’t the factories of John Clare was first certified insane. Failing Creswick or Levine, yet in ‘The Lament And labour’s only cow was drove away. No matter—wrong was right and right was mental health, manifesting in depression and of Swordy Well’ he bears witness to the wrong erratic behaviour, had for a long time appetites of the revolution already under And freedom’s bawl was sanction to the song. prevented him from making the best of his way in cities: — Such was thy ruin, music-making elm. earnings, and made home life difficult. Now, it And me, they turned me inside out Like Levine, Clare grew up at the brunt of seems, his wife was concerned that he would For sand and grit and stones great national hardship and severe class become violent. In his last few years at home, And turned my old green hills about division. In Helpston, he struggled to make And picked my very bones. he could often only be calmed by one of his a living, nearly enlisted, even put up fences children talking gently with him about the In poems like this, dedicated to the for the local squire—which always made countryside. He remained in mental health horror of land ownership which the him drink more and hardly write at all; then care and continued to write until his death in Enclosure Acts ushered in, Clare rails at at twenty-four, his family almost destitute, 1864. Here’s his sonnet, published in 1835, length against its fences, stop signs, he travelled a few miles for work burning ‘To the Memory of Bloomfield’: ‘Grubbed up trees, banks and bushes’. lime, which went to make mortar and [20] The packaging of land came to Sweet unassuming minstrel, not to thee fertiliser. It was during this employment The dazzling fashions of the day belong: Helpston in 1806, Clare’s thirteenth that he resolved to change course: he Nature’s wild pictures, field and cloud and tree year, and in ‘The Moors’ there’s the approached a local bookseller and his twelve And quiet brooks far distant from the throng sense of him having caught the last -year journey to publication began. In murmurs tender as the toiling bee moments of ‘one eternal green / That This is no rags-to-riches tale. Clare held Make the sweet music of thy gentle song.
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Well, nature owns thee: let the crowd pass known—because none of them are called Bate, Biography. by, Tesco or Adidas—and for the poets and [20] ‘The Lament of Swordy Well’. The tide of fashion is a stream too strong artists spoken of here, who have seen [21] Notes about the Guild and the Museum For pastoral brooks that gently flow and sing, something and wished to tell it. are from the Guild’s website. But nature is their source, and earth and sky A few years ago, Taylor was guest visual [22] Details of Emilie Taylor’s work are Their annual offering to her current bring. Thy gentle muse and memory need no sigh, artist on a poetry walk led by Mark Doyle, from her website. For thine shall murmur on to many a spring and I was lucky enough to be on it. We left When their proud streams are summer-burnt Upperthorpe Library to stand where Kelvin SOURCES AND FURTHER READING and dry. flats had been, and look out over Pitsmoor Bate, Jonathan, John Clare: A In the 1870s, as is so often the case, and Parkwood Springs. She gave out Biography (London: Picador 2003). much concern was expressed in Britain materials, talked to us about looking, not Bate, Jonathan (ed.), John Clare: Selected about the national debt. This didn’t, looking, and negative space, showed us Poems (London: Faber & Faber 2004). however, refer to the debt owed to the methods to capture our version of the view. Dearden, James S., An Illustrated Life of John working urban and rural poor by the Then I was amazed to be led along Ruskin (Princes Risborough: Shire 2004). individuals making a fortune from the Neepsend Valley to where derelict pigeon Engels, Friedrich, The Condition of the sweat on their thickening backs. lofts are barely hidden by a thin stand of Working Class 1844. Ruskin’s response was to call for a trees beside Penistone Road. ‘Flight from Guild of St George website: National Store, and St George’s Cuthbert Bank’ is the poem I wrote about
THE THIRD JOHN RUSKIN PRIZE th New Art Gallery, Walsall, February 25 2016 Peter Miller
The John Ruskin Prize was established in 2012 by the Campaign for Drawing (now the Big Draw) following a proposal of Clive Wilmer, the Master of the Guild. In 2014 and 2015 the prize had taken the theme of Recording Britain from the original idea of Kenneth Clark, who in 1939, with the advent of war and the potential destruction (L-R) Stephen it might bring, set up the scheme whereby Snoddy (New Art artists recorded Britain in drawings and Gallery, Walsall), watercolours. The resulting 1400 works Peter Miller, Kate between 1939 and 1943 are now housed at Mason (Director, Big the Victoria and Albert Museum and Gill dispossessed in south London where she showing the collapse of a Draw) and Sue Saunders, Senior Curator of Prints and lives. For over twenty years she has block of social housing flats. Grayson Ford (former Drawings at the V&A, was one of this chronicled the radical reordering of urban It cleverly expressed in Director, Campaign year’s judges. Gill also provided an space following de-industrialisation. She graphite the crumpling of for Drawing) at the excellent introduction, Recording Britain: explores Ruskinian themes of the ravages paper to suggest the prize-giving in Walsall. Then and Now, in this year’s exhibition visited on people by industrialisation and the demolition of Robin Hood catalogue. pursuit of profit. It was felt to be a timely Gardens in south London. The prize exhib- comment on urban society in Britain in the She also showed a 79-page booklet which ition, Recording Britain explored the Now: Society, was demolition in a series shown at the New Art of coloured Gallery Walsall, one photomontages. of the finest galleries The third prize of in Britain. Designed £1000, reserved for by Caruso St John, students,was awarded architects, it opened to Robin Sukatorn for in 2000 to house the his ‘reportage’ collection of Kathleen drawings, mostly of Garman (widow of Manchester where he Jacob Epstein) and currently lives. It Sally Ryan. The included Jeremy Corbyn exhibition occupied speaks in Manchester and the fourth floor of the his fluid, rapid building, which had observations were panoramic views of strongly politically Walsall from the informed. balcony, and about Guild Companions 200 people came to were well-represented the opening. There and we repaired to a were a number of local pub where speeches and it was delicious food was agreed that, with over available for the judges, 600 entries and 30 1ST PRIZE: Laura Oldfield Ford, Colliers Wood (acrylic and oil on canvas). the finalists and finalists, the choice of members of the Guild. winners had been a difficult one. The first current age of austerity and cuts. It was kindly provided by the New Art Gallery. prize of £5000 was awarded to Laura The second prize of £2000 went to Jessie We were able Oldfield Ford for an outstanding body of Brennan for her A Fall of Ordinariness and to talk to some Laura Oldfield Ford, Light which was a series of four drawings of the finalists Winstanley Estate series work describing the marginalised and (acrylic and oil on board)
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and much interest was expressed in the Guild’s activities. The total prize money of £8000 was only made possible with the generous contribution of the Pilgrim Trust which had also supported the original Recording Britain 1939-1943. Thanks are due to Rachel Price who, as Project Manager for the John Ruskin Prize, co-ordinated the exhibition and produced the excellent catalogue. Also to Kate Mason, who has taken over as Director of the Big Draw and finally, to Sue Grayson Ford, who as founder of the Big Draw, has just retired from its activities. We owe her a great debt of gratitude. The exhibition continued at the New Gallery Walsall until Sunday April 17th and then transferred to the Electricians’ Shop Gallery at Trinity Buoy Wharf, 64 Orchard Place, London where it ran from 2ND PRIZE: Jessie Brennan, A Fall of Ordinariness and Light Thursday May 5th to Sunday (graphite on paper) May 22nd.
ON WINNING THE STUDENT PRIZE Robin Sukatorn In September of last year I arrived at the I researched, the more it struck me how developing a drawing project in which I will Manchester School of Art to embark on a strongly Ruskin’s celebration of drawing as record scenes from the cultural, civic and two-year masters course focusing on a means of representing and commenting on political life of the north of England, and illustration, with an ambition to meld contemporary society resonated with my winning the student prize has opened up the together my passion for drawing with my own practice and interests. In response to opportunity for me to branch out from interest in current affairs and the theme ‘Recording Britain Now: Society’ Manchester to a wider variety of further-flung contemporary society. My project was I decided to enter my drawing of Jeremy locations. I have recently returned from a four launched somewhat dramatically with the Corbyn Speaking in Manchester’, a -day drawing trip through Leeds, Hull and arrival of a mass anti-austerity submission which I hoped would not only Sheffield (where I visited the Ruskin demonstration through Manchester capture a moment in local Manchester life Collection at the Millennium Gallery) and I during the first week of term. The next but also reflect the changing and contested will shortly be visiting Newcastle, York and day, a speech by newly-elected Labour landscape of British politics, particularly the Liverpool, as well as locations in the Lake and Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, outside surge in grassroots, left-wing activism Peak Districts. I now have greater freedom to Manchester Cathedral, took place as the amongst Labour supporters and the reaction experiment with different media and creative Conservative Party met for their annual against the austerity policies of the processes, such as etching, lithography and conference on the other side of town. Conservative government. It was a great painting, and I aim to develop the drawings It was an exhilarating experience to honour to be shortlisted and to have the resulting from my travels into a self-published float within the sea of demonstrators, opportunity to exhibit in Walsall and collection, as well as into larger-scale work. scribbling furiously with pencil and pen to London alongside such an inspiring and It is endlessly fascinating to discover capture a sense of the scene and the talented group of artists, all offering unique different parts of the country, to scout out characters around me. Back in my studio, responses to the Prize’s theme. To be opportunities for drawing, and to record my I laid out the live sketches, photographs awarded the Student Prize was absolutely impressions of the scenes and people I and notes I had made on location and set thrilling, and I am extremely grateful for encounter. I very much look forward to out to compose a drawing of Corbyn this recognition from the judges as well as building on this inspiring experience with the speaking to the rapturous crowds, for the generous words of encouragement John Ruskin Prize in the years to come, and to retaining a lively and gestural application and advice from many of the artists and continue to explore and record the world of line, with my eyes continually darting guests at the ceremony. around me through drawing, in a way which I between my hand and the gathered Having only recently taken the plunge hope Ruskin himself would have appreciated. materials from which I was making my into the world of art and illustration, this drawing. experience has given a great boost to my I had learned about the John Ruskin confidence and sense of purpose as an artist, Prize from a fellow student during a and it has really inspired me to push on with course review of my work, and the more creating new work. I am currently 34
STUDENT PRIZE: Robin Sukatorn, Jeremy Corbyn speaks in Manchester (graphite stick on paper).
GRANDPA’s PEACH: TWO LANGUAGES FOR KIDS, NOT ONE Bob Steele Mary was two when she was taken on a day trip to visit her grandparents who lived in a semi-rural community not many miles away. She remembers being carried in her grandfather’s arms to the back garden to admire the first peach he had ever been able to grow. There was only one but if you took time to look carefully, it was a sight to behold—a perfect orb with a fuzzy skin to touch and just coming into full colour. It was a memorable event—being in the arms of an affectionate grandfather and having contact with a wonder of nature. Back home next morning, Mary was sprawled on the kitchen floor with a large black crayon and sheets of newsprint. It was her daily custom to draw but she was still at the scribbling stage and the marks were simply fun to make and didn’t represent anything in particular. But then she spotted a familiar shape and something clicked. She called to her mother and, pointing to the circle, exclaimed with a note of triumph, ‘Grandpa’s peach’! It happens all the time but is not always long as she continued to draw. It was not knowledge, abstract thought, and metaphorical noticed, the birth in a child of a double exclusively Mary’s or that of a small expression. Spontaneous drawing is designed language. Mary was already building a percentage of talented children but a for personal use and, for the child, is more vocabulary at the time of her visit and potential, waiting within every child’s flexible, capable of greater complexity and her discovery of a familiar shape in a mind, and all that is needed are drawing subtlety, and it has far greater capacity to link tangle of marks next day prompted her materials and thematic motivation from a small units into holistic entities, thus to form a sentence, albeit, a short one. kindly caregiver! effortlessly achieving aesthetic energy and the There is no record of when Mary Spontaneous drawing is an uncoded status of work of art. If my reasoning holds, the progressed to intentional graphic language, the symbols of which are mental processes associated with holistic representation but it would not be long invented by each child. The set pieces of language use (i.e. drawing alone or with in coming. The stage was set for rapid literacy, i.e. words, are coded and the words) has a direct and immediate effect on the language growth and spontaneous product of culture. Each system has psychological development and psychological drawing would stimulate literacy and advantages and both are needed. Literacy is health of children! literacy would stimulate drawing. This precisely repeatable with significant For the developing child, drawing has the symbiotic relationship would hold as implications for communication, advantage of being the easier of the two to use
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and thus tends to become a pathfinder for breeds came from library books which her literacy. (A good teaching strategy for all A SIX-YEAR OLD’S WORK OF ART: mother told me she studied by the hour. ages: draw first; tell or write about the ‘LUCY WAS TIRED NOW’ I have a theory about Joanne’s attraction drawing later.) Oral expression of one Joanne was a precocious child so it should to drawing and her problem with seeing. kind or another is the only option— not surprise us that she would make a Empathy, as it relates to drawing, has two using words as writing is far off in the brilliant drawing, indeed, a work of art. components, seeing and feeling. Feeling has future—and in oral expression children Children’s drawings, like most human two meanings, one related to the sense of are faced with a particular challenge: characteristics, vary in excellence, but there touch, the other to an emotional state, and words keep disappearing over a memory is little point in rank ordering them. I this double meaning describes empathy horizon. In contrast, the schemata of coined the term aesthetic energy to describe when it is related to spontaneous drawing. drawing stay in place on the paper and the feeling we get while contemplating a Presumably, when Joanne met a dog on the this makes possible an automatic feedback work of art, whether by child wonder or street, or studied one in a book, and later loop. adult genius, but it is not something one when she drew the dog from memory, she It begins with the mysteries of image needs to measure, only to recognise. It is did her best to ‘see’ the animal, the one she formation in the mind/brain which the product of empathy for subject matter, had a special feeling for at the moment, and guide the hand holding the drawing tool manufactured in the preconscious. We can to compensate for her lack of vision her and this results in the initial marks on say that the formal characteristics associated feeling, in both meanings, was more intense, paper. The child drawing scans the with good design provide at least a a matter of compensation. marks as they appear and additional nomenclature for later analysis, a tool for Lucy’s drawing is a perfect example of the marks are placed in precise relationship understanding, but the values of drawing symbiotic relationship of drawing and to the ones already there. The image are much more. Good design focuses on form, writing. The text not only contributes keeps flowing back into the mind/brain while aesthetic energy and work of art are a meaning but plays a role in the picture’s for further scanning and further mark matter of form and content, indeed, always spatial organisation by occupying the making. The feedback loop explains why beginning with content! Form works if it is a drawing’s upper third with a broken children are able to experience empathy product of empathy, empathy for content textured rectangle. Even the crudity of the when they draw but not when they and empathy for drawing process. We can letter forms adds graphic texture. (Joanne speak or write. come close to defining good design (those taught herself to write with printed letters The emphasis here on preconscious overworked concepts, elements and and many of her drawings combine the two image making is not meant to diminish principles) but there is always an indefinable language forms.) The text reads, ‘LUCY the importance of rational thought in the mystery about aesthetic energy and its WAS TIRE/ NOW. BUT PINK/ AND overall creative process. Even in the culmination in a work of art and it’s always a PERCY WENT/ AND CARRIED HER/ very young and ever more so with the matter of personal judgment. ON A DEATH BED’. growth of the mind/brain, analysis and Joanne’s story is truly astonishing and The drawing is the penultimate panel of a intellect play a role, important if not the would have interested the great neurologist, series of 24, a narrative about the summer equal of synthesis and intuition. To be Oliver Sacks. For one thing, she was adventures of a gang of friends who paint specific, the conscious intellect is surprisingly prolific and yet she was classed houses. It’s all summer fun until suddenly engaged in choosing a pre-drawing as legally blind by medical authorities! She Lucy gets tired and needs a rest and a theme and, later, reacting to a finished learned to type. product. In complex drawings, it She played clarinet emerges in moments of pause (where do in her school band. I go from here, what have I left out that She rode her bike needs to be put in?). to school down a The importance of the literacy code to busy urban street. eventual learning and communication is She was something happily granted but in the meantime the of an expert on young mind craves a language for dog breeds, and immediate use in fulfilling the daily while she had none requirements of mental development. of her own, she Drawing, fortified with words, fills the never failed to bill, an alternative wisely provided by chat to them in Nature but treated casually, even street encounters. indifferently, by humans. Later in life, Dogs, always the relationship is reversed and words drawn from take over as ‘number one’, supported, memory, were a whenever feasible, by drawing. I major part of her suspect, however, that for many pre-teen subject- children, especially those who have been matter. Her brought up on a ‘daily draw’ regime, or drawings were those who find the literacy project an always true to arduous task, spontaneous drawing will canine physical remain important for many language characteristics— functions, if it is encouraged. Nature she could never provides the opportunity but culture properly see a tends to be blind! whole dog so I conclude that her knowledge of ‘Lucy was tired now’ by Joanne (aged 6).
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verisimilitude which is without empathy because attempts to ‘get it right’ require frequent moments of analysis. In naturalism, empathic form can never be achieved; there is no flow of aesthetic energy and the values of authentic art cannot be realised. With this in mind, examine a drawing by Joanne from a mere two years after the Lucy drawing, At eight, Joanne spent many hours making drawings to illustrate complex stories, typically as a series with added text in the empty spaces. Her rendering of dogs and the teenage girls whose friends they were, has become astonishingly convincing and the drawings are perfect examples of empathic expressionism. How can we account for it? She was, of course, undoubtedly gifted. Her emotional attachment to dogs gave her a powerful focus and personal motivation. She was attracted to books and it was natural for her to want to tell stories and illustrate them, but it was not without concentration and effort. (Her parents loved and cared for her but claimed no role in her precocious activities and, indeed ,were mystified by it.) Her eye condition had the effect of intensifying the ‘touch’ aspect of empathy in contrast to those children handicapped by the cultural emphasis on truth to vision as the ideal measure of art. She touched the dogs she met on walks and the illustrations of dogs she studied in books and she touched them again when she made drawings of them. Studying Joanne’s drawings tells us that mere illustration (and some illustrations, of course, are simultaneously art!) makes use of ‘Five Dogs’ by Joanne (aged 8). sightedness as a necessary source of information and detail, but authentic shadow passes over the narrative. works in both form and content. The drama art requires sight and touch in integrated Where did Joanne pick up the phrase on the stone slab, and it has to be stone, fusion. And this, of course, is empathy! ‘death bed’, we wonder, and why did makes my arms tense with a sympathetic she use it in this otherwise happy response, and note that Lucy touches it only Some 25 years ago, I started the Drawing context? I have never found an answer, on the pivotal point of her seat and nowhere Network, an informal group of parents, teachers, but my guess is that she read it else, which concentrates our attention on academics and citizens interested in the welfare of somewhere and it appealed to her the precise moment of Pinky’s arm- children and the reform of schooling. There are no imagination. At any rate, it brings the wrenching task. Relaxation is promised, table officers, membership fees, or annual gang into a moment of solidarity in an but, as on the tableau of Keats’ Grecian urn, meetings. We write, publish and distribute extraordinary drawing. In the final it will never happen. Below the slab, every pamphlets and books world-wide, pamphlets at no panel, all is well again and Lucy, now arm bends to the task and the downward charge and books at CA$20 plus postage. The rested, resumes her leadership role and thrust is positively body-splaying. That all book most closely related to this article is A house painting resumes. fourteen arms of her seven friends are PICTURE BOOK OF CHILDREN’S But look carefully at the formal actually touching tells of the complete and DRAWINGS, which is still available. We are arrangement! I have never studied a work uninterrupted state of empathic small but growing! We need your help in of art that holds its elements in such a involvement! spreading the word. If you find this appealing and state of compressed energy. The Two years of daily practice changed wish to participate, we welcome you diagonal pitch of the ‘death bed’ makes Joanne’s drawing resources from the self- wholeheartedly. We urge you to distribute this or tension the theme that excites a flow of invented schemata of young childhood to a any other Drawing Network publication. (No aesthetic energy by galvanising its more mature style I call empathic need to get further permission.) Write your own elements in opposition to one another. expressionism. This term is meant to replace text or use mine! And note that the theme of tension the false goal of naturalism or photographic
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AMERICAN NOTES Jim Spates ([email protected]) and Sara Atwood ([email protected]) And the entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things. Not merely industrious, but to love industry. Not merely learned, but to love knowledge. Not merely pure, but to love purity. Not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice. —John Ruskin, ‘Traffic’ - 1864 (18.437)
was on ‘John Ruskin, William Morris, and the Revival of Craftsmanship’; two days later, his lecture, ‘“Beautiful, Peaceful, and Fruitful”: John Ruskin’s Guild of St. George,’ was presented at The Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco, a National Historic Landmark. He was joined on this occasion by Companion Aonghus Gordon, who spoke on the educational work of Ruskin Mill Trust. [For those who know little about this remarkable, hand-crafted place of worship, visit:
from Nowhere, William Morris’s utopian publishing firms in the US. At Hubbard’s some North First Church of Christ, Scientist, romance. [For the significance of insistence, its publications were printed by American Berkeley (interior detail). Berkeley’s First Church of Christ, hand on presses very like those used by Companions. Scientist, another National Historic Morris in England. Now, as both tribute Sara Atwood: Now based in Portland, Landmark in the Arts and Crafts and revival, The Roycroft Print Shop, Oregon, in early May of last year, Sara was tradition, read: under the direction of Companion Joe invited to give the Annual Ruskin Lecture at
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held at CPRE’s London offices. The
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Jim Spates writes: ‘I first met George presents its information so that it can be situating texts and images in as rich a Landow at The Ruskin Library in easily linked to other information. network of connections as possible, Lancaster. It was 2000 and many people Other Internet archives and tools, like we are continually adding new who were interested in Ruskin had Google, treat bodies of information as a materials, creating new links that, assembled for a conference and sort of chaotic swamp that one searches otherwise, might be missed. An celebration. Some of us sat down with — one can’t say ‘negotiates’ — hoping example is some cartoons on George for a pint in Bowland Bar. It was to penetrate the fog and darkness. environmentalism taken from Fun there that he told us of his efforts to When we find what we're looking for, and other periodicals that were establish a presence for Ruskin and other we leave. On the VW, books (some in inspired by Ruskin. (See ‘Nice Soap eminent Victorians in something he their entirety), articles, reviews, Factories here and there on the called “hypermedia”. It was a time when comments, paintings, political events, Swiss mountains’). Another the “world wide web” barely existed and and eminent (and some not-so-eminent) direction would be to go to VW’s when some of us thought that “the Victorians are encountered in many annotated text of his lecture of internet” was only a tennis term. The contexts, all of which we can examine 1864, ‘Traffic,’ where one can find, truth was that none of us had any real and compare at our leisure. The VW in addition to the lecture, links to idea what he was talking about. Some differs fundamentally from websites like the Illustrated London News’ review of sixteen years later, there is no doubt Wikipedia and reference works like the Bradford Exchange after it whatsoever that he was the visionary Britannica as well. These justly opened, as well as a link to Jim while we were the proverbial “stuck-in- celebrated sites aim to present a single, Spates’ commentary on Ruskin’s the-muds!”’. authoritative view of a subject. In famous passage on ‘taste’ which George has been doing everything he contrast, the VW encourages multiple appeared in that lecture. As a third could to actualise his cyberdream since points of view and debates, partly example, Jacqueline Banerjee, the 1987, the year he posted an early because important matters rarely VW’s Associate Editor, has just version of what would become The generate general agreement, and partly returned from a brief jaunt to a rainy Victorian Web. Today, the VW enjoys a because debate on these matters is what Venice and, as a result, has just reputation as one of the oldest academic keeps thought and scholarship growing. posted ‘Salviati in Venice and and scholarly sites on the web, and, The visitor or scholar who logs on Britain: An Introduction,’ an from the point of view of readers of The today’s VW can examine over 88,000 illustrated essay in which Ruskin Companion, its relevance to the documents and images. appears. [There are photographs of understanding and Venice by Salviati in the study of Ruskin is Ruskin Collection.] immense. That we In the coming year, should be regular the VW plans to upload visitors to the site projects relevant to can’t be said too those who are strongly. Here is an interested in Ruskin. excerpt culled from Among these will be a the VW’s home page memorial section which explains why dedicated to the work this is so: and influence of Van The Victorian Akin Burd on Ruskin Web takes an studies and a collection approach that of essays and comments differs markedly entitled, ‘How I first from many found Ruskin’—to internet projects. which Robert These days the Hewison, David internet offers Lustgarten, Jim Spates, many excellent Companion George Landow, Founder and Co-Editor of The Victorian Web. and myself have already resources such as Project contributed entries (see: Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, To a direct question about how a
USING YOUR MONEY FOR GOOD: A SYMPOSIUM ON ECONOMICS Catherine Howarth
Other workshops covered the joys of the Simple Living Movement, more on unlearning orthodoxies in the economics profession, and craftsmanship that respects During Good Money Week in October workers and the world. 2015, the Guild teamed up with Towards the end of the day, the whole ShareAction to host a symposium group came back together to reflect on our inspired by Ruskin at Mary Ward House discussions, the workshop sessions and the in London. opening lecture. People committed to a A range of speakers and workshop variety of follow-up actions around the participants explored the theme of using three themes of the day. Those reflections Mary Ward House in Bloomsbury and investing money as a force for good and commitments are recorded below and where the symposium took place. in our personal lives, society and the capture much of the spirit and essence of environment. There were many fantastic this wonderful event. – Have nothing in our homes that and animated conversations that allowed Taking personal responsibility: isn’t either useful or beautiful (The participants to learn more about – Use renewable energy, as life changing magic of tidying up by Ruskin’s ideas and to debate together proposed in a workshop hosted by Marie Kondo was highly how they might be brought to life today. Pure Leapfrog. recommended to get people started). A superb opening keynote address was – Invest savings ethically and in your – Know where the things you buy delivered by political economist and community, as explored in a come from and where the things environmentalist, Andrew Simms of the workshop hosted by Ethex. thrown away will go. New Weather Institute. A long-standing – Use banks that seek to have a – Respect ‘vital beauty’, walk more fan of Ruskin’s work, Andrew brilliantly positive social impact, with one in the landscape, adopt an approach and humorously deconstructed recommendation for Unity Trust of slowness and learn now to see. contemporary economic theory and Bank. Inspired by what we’d heard and practice, much as Ruskin did in the 19th – Promote value beyond the bottom experienced during the day, we ended with century. line in business, as explored in a this splendidly challenging quotation from The three themes from Ruskin’s workshop hosted by B Corporation. Modern Painters, memorably recited by Pamela economic thought explored at the – Explore different concepts of Hull of Brantwood: symposium were: taking personal personal value and living simply. The greatest thing a human soul ever responsibility; the dignity of labour; and The dignity of labour and making: does in this world is to see something, creating a beautiful world. – Train employees well and commit and tell what it saw in a plain way. Those of us attending John Iles’s to ensuring that their work is Hundreds of people can talk for one workshop on Rural Stewardship were engaging them. who can think, but thousands can think invited to share and sample apples that – Learn from and respect fellow for one who can see. To see clearly is had been picked off trees on Uncllys workers, as well as share skills with poetry, prophecy, and religion — all in Farm orchard earlier that morning. Even the next generation whilst one. —Modern Painters volume III. Ruskin’s gifts of prose-writing may have promoting fair wages. ShareAction was delighted to have hosted been inadequate to capture the taste-bud – Seek to change the world by such an enjoyable collaborative venture with ecstasy of this experience. buying high-quality goods and the Guild of St George. The day provided Unquestionably the sensory highlight of respecting the creators of beauty. vivid proof of how resonant and relevant my day. Creating a beautiful world: Ruskin is to our lives today. THE SECOND WHITELANDS RUSKIN LECTURE (2015) Sara Atwood, ‘An enormous difference between knowledge and education’: What Ruskin Can Teach Us. (York: Guild of St George Publications, 2015).
Sara Atwood’s lecture is a good brief connected; to respect the natural world and position is slightly different. Whenever I resumé of Ruskin’s attitudes to education. our place in it; to develop and exercise both read him I keep having ‘hang on a tick’ The second Whitelands Ruskin Lecture, it intellectual and manual skill, head and hand. moments. Perhaps the most frequent of was presented at the Whitelands College She proceeds to examine the requirements these moments concerns Ruskin’s belief in May Festival, which has associations with in more detail. On the whole she accepts the education of the eye, which many Ruskin stretching back to his life-time. It’s what Ruskin has to say, and thinks it can be a people have praised. Yes, it is important, sometimes witty, as when she says, ‘Today reasonable guide for pedagogical practice. but it is also highly problematical. At the we excel at the band-aid solution; in fact, Education was important for Ruskin since it heart of the matter, in my view, is the we’ve applied enough plasters to the covered, for him, how we live and we might difficult negotiation between the mediated education system to mummify it.’ In her live, so it was central to an analysis of and the unmediated world. As Ruskin puts view there are five things to be distilled culture. it an unmediated engagement with the from Ruskin’s writings on education: the Like many Ruskinians, Atwood is inclined world through the eye is the consummation need to understand the past; the need to see to think that, apart from some reservations, devoutly to be wished. But it is not as clearly; to understand that everything is Ruskin can be broadly endorsed. My simple as that. Perception is constantly
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influenced by the cultural surroundings, only person in the whole of the nineteenth later in life, continued to love Ruskin deeply, by the vast inherited hoard of mediated century to have enlightened views on and not regard him as some odious politically data, both visual and verbal. And of education? Of course not. Is there more incorrect monster. Such as Dorothy Livesey, course in the body of his writing Ruskin value in what he has to say than Arnold— Frances Colenso, Eleanor Tindall, Lily has great respect for this inheritance. So who, after all, had hands-on experience as Armstrong, Mary Leadbeater, Gertrude Huish, that the negotiation between mediation an Inspector of Schools ? A number of Constance Oldham and Susan Scott. He and absence of mediation is constantly theorists at the time thought that education appreciated their skills with cricket. You can difficult. Much more difficult than enabled pupils ‘to become specialised imagine a book about it all called Cricket and Ruskin explicitly makes out. servants of the economy.’ Crinolines. But later on, at Brantwood, he drew And there are other problems. Ruskin is a sort of bogey-man for many, a the line at tennis, and did think the net was Atwood quotes, approvingly: ‘the cultural whipping-boy, who preached a always in the way. He took one correspondent, beauty of nature is the blessedest and Lizzie Watson, to task for playing tennis and most necessary of lessons for men; and Chopin too much. But what kind of … all other efforts in education are educational theorist is it who thinks one can futile till you have taught your people to spend too much time on Chopin? Fors 93, love fields, birds and flowers.’ (Works, incidentally, castigates the tennis-playing 34.142) Yes, there is much to be said for public. Perhaps Henry V’s attitude to the game that, but ‘nature’ is a more fraught lodged in his mind somewhere? That monarch, concept than he is inclined to accept in disdainful of the effete French, preferred his public writings. Although he unreal tennis with cannon balls. sometimes accepts this privately, as a What doesn’t wear well, and Atwood does letter to Charles Eliot Norton not face this head on, are the drawbacks of exemplifies: Ruskin’s ambitious schemes to hold everything The one thing I need seems to together—science, art, mythology etc. The be, for the present, rest; and the modern mind is suspicious of this, since it can power of slowly following some lead in fanciful directions. Witness the hefty branch of natural history or reservations many of us have about ‘The other peaceful knowledge; not Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century’, as that natural history is in one about James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, which sense peaceful, but terrific; its aims at a unifying construction. abysses of life and pain, of The classic rejection of the mediating powers diabolic ingenuity, merciless of Science and Art is Wordsworth’s ‘The condemnation, irrevocable Tables Turned.’ Ruskin refers to it twice. The change, infinite scorn, endless patriarchal gospel for keeping women in first time approvingly (3.655), since it accords advance, immeasurable scale of their place. And that place was the home. with his famous exhortation in Modern Painters beings incomprehensible to each And yet…. He devoted a lot of efforts, as to go to nature ‘in all singleness of other, every one important in its Atwood notes, to the actual education of heart’ (3.624). But the second time (5.359), own sight and a grain of dust in women. Almost the happiest periods of his he thinks, rightly, that Wordsworth shows a its Creator’s—it makes me life were spent with the young women at ’narrowness of mind’ since ‘to dissect a flower giddy and desolate beyond all Winnington. Out of which grew Ethics of may sometimes be as proper as to dream over speaking; but it is better than the the Dust. And some of those young women, it.’ Later on in life Ruskin became somewhat effort and misery of work for anything human. (August 26th 1861). ‘Nature never did betray/ The heart that loved her,’ says Wordsworth in ‘Tintern Abbey’, but Ruskin wrote to Norton: ‘Nature herself traitress to me—whatever Wordsworth may say’ (January 15th 1873). I remember Lionel Trilling quoting these lines in a lecture decades ago, adding, ‘Tell that to Dorothy Wordsworth’—who ended up mentally incapacitated. Certainly there is a lot in Ruskin that would be good to take on board. I am particularly keen on drawing as a way of engaging with the physical world, and more of it should be encouraged in schools. But that’s not to say that Ruskin’s Elements of Drawing is an entirely desirable programme. Of course space was limited for Atwood, but no broad context is provided. Was Ruskin a lone voice crying in the wilderness? Was he the A game of cricket at Winnington Hall School, c. 1864.
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more impatient with those ‘who tear the And one should recall that before going up accessible, so that the whole population has bouquet to pieces to examine the stems’ to Oxford he had had no regular schooling the opportunity to be as well informed, as and disgusted at the extreme form, of in a school. Many of us are very attracted to well educated even, as Leibnitz, better vivisection, which led to him resigning his holistic view, that we should know all informed than Leibnitz even. But it doesn’t his Slade Professorship. He makes an about geology, history, mythology, work like that. You need some mental map encounter with George Rolleston and literature, painting, ornithology, sculpture, of your own into which to fit the acquired ‘the charming Squelette of a frog’ into a architecture, economics, bottiney (as data, and for it to function effectively there sort of comic interlude (22.366-67). He Wackford Squeers describes it), needs to be a combination of mediated and complained that Rolleston has filled the meteorology, linguistics, woodwork, unmediated experience. Modern youth is Oxford Museum ‘with the scabbed gardening (Grassmoor Primary School, near depriving itself, and the culture is depriving skulls of plague-struck cretins’ (34.349). Chesterfield, Derbyshire has compulsory it too, of this unmediated experience. A Is this relevant to us? Only, I think, as a gardening—good for them), geometry, medal has just gone on sale of a naval road down which not to go. astronomy…. Throw in road-building. He person, George James Perceval, who was an There is a paradox and an constructs a vast pedagogical programme. 11 year-old powder-monkey at Trafalgar. inconsistency at the heart of Ruskin. He The list is endless. It would be nice to fit Before the battle he wrote to his parents that writes an enormous amount about them all in. But is there time? Certainly he hoped to give the French a ‘good licking.’ education, including a whole appendix there is more time than one might think, Quite right too. Health and safety would to volume 3 of The Stones of Venice, with and the younger generations now are now step in and remove the opportunity for many recommendations about its best wasting terrific amounts of time with this educative experience. He became an form. But he admitted that the most Gameboys etc. admiral in 1863. important things he knew he had learnt Atwood sounds many cautionary notes Bernard Richards for himself. Which seems to negate, at a about the electronic world. In theory the stroke, all imposed forms of education. internet makes all knowledge instantly
(Above) Celebrating May Day at Whitelands, 2015: May Pole Dancing.
(Right) Dr Rachel Dickinson presenting books by and about Ruskin to the the May Monarch, King Q, and his attendants. In the background is the William Morris reredos, designed for the Chapel, and now a striking feature of Whitelands’ main lecture hall.
Photos: Sara Atwood and Stuart Eagles.
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Many Beautiful Things: The Life and Vision of Lilias Trotter dir. Laura Waters Hinson (Oxvision Films, 2015).
She has long been a cipher in the Ruskin encounter until that fateful moment when story. She is mentioned only five times Lilias and two friends departed, in 1888, for in the Library Edition, three mentions North Africa, where she and one of these being incidental. In one of the remaining companions would spend the rest of their notices (33.280-1), Ruskin tells us, lives as Christian missionaries. (Lilias died in briefly, the story of his chance meeting 1928.) with her via her mother’s insistence in The Ruskin part of the story is, briefly, Venice in later 1876, a time when, this. So impressed is he with Lilias’s art, much in mourning, he had returned to that Ruskin happily offers to mentor her. his beloved city on the Adriatic to see if That help accepted, he encourages her to he might find a way to communicate try this or that new technique, try this or with the spirit of his dead lady, Rose La that new subject, tells her that her talent, Touche. (Rose, ravaged by anorexia and being as great as it is—if she devotes her life insane, had died the year before; Ruskin to art—she will become not only England’s never got over losing her.) Succumbing greatest woman artist, but one of its finest to the mother’s importunings, artists ever (such, given his passionate grumblingly, he agrees to look at her self championship of Turner, the Pre- -taught daughter’s pictures. Only to find Raphaelites, and other male painters, was them wonderful! He found her talent no small encouragement). exceptional, her small drawings ‘lovely But Lilias was torn. To have been lauded and honourable’—possessed of a quality and counselled by the great Ruskin was not Lilias Trotter. which begins to make him rethink his something to have taken lightly. On the earlier view that women would never other hand, her heart, always, was with the rank among the finest of artists. (A few poor and downtrodden, with those who had depression which plagued his last decades years later, his discovery of the work of fallen away from Christ’s path, those whose and contributed mightily to his periodic Kate Greenaway and Francesca lives she believes she can set right. And so, descents into madness. Alexander will cement this change of as she continued painting under Ruskin’s But we did not lose Lilias’s art mind.) In the only other substantive tutelage, she could often be found walking completely. One of the triumphs of this film passage (37.571-2), a letter written to through the slums of central London, is that it gives us image after image of it, of Greenaway in 1886, Ruskin tells Kate searching out and then trying to save the the early art she did before meeting Ruskin, that he is thinking of setting up an Art lives of prostitutes and other unfortunates. of the art she did when their relationship Academy for Girls in London. He wants Finally, the helping impulse won and Lilias was at its most intense, of the art she Kate to be headmistress, with Francesa was convinced that to be a missionary in continued to do, if sporadically, in French and his ‘sweet friend’ from Venice being Algeria was what God most needed her to North Africa. Ruskin was right. Her talent its principal teachers, its ‘Donnas’. (The do. Ruskin’s disappointment was severe. was vast. Her drawings as rendered in the school never came to film, are breathtakingly be.) After this, his lovely: of landscapes, of ‘sweet friend’ disappears flowers, of birds, of from the record. trees, of sunrises and But now a film—Many sunsets, and, heart- Beautiful Things: The Life rendingly, of the people and Vision of Lilias Trotter, she knew, loved, and directed by Laura helped in Algeria. They Waters Hinson—has are indeed many gone some fine distance beautiful things. toward rectifying the Also cheering is the dearth of our knowledge fact that, in this film, we about the relationship have a depiction of between Ruskin and this Ruskin that is infinitely much younger artist. closer to the man who is (Lilias was 23 when she the respected inspiration met Ruskin in Venice; Sand Lilies by Lilias Trotter. of these pages than to he, 57.) It has gone even further by Even though his commitment to helping the the irresponsible imaginings of two other filling in many of the details of the oppressed endured (over the course of his recent films, Mr Turner (Ruskin as poseur) previously all-but-forgotten story of life, he gave away the modern equivalent of and Effie Gray (Ruskin as sexual neurotic and Lilias’s remarkable, unconventional life. millions of pounds to organisations aiding cruel and acrid husband). That said, I could With the voice of Michelle Dockery the poor), he also knew that talents of have done with fewer scenes in this film of (Downton Abbey’s Lady Mary) as Lilias and Lilias’s magnitude were rare indeed. And an aged Ruskin waffling about a garden with John Rhys-Davis (Gimli in the Lord of the thus the loss of Lilias became not only a Lilias, waving at birds and boughs with his Rings films) as Ruskin, the film reveals catastrophe for art but yet another cane, looking more like a decrepit Wilfred that the principals had an intense indication that he had miscarried in his life’s Hyde-White than the still vital, most- connection, one which lasted more than mission to transform the world for good, revered art critic of his time. a decade—from their first Venetian another failure fueling the ever-worsening And this, too, is praiseworthy: that this
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Lake at Sunrise by Lilias Trotter. film exists at all is a result of the had not vanished, but was waiting in the remarkable tenacity of Miriam Rockness archives for a reader in The Ransome who, by chance of the good fors some Library of the University of Texas. (Yet Many Beautiful Things is a fine and inspiring time ago, came to possess some of another instance, this reviewer hastens to film. Do see it and take your friends with Lilias’s diaries. Seeing how marvellous note, pointing to the immense riches of the you when you go. You won’t be her art was and how remarkable her Ruskin literary legacy housed in the United disappointed. story was at the same time, Rockness States, the lack of full appreciation of which (In the US, the film can be bought at: determined that that story, then all but has undermined the accuracy of Ruskin
Caroline Ings-Chambers, Louisa Waterford and John Ruskin, ‘For you have not Falsely Praised’. (Legenda, 2015)
Caroline Ings-Chambers’s primary aim, much of Ings-Chambers’s discussion of expressed somewhat awkwardly in the Waterford’s work turns on her use of Introduction to this volume, is ‘to colour). A number of pictures discussed are transgress the boundaries and to re-work not reproduced at all. The chapter devoted the processes of time that for too long have to the Ford murals would have benefitted held Louisa Waterford, the artist, in from accompanying images, but only two of obscurity and to emphasise the continuing the sixteen murals are reproduced. Ings- value of her work today’ (6). Ings- Chambers provides the location and a Chambers claims Waterford as a ‘visionary description of each mural, along with an artist’ and a ‘visual poetess’ (5-6) in account of the Biblical source. While this possession of genius. Yet Ings-Chambers information is welcome, there are also also concedes the ‘undoubted shortcomings some surprising errors, such as when she of various kinds and degrees’ (5) that describes doves in The Sacrifice of Cain and characterise Waterford’s work. It is Abel, as ‘pigeons flying past on the left of difficult for the reader to weigh these the picture’ (160). conflicting descriptions against the As the title announces, Ings-Chambers evidence of the pictures. The only colour also intends to explore the principles and image appears on the book’s cover, while practice of Ruskin’s art instruction, as well images inside the text are given in black as his ideas about class and education. and white (a frustrating choice, given that Troublingly, she does not seem to be 46
closely acquainted with Ruskin association with Waterford and other something as great, or, taking advantage of scholarship. Although she cites several female artists reflects his belief that women former examples into account, even greater important studies, including work by should be offered the same educational and better’ than artists of the past (qtd 132). Van Akin Burd, John Batchelor, Tim advantages as men and should be provided This tendency to reverse or overturn Hilton, and Robert Hewison, her most with carefully chosen teachers worthy of previous claims repeatedly undermines Ings- recent source is the Dictionary of British respect. This belief was expressed in his Chambers’s argument and sometimes comes Watercolour Artists, published in 2002, published writings and reflected in his active close to invalidating her own project, as while the majority of her sources date support of girls’ schools and the new when she writes, toward the end of the from the late nineteenth and mid- women’s colleges. Writing about Ruskin book, that, ‘More significant than external twentieth centuries. While these works and women’s education, Ings-Chambers assessments of the instructional relationship are important and valuable, Ings- offers a superficial reading of Sesame and was Waterford’s own estimation of her Chambers nonetheless ignores recent Lilies, quoting only three short and selective tutor … Modern interpretations of the work on Ruskin’s interaction with passages from the book and declaring his student and tutor relationship are useful for female artists and other women; Ruskin views to be ‘restrictive’ and establishing historical socio-political and education; Victorian education; and, ‘disturbing’ (68). Such readings echo wrong perspectives. Ultimately, Waterford’s own more specifically, the education of -headed interpretations of Sesame and Lilies analysis of her needs and of the outcomes of women. Given the volume of that cast the book as an example of her learning with Ruskin are of the greatest scholarship today it would be impossible Victorian patriarchy and condescension. importance.’ (99-100). to cite everything published on one’s Ings-Chambers writes of Ruskin’s Ings-Chambers’s interest in Waterford’s subject, but Ings-Chambers has missed ‘preference for putting effort into work and Ruskin’s ideas is encouraging. work of direct relevance to hers, with preserving the art of the old masters rather One hopes that the close attention that she the result that her arguments often than into creating modern works’ (128). has given to the murals might introduce reflect a limited or outdated What about Modern Painters, or his support them to a wider audience. Yet there is understanding of Ruskin’s ideas. and patronage of the Pre-Raphaelites and reason for caution with regard to her views Ings-Chambers argues that Ruskin’s other contemporary artists? Yet four pages about Ruskin. Waterford would have been criticism of Waterford was in part later, Ings-Chambers cites Ruskin’s an artist without Ruskin’s help, but it is gender-based. Yet Ruskin was equally declaration in Modern Painters that ‘the worth considering whether, without him, critical of male artists, as writers such as greatest minds of existing nations … have a she would have become the artist that Ings- Jan Marsh have noted. Ruskin’s chance in their particular walk of doing Chambers so deeply admires. Sara Atwood
Annie Creswick Dawson with Paul Dawson, Benjamin Creswick. (York: Guild of St George, 2015).
In his concluding essay for the brand-new Cambridge Companion to John Ruskin (edited by Francis O’Gorman and reviewed elsewhere) Marcus Waithe addresses the complicated issue of Ruskin’s ‘Cultural legacies’. He identifies Ruskin’s commitment to craft and craftsmanship as one of his enduring influences: ‘this being the area where his interest in art converged with his belief in the personal and social value of labour.’ He argues that Ruskin’s key chapter in The Stones of Venice, ‘The Nature of Gothic’—which William Morris described as ‘a new road on which the world should travel’—is not a nostalgic piece of medievalism, but an ahistorical identification of abstract characteristics such as ‘changefulness’ and ‘naturalism’ that could be revived in a creative practice, informing a working life where the distinction between artist and craftsperson collapses into the integrated role of ‘maker’. The Arts & Crafts Movement, formally launched in 1888, had precisely that aim. Waithe’s chosen examples of the continuity of Ruskin’s influence are C.R. Ashbee, Eric Gill and, less directly, Bernard Leach. He mentions Benjamin Creswick only briefly, but this delightful short study by Creswick’s great- granddaughter makes him an exemplar of what Waithe is talking about. Creswick was born in 1853, the very year of the publication of ‘The Nature of Gothic’ and at the age of seven was apprenticed as a Sheffield knife-grinder. Though his family was not poor, he would have experienced the industrial conditions that Ruskin describes in ‘The Nature of Gothic’, where ‘we manufacture everything …. except men.’ Modern manufacture, with its emphasis on uniformity and finish, was a form of slavery. For Ruskin, it was not just the workers’ labour that was being stolen by industrialism, it was their creativity—their art. Threatened by the lung disease that results from the
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grinding trade, Creswick sought a way Academy summer exhibition for the first through his writings and personal out by developing his skills as a carver time. intervention, helped to make that possible. and a modeller in stucco. When Ruskin Annie Creswick Dawson carefully traces As a maker, Creswick taught by example, set up the first Guild museum in the connections in the Ruskin-influenced and only one written lecture survives. His Walkley, above the smoke of Sheffield, circles in which Creswick moved, and work is Ruskinian in that it is figurative—and in 1875, Creswick was exactly the sort reproduces some of his surviving public indeed often celebrates the nature of work of person the museum was made for. Its work, such as the 31-foot terracotta frieze itself—and is designed, as Ruskin said curator, Henry Swan, took him up and on the Cutlers’ Hall in Warwick Lane, sculpture should be, to tell the story of the after Creswick had produced a rather London EC4, arguably his masterpiece. The building that it embellishes. As a teacher, his crude small bust of Ruskin based on a same Ruskinian connections led to his move Ruskinian values must have been passed on photograph, Swan introduced him to in 1889 to Birmingham, to become Head to several generations of students. It Ruskin, who sat for a larger bust in teacher of modelling and modelling design certainly continued in his own family. One of 1877. Ruskin recognised Creswick’s at Birmingham Municipal School of Art. the most moving passages in Annie Creswick ‘pure and true genius’ and proposed to Birmingham has claims to be as important as Dawson’s book is her evocation of a use him to decorate the new Guild Sheffield in the Ruskin story. George Baker childhood partly spent in the Edinburgh museum that he was planning for was on the Art School’s appointments studio of Benjamin Creswick’s son Charles Bewdley. The museum did not committee, and the founder of the and his wife, her own grandparents who materialise, but it led to his working for Birmingham Ruskin Society, J. H. continued the craft tradition. the local driver of that project, George Whitehouse, later worked for Cadburys at ‘Cultural legacy’, ‘influence’, ‘tradition’, Baker. In 1879 Creswick attended the Bournville, where in 1905 Creswick ‘heritage’ are words often associated with formal inauguration of the Guild of St contributed decorative friezes for a new historical figures for whom we wish to claim George, and became one of its founder school. a continued or revived importance. Once we Companions. Later that year Ruskin Thus, in Ruskinian manner, the maker get beyond an immediate personal brought him to live and work in also became a teacher, while continuing to connection between that individual and a Coniston for a time, and is said to have accept commissions—sometimes to the group of followers, however, the effect of supported him and his growing family annoyance of the local branch of the Wood one person on a whole generation, or even a for four years. Carvers, Modellers and Stone Carvers culture, is harder to demonstrate. Without No longer a knife-grinder, but a Union who thought he should stick to over-claiming for Ruskin, this account recognised artist-craftsman, in 1880 teaching. He retired in 1918, and provides concrete evidence of how his ideas Creswick moved to London, initially completed his last commission, some and values spread far and wide. staying with and collaborating with striking, semi-classical relief panels of the Robert Hewison another Ruskin connection, the architect Stations of the Cross for the Church of our Arthur Mackmurdo. Working both as an Lady and St Brigid, Northfield, The dedicated Benjamin Creswick website, applied artist, providing sculptural Birmingham, in 1929. Having escaped the created by his great granddaughter, Annie friezes for shopfronts and decorative life-threatening working conditions of Creswick Dawson, is online at: pieces for interiors, and as a sculptor, he industrial Sheffield, he lived to the ripe old
ON GIVING THE RUSKIN LECTURE Marcus Waithe
I was delighted when the Guild invited industry, and its corrosive effect on public apprentice to master, and his less nuanced me to give the Ruskin Lecture on understanding of the made objects that remarks about the role of machines. Neverthe- ‘Ruskin and Craftsmanship’. Over the populate our world. In the cultural sphere, I less, he has bestowed several powerful ideas last five years, I have been developing mentioned the downgrading and exclusion that can continue to inspire craftsmanship in the practical skills in copper and silver of craft skills from the syllabuses of modern world. smithing, and learning about buildings secondary schools and art schools. One is the principle that human imperfection conservation – especially lime-based These changes continue to influence our need not be a hindrance where making is mortars and plasters – through the society and our economy, but the timing of concerned, but actually presents an opportunity restoration of my home, a stone cottage the lecture (November 2015) also allowed in creating beautiful and useful objects. This in a Cambridgeshire village. The me to address positive developments. In the doesn’t mean accepting less than the best – in invitation gave me the perfect wake of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, particular, as one member of the audience opportunity to combine reflection on a new generation of thinkers and makers are rightly suggested, in the area of aircraft design, these experiences with my academic turning their attention to the human and where safety is paramount (!) – rather, that ‘the work in literature, art, and the history material value of craftsmanship, while there best’ is only achieved when we allow our of ideas. are signs of revival in niche areas, as in weaknesses to buttress our strengths. Thus My lecture was concerned with Sheffield, where a combination of social what is distinctive and characterful, even in a Ruskin’s labour ethics and aesthetics; enterprise and internet commerce are machine-made object, often derives from the but I also addressed the relation of that helping to sustain local craft skills and to element that is unplannable, the human vision Victorian inheritance to more recent foster new ones. of a particular time and place. developments. I began by discussing the Ruskin was a man of his time, and not all Another of Ruskin’s ideas is that most people dismantling of British manufacturing of his ideas are applicable today, notably his perform better work when they are accorded a insistence on the blind obedience of measure of freedom and set intellectual 48
challenges. This notion defies the Guild symposium on the subject will take ‘division of labour’ of the nineteenth place at the Art Workers’ Guild, in century, and the Fordist production-line London, on September 24th 2016 (see back models of the twentieth century. I cover for details). concluded by discussing recent To watch a video recording of Marcus challenges to these orthodoxies, notably Waithe’s Ruskin Lecture, please visit the ‘kaizen’ methods employed at
THE RUSKIN LECTURE (2015) Marcus Waithe, Ruskin and Craftsmanship (York: Guild of St George Publications, 2015).
Marcus Waithe’s Ruskin Lecture, could be adapted to improve the social eyes of the viewer of the past. ‘Ruskin and Craftsmanship’ was conditions in which the 19th-century Ruskin’s principle that design should not be delivered in November 2015 following working classes were forced to live and divorced from making is controversial in a the Annual General Meeting of the work. world of modern manufacture aimed at Guild of St. George in Sheffield’s The Arts & Crafts Movement gave rise to servicing burgeoning populations. A blind Millennium Gallery. The lecture Modernism, with its aesthetic attention to adherence to Ruskin’s views is not Waithe’s marked the conclusion of Ruskin in form and function.. The industrial solution to ethical questions. What we need to Sheffield 2015, a programme of events processes of the mid 19th and 20th centuries understand is the role of craft for us today. and art & craft activities revealing are now outsourced to countries with low Waithe urges us to think about craftsmanship Ruskin’s enduring relevance as a labour costs and consequently poor as outward-looking. As Artificial Intelligence thinker, artist and social reformer. It working conditions. By placing Ruskin’s becomes ever more plausible, there has never also anticipated Ruskin in Sheffield 2016: ideas on art and craft as a social agent, been a more important time to look at what Make Good Livelihoods which was Waithe’s lecture revealed for me a link values we appreciate when the human spirit is preceded by the third of the Guild’s between noble or ethical craftsmanship and channelled by the body into the production of Triennial exhibitions, In the Making: the condition of art in 21st-century critical an art or craft object. Waithe’s lecture invited Ruskin, Creativity and Craftsmanship, an theory, the view that all art is political. us to consider what is the nature of craft- exhibition of works from the Ruskin Waithe asked us to consider this complex making, and how we might re-imagine a role Collection and new commissioned partnership between making, desire and the for making by hand that is both dynamic and works. Both exhibition and project are handcrafted object in an age of mass engaging in the future. tied to Sheffield’s Year of Making. Sitting production, consumption and machine Carole Baugh between these programmes, focusing on finish. Economically, craftwork’s current the one hand on Ruskin’s moral and status has slipped into a position that aesthetic vision and, on the other, signifies something backward-looking. focusing on the integration of craft into How this nostalgic attitude towards craft the economic life of communities, came about and what it means for the Waithe’s lecture provided the crucial craftmaker is central to Waithe’s argument context to understand the Guild’s work and an invitation inevitably follows: how, in these areas. as cultural readers and practitioners, can To look at current ideas of art and we revisit Ruskin’s texts? Taking a closer craft, Waithe took a route from ancient look at the devaluation of the craft mark as narratives, where making was seen in a moral and aesthetic gesture also opens a relation to the gods and when creativity discourse on making in relation to the hand through manual labour was considered or the machine. noble. Revisiting the positive Stone cut by masons in the 15th or 16th connotations of creative manual labour, centuries, paintings and all other original the Arts & Crafts Movement arrived in works are still there for us to see. If we the 19th Century as a rude re-awakening. allow ourselves to believe for one moment For Ruskin, medieval guilds exemplified that in some cases we see the work itself ethical standards. With their pre- without a veneer of restoration, it is Renaissance emphasis on individualism through the craft or art object that we see and immersion to the natural world, the past in the present. Yet the eyes of the Ruskin recognised significant values that viewer in the present cannot see with the
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IN THE MAKING: RUSKIN, CREATIVITY AND CRAFTSMANSHIP The Master’s Speech at the Launch & Private View (January 26th 2016) In Ruskin’s day, Britain was a Refusing to put up with it was his way of [human] creature,’ he wrote, ‘or [make] a superpower that bestrode the earth like announcing the foundation of the Guild of man of him. You cannot make both. Men a colossus, and the foundation of the St George. The Guild was originally were not intended to work with the country’s power was manufacturing intended as a utopian body which would accuracy of tools, to be precise and perfect industry. It was, said Benjamin Disraeli, reintroduce a life-enhancing system of in all their actions. If you will have that ‘the workshop of the world’. agriculture, bringing decent incomes and precision out of them … you must Ruskin begged to differ. ‘I have healthy living to working people. But unhumanise them…’ listened to many ingenious persons who Ruskin was not simply a nostalgic ruralist; Craftsmanship, Ruskin believed, was the say we are better off now than ever we he also thought about manufacture and saving grace of manufacture. Using one’s were before,’ he wrote. Then with about urban living. The principles of the hands to make beautiful and useful things in heavy irony: ‘I do not know how well Guild reached their fullest expression in sympathy with natural beauty freed the soul off we were before, but I know Sheffield, when he built St George’s to flourish: the individual soul, which is at positively that many deserving persons Museum, the collection now housed in this its best in collaboration with others. This … have great difficulty in living in these Gallery. Ruskin praised the work of the year in Sheffield is ‘the Year of Making’ and improved circumstances…’ How did it Sheffield ‘Mesters’, but he also believed that the Guild’s role in Sheffield is to champion come about, he wanted to know, that in beautiful craftsmanship could not long making, encourage creativity, and promote a country so rich there was so much flourish if people were cut off from other craftsmanship. That is what this exhibition poverty? It was a country in which a few forms of beauty – a people so oppressed is about and I commend it to your people made a great deal of money on that they never breathed fresh air or saw the attention. the backs of the very poor, who were blue sky. ‘Beautiful art,’ he wrote, ‘can The Guild is indebted to Museums (and I quote another passage from only be produced by people who have Sheffield which cares for the Ruskin Ruskin, in which he may be thinking of beautiful things about them, and leisure to Collection. Their curatorial team has now Sheffield) ‘sent like fuel to feed the look at them; and unless you provide some curated three of these big Triennial factory smoke’. elements of beauty for your workmen to be exhibitions. This is the last of them, though Ruskin’s argument can be applied to surrounded by, you will find that no that is very far from being the end of our many places now, but not many of us do elements of beauty can be invented by collaborations. We are especially grateful much about it. Ruskin did. ‘For my own them.’ Moreover, the factory system to Kim Streets as Chief Executive, who has part,’ he concluded. ‘I will put up with subjected man to mechanism. In doing so, it gone out of her way to make this this state of things, passively, not an eradicated the individual worker’s creative relationship fruitful. We have been hour longer.’ powers: ‘You must either make a tool of the enormously lucky in our Curator, Louise
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Pullen, who is currently on maternity leave, but who with Kirstie Hamilton got this show going. I want to thank Louise and Kirstie and, with them, Alison Morton (who has taken over from Louise as co-curator of the show) and Hannah Brignell (who in Louise’s absence has been running the Ruskin Collection). The Guild is grateful to all the staff of Museums Sheffield, not least to Amy Farry and Chris Harvey in the publicity department. The exhibition also includes work by commissioned artists and we want very much to celebrate their work – in particular, Hannah Downing, Amber Hiscott, Mir Jansen and Henk Littlewood. Finally, I want to express my thanks to colleagues in the Guild of St George and, in particular, to Ruth Nutter, who has brilliantly run the Ruskin in Sheffield project over this past year. In the Making is the culmination of that project with its message of the value of good craftsmanship. But above all, this is an exhibition intended to lift the spirits. I hope everyone enjoys the show! In the Making: Ruskin, Creativity and Craftsmanship ran from January 23rd to June 5th 2016. What You Do*, Where You’re From*, Who You Know (2016), a new commission by Mir Jansen & Henk Littlewood for the exhibition In the Making.Gouache and oil on Ruskin Land oak, 2016. Photo courtesy Museums Sheffield.
Companions Lynne Roberts and Neil Sinden took over the tenancy of St George’s Farm near Bewdley in July last year. Here Neil writes about their first few months: THE BELOVÉD REVISITED: RUSKIN LAND IN THE WYRE FOREST Neil Sinden
We have been living at St George’s Farm at together plans to reinvigorate Ruskin Land, months ago I was pleased to receive a the heart of Ruskin Land in the Wyre Forest making the place and the ideas that inspired message from one of the Watsons’ great for a year. It has been one of the most it better known, and helping it to become an granddaughters, Delwyn Watson, who lives interesting and exciting times of our lives. influential centre for arts, crafts and the in New Zealand. She had somehow found The near total immersion in the changing rural economy—to echo the Guild’s own out about us from the regular blog we are seasons has provided many pleasures. strapline. writing called ‘News from Ruskin Land’. (If Since arriving here there has been so much Ruskin Land has an intriguing history. you are not already signed up to the blog to see and do. We’ve been made very Many fascinating people have lived here please do - see below for further welcome by our new neighbours and other since the farmhouse was constructed a little information.) It has been wonderful to members of the local community in and over a century ago in 1908. It has been exchange information with Delwyn about around Bewdley. It has been a delight to interesting to find out about some of those in her ancestors. Imagining their lives here is explore the forest and surrounding area which whose footsteps we follow. Those not too difficult. Little has changed in the were previously little known to us. Most Companions who have read the illuminating immediate vicinity, although we are exciting, though, is the opportunity to be part booklet, Ruskin and Bewdley, by Cedric fortunate to have mains water and electricity of the future of this beautiful place. Working Quayle and Peter Wardle, published by the now which makes daily life a lot easier! with Tim Selman, John and Linda Iles, other Guild, will be aware that Frederick and Ada A sense of the experience of those who Companions and local supporters, good Watson, along with their three children, lived at Ruskin Land in its early years is progress has already been made putting were among the earliest inhabitants. A few provided by a little-known and long out-of-
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‘The Way of the Wood’, knew existed in fairy-tales. ... It illustration of the Wyre Firest by Harrison R. was nearly dark when we turned into a long steep lane, which Fowler in The Belovéd by Edith Hope Scott. seemed to go straight up a hill, and was bordered with tall, dark forest become a pine trees—we did not know thinly wooded what they were, but they looked stretch of like great giants standing in ground, bare of rows, and our hearts beat undergrowth quickly—at least I'm sure mine except for the did. useless delights The Watsons stayed at St George’s of honeysuckle Farm working the land for almost thirty and wild rose years. They used a horse and trap to get and all the other sweet to market, reared pigs and poultry, wildnesses that harvested the apples, plums and are not to be cherries, and produced honey. As well bought or sold. as Scott’s writing, there are a few Scott refers to the surviving photographs of the whole clearing of Ruskin family which give glimpses of what their Land, the lives were like. It wouldn’t be that establishment of the difficult to re-stage some of the photos orchard and today, if we could successfully source construction of ‘the the Edwardian clothing. little red house’— The future of Ruskin Land is set to be St George’s as inspiring as it was in the past. We feel Farm—describing privileged to be part of it. Please look the smallholding ‘as out for information on the evolving a little island in a plans on the ‘News from Ruskin Land’ sea of trees.’ And blog. We were pleased to welcome she dramatically some of you during this year’s captures the Companions’ Day on 11th June. If you feelings of two were unable to come then, or if you visitors arriving at would like to come again, please visit us print novel, The Belovéd, written by the the farm, in words that could have been when you can and enjoy the Guild’s first historian, Companion Edith written only yesterday: surroundings so lovingly described by Hope Scott, and published in 1921. It Then we turn off the high road, Edith Hope Scott almost a century ago. consists of evocative, fictional letters which after passing a few cottages, News from Ruskin Land can be accessed became more and more enclosed from an early settler describing her online at response to the area, accompanied by with trees; and it seemed to Molly and me that we were getting into a https://neilsinden.wordpress.com/. the stories of some of the other original dark and dreadful forest such as we inhabitants, including a Mr and Mrs Brown, whose characters are based on the Watsons. Passages in the book describe the antiquity of the surrounding oak forest and its coppice landscape, as Scott writes here: The Forest is older than history, but only immense oak roots tell that, for the trees are seldom more than 30 or 40 years old, and are surrounded with short dense oak scrub which grows on the oak stools and are periodically cleared, so that any year you may find a part of your dense and mysterious
The Watsons in the early days at St George’s Farm, Ruskin Land. 52
As Companions working in the Wyre Forest seek to deepen our knowledge of the Guild’s links with the local area, and ahead of this year’s Ruskin Lecture, ‘The Sombre Robe’: Ruskin and Birmingham, to be given by Bernard Richards, Emeritus Fellow of Brasenose College Oxford, Stuart Eagles writes about the life and career of the Guild’s second Master. PAST MASTERS: A BUILDER OF BIRMINGHAM, GEORGE BAKER (1825-1910) Stuart Eagles ‘George Baker was a man of strong According to some sources, Edward set firm was certainly in business by 1833. individuality, of most genial and up what became his family firm of blacking George followed his father to Ackworth affectionate nature, esteemed and manufacturers as early as 1818, though School, but the circumstances were unusual beloved by all who knew him.’ So reads given his age at that time this seems insofar as he was admitted at the tender age Baker’s anonymously written obituary in improbable. When in 1824 he married of eight on 4th September 1833 because the the Society of Friends’ Annual Monitor Maria Downing (1795-1869), his marriage school roll had fallen short of numbers. At (1911). The Birmingham Post called him certificate recorded that he was a Grocer. that time there were no school holidays, ‘one of the builders of Birmingham as Edward probably established the factory, and it is extremely unlikely that he would we know it.’ He was, they said, ‘one of which was on Birmingham’s Granville have returned home before his schooling that band’ of public-spirited men around Street, in the early 1830s. Later called ended. It must have been a comfort, Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) who Edward Baker & Sons it boasted that it was therefore, to have been joined by his transformed the city. ‘Alderman Baker’s a ‘blacking manufacturer, importer of siblings: James Baker (1826-?) in December success in public life…’ announced the black lead, and sole agent in the Midlands 1834, and John Edward Baker (1828-1908) Annual Monitor, ‘was essentially as a for Rothwell's patent fire lighters, and in May 1837. George left the school on 7th thinker … few have made a deeper or wholesale dealers in lucifer matches’! The September 1838, returning to Birmingham more permanent impression in the minds of the citizens as a devoted servant whose sole desire was to leave his native town better than he found it.’ Despite the recent revelations of Mark Frost’s hugely important study, The Lost Companions (2014), which seriously questions the nature of Baker’s approach to working-class Companions employed by Ruskin in the Wyre Forest, it is difficult to find fault with his career as a municipal administrator and civic leader. Confined to a few thousand words in this article, my intention is to focus on those aspects of Baker’s life and work that are not directly linked to the Guild and are therefore less well-known perhaps to readers of this magazine. George Baker was born in Birmingham on 11th May 1825. His Quaker heritage, and his Birmingham roots, reached back to at least the seventeenth century. His great-grandfather, Samuel Baker (c. 1730-1813), a hard wood turner by trade, was appointed one of the first fifty Street Commissioners in 1769, tasked with overseeing the municipal government of Birmingham. George’s father, Edward Baker (1800-1857), was the son of a button maker, George Baker Snr. (1762-1801), who died when Edward was an infant. Edward was sent aged nine to the Friends’ Ackworth School located near Pontefract, West Yorkshire, and founded in 1779 for boy and girl boarders. He remained there from September 1809 to December 1813.
Portrait by his nephew, Joseph Southall (Victoria Art Gallery, Bath, donated by George’s grandson, Guild Companion Olaf Baker). Reproduced with permission. 53
Ackworth School, near Pontefract.
founder and a member of another prominent Birmingham Quaker family. Rebecca died on August 20th1864, shortly after the birth of the couple’s seventh child and only daughter, Lilian Rebecca (Lily) Baker (1864-1884), who herself was only twenty when she died. George’s public career began in earnest in 1860, when he was appointed to the Board of Overseers, becoming Chairman in 1867. In 1864, he had been appointed a Poor Law Guardian, and chaired the Board a few years later. He reorganized the system for via Wakefield. Intriguingly, he was on more responsibility, and by the time of vaccination of the poor. He created new collected by one William Lloyd, and the the 1851 census when he was in his mid- wards for elderly women in the workhouse, agent responsible for his enrolment at twenties, he was able to describe himself as and arranged for the successful purchase of the school had been one Charles Lloyd. a ‘Blacking Maker employing two men, two the land on which an infirmary was later Given the prominence of the Quaker boys and ten girls’. George’s brother, John erected. He also played a leading role in Lloyd families in Birmingham and Edward, who from school had been establishing Rubery Hill Asylum. Eventually Staffordshire, it is tempting to speculate apprenticed to T. & W Southall, chemists built in 1882, it could accommodate up to that these men might have been relatives and druggists of Birmingham and probably 600 patients. With its own chapel, library of Anna Lloyd (1837-1925), one of the relatives of Joseph Sturge Southall who later and laundry, the asylum was set in 150 acres many women artists trained by Ruskin became his brother-in-law, eventually of parkland. by means of correspondence, and whose joined him in the family firm. They added Baker was a life-long member of the work, ‘Study of a Tulip’ (1886) is one of new departments of business, expanded its Birmingham Liberal Association which was the treasures of the Ruskin Collection. operations, and steadily won a reputation as founded in 1865. A close friend of its She cannot have failed to have known of an important enterprise President, John Skirrow Wright (1822- George Baker later in the century when As young as twenty, in the mid-1840s, 1880), Baker was honorary secretary during they both lived in Birmingham and George began his long association with its most active years. He was a leading contributed handsomely to its civic life. Birmingham’s Quaker First-Day School at member of that group of civic reformers led Soon after his return to the family Severn Street, becoming one of its first by Joseph Chamberlain. He was elected to home, George’s brother, Morris Baker teachers. It had been founded by Joseph Birmingham Town Council in 1867, (1829-1898), left for Ackworth, Sturge (1793-1859), a Radical businessman, representing St George’s Ward. He never enrolling on 5th October. His sisters, to improve reading, writing and scriptural followed Chamberlain and the majority of Anne Baker (1831-1877) and Elizabeth knowledge among adolescents, but it soon Birmingham’s Liberals into support for Maria Baker (1833-1922), would also came to focus on adults. Baker was a trustee Unionism following the Liberal split over study at the School. It is worth pausing of the school’s Savings here to consider a few notes of family Fund for decades, and history. It was Elizabeth who married during his tenure the Joseph Sturge Southall (1835-1862), a fund is said to have pharmaceutical chemist of Nottingham. risen in value from The sole issue of their marriage was £700 to £17,000. By Joseph Edward Southall (1861-1944), the 1850s he had the artist and pacifist who drew up the gained a reputation as plans for a Guild Museum in Bewdley an efficient and that was never built (the plans are in the dependable financial Ruskin Collection). In 1903, he married administrator. his cousin, Anna Elizabeth (Bessie) Baker Education remained a (1859-1947), the eldest of the five particular passion. He children of John Edward Baker whose became a member of schooling at Ackworth had overlapped the Birmingham for a while with George’s. (For more on Education Society in J. E. Southall, read Companion George 1868, and the Birmingham’s Severn Street Schools. Breeze’s entry for Southall in the Oxford National Education Dictionary for National Biography, and his League (campaigning for non-sectarian Irish Home Rule. exhibition catalogue, Joseph Southall, education) in 1869, but he failed to be His priority on being elected to the 1861–1944: artist–craftsman (1980).) elected to the Birmingham School Board in Council was to join with those reforming George Baker’s career in the family 1870. He played a part in the reform of the town’s system of drainage and firm began as soon as he left Ackworth. King Edward VI Grammar School, and sanitation, helping to oversee the At first he served as a clerk, and then as served the reformed institution as a construction of a new sewage network a sort of travelling salesman. According Governor. which did much to improve public health. to his Quaker biography in the Annual In 1848, George had married Rebecca (He later served as Chairman of the Monitor, he hauled a case of samples Baker Pumphrey (1824-1864), the daughter Drainage Board from 1892 until his death in around the country. He gradually took of Josiah Pumphrey (1783-1861), a brass 1910.) He was a member of the Water
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Committee that secured Birmingham’s 1876), of the Shakespeare Club in the 1860s water supply, and he was on the which led to the formation in 1881 of the Improvement Committee that oversaw Shakespeare Memorial Library based in the clearance of the slums that had Birmingham Reference Library. occupied what became Corporation In 1879, Baker re-married: Gulielma Street. One of the chief developers of Patching (1854-1930) was nearly thirty the city centre was Baker’s friend, the years’ his junior. Her father, Frederick architect John Henry Chamberlain Patching (1822-1887), was a woollen (1831-1883)—no relation of Joseph’s. draper and tailor based in Edgbaston, who J. H. Chamberlain was appointed a for some time had lived at Spring Bank, trustee of the Guild of St George in Bewdley. Like her husband, Rebecca had 1879, where he served alongside Baker. also attended Ackworth School (1864-5). When Baker became an Alderman of The couple had one daughter and one son, Birmingham in 1874, few appear to have the latter of whom was born when George doubted that his record of public service was nearly 57. His daughter was Elma had earned the accolade. Chiswell Baker (1880-1962) (Chiswell was Joseph Chamberlain was elected the maiden name of George’s paternal Mayor of Birmingham in November grandmother) and it is once again worth 1873, but resigned in June 1876 to stand pausing to entertain a tantalising digression. for Parliament. Baker was elected to Elma married Alfred Miller (1883-1958), succeed him, and was re-elected in May the brother of the sculptor, Alexander George Baker, miniature portrait 1877 to serve for one further year. It (Alec) Miller (1879-1961), whose son was (in the possession of Dale and Alex Parmeter). was difficult to maintain the momentum schooled at Bembridge. Alec wrote to Van for reform that Chamberlain had built Akin Burd and Jim Dearden in 1960 to tell at the opening of the new University up, but Baker’s enthusiasm seems to them that his sister-in-law had shown him buildings, when Baker moved the have been undiminished. letters from Ruskin to her father (George Corporation’s address, he was presented to It was whilst Baker was Mayor that he Baker) that he believed she still possessed. King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra as met Ruskin, and Ruskin’s letter of For a variety of reasons the matter was not ‘Father of the Council’. August 1877 to the workmen and pursued, and I have so far been unable to He was a tireless promoter of labourers of Great Britain in Fors trace the whereabouts of this potential international peace, serving as the President Clavigera, was written from Baker’s treasure-trove. of the local branch of the Peace Society, the home, Bellefield (Bellefield House, west In 1886, George Baker became chairman foundation of which owed much to Baker’s of Winson Green Road, since of the Improvement Committee. Despite old friend and ally in adult education, Joseph demolished, was on Birmingham Heath, facing keen opposition from fellow Sturge. In 1857 he visited Finland with opposite the present site of Birmingham politicians to his house-building plans, Baker Wilson Sturge (1834-1899) on a relief Prison). Readers of The Companion will nevertheless successfully persuaded the mission to fishermen whose property had know how uncomfortable Ruskin was to Council to build twenty-two cottages in been destroyed by the British navy during meet Birmingham’s leading businessmen what became Ryder Street which were the Crimean War. and politicians. The letter is worth completed in 1890. In the following year, Baker was a defender of civil and religious reading in its entirety for what it reveals he achieved the more ambitious goal of freedoms, and early in his first marriage about the tensions between Ruskin and building 82 houses in Lawrence Street. In suffered some confiscation of property his disciples. For all that Ruskin enjoined 1895, he persuaded the Council to purchase because he refused to pay the Church his readers to take action to improve the and then demolish insanitary housing in Mill rates. He was also a keen world around them, he shared none of Lane, and though his plans for 64 new supporter of the his disciples’ sense of hope that a homes on the site were defeated two years temperance remarkable amount of good could be later, the houses were eventually built movement. achieved in the industrial cities. under a barely modified scheme shortly Baker made a particular effort during afterwards. The responsibilities of the his Mayoralty to advance the interests of Improvement Committee were Birmingham’s cultural institutions. In transferred to the Estates Committee 1877, he convened a conference of in 1899, and Baker became its first representatives from a range of Chairman, before retiring aged 75 municipal authorities with the aim of in 1900. persuading London to share its cultural In his official capacity as treasures, particularly its public art Alderman, Baker met Prime collections, with the provinces. It helped Minister W. E. Gladstone pave the way for the passing of the and US President Ulysses National Gallery Loan Act of 1883. S. Grant, and in 1909, Baker also keenly encouraged the establishment and expansion of public Ruskin’s letter to libraries, and must have known fellow Baker, thanking Birmingham Guild Companion, the him for his hos- antiquarian and historian of pitality at Warwickshire, Samuel Timmins (1826- Bellefield 1902). Timmins was a founder, with the and for the trip to the radical Rev George Dawson (1821- Wyre Forest. 55
BEAUCASTLE residences. They desired to clear away all the insanitary dwellings in The Venetian influence is the borough, and to improve it in particularly evident in the ornate every possible way. In few places so external ‘bachelor’ staircase, so- beautifully situated as Bewdley was called because unmarried there to be found such a noble river gentlemen guests weren’t allowed as the Severn, and he saw no reason to use the same staircase as the why the town should not be ladies. Originally, this outside supplied with the electric light, the staircase led to four bedrooms motive power for the dynamos unconnected to the rest of the being obtained from the river. In places less happily placed than house, a prudish arrangement that Bewdley that had been successfully has been reversed with the addition accomplished, and why not, of communicating doors. therefore, at Bewdley? His Worship The elaborate wrought-iron balcony that runs around the rear of the house was probably concluded by moving a resolution inspired by Ruskin’s Alpine travels. Inside and out, the level of craftsmanship is sublime, appointing a standing Visitors’ from the magnificent drawing room with its beamed ceiling elaborately vaulted with Committee, to promote the handmade mouldings, to the oak-panelled hall and dining room, and the four exquisite interests of Bewdley, Wribbenhall, stained-glass windows [the figures of which were designed] by Edward Burne-Jones, which and neighbourhood, their duties are thought to have been made in William Morris’s factory. being to give information to persons seeking health and pleasure and Beaucastle was in less than pristine condition when, in the early 1990s, Mr and Mrs Amor place of residence. … bought the house from its previous owner, George Clancey, who had lived there for 40 years. The motion having been carried, It was he who had laid out Beaucastle’s 12 acres of park-like gardens and grounds, with the MAYOR was thanked for meandering lawns and a picturesque lake created from a former clay pit. convening and presiding over the The Amors relaid and insulated the roof, rebuilt the tower, and renovated the interior, meeting. installing bathrooms and a splendid farmhouse kitchen/breakfast room. The 10,697sq ft —‘The Attractions of Bewdley’ house now has four reception rooms, a sumptuous master suite, six further bedrooms, two Worcestershire Chronicle, May 24th bathrooms and a billiards [sic] room, from where a spiral staircase leads to the observation 1890. tower with its spectacular 360˚ views over Bewdley and the surrounding countryside. Below Bewdley was, Baker thought, an the house, a courtyard of buildings includes former coach houses, stables and grooms’ attractive, modern-thinking and quarters, all suitable for conversion subject to planning consent. environmentally-sensitive town whose natural virtues Baker sought to enhance. —Country Life (October 22nd 2009). How many people in Bewdley, I wonder, were aware of the Guild settlers in the Having purchased 381 acres of Crown recorded, his ambitions for the town were Wyre Forest? Writing in 1901 to her fellow land in the Wyre Forest, Baker no less great as a consequence. Guild Companion, the solicitor Sydney commissioned William Doubleday to On Monday evening a public Morse (1854-1929), Edith Hope Scott design the Gothic mansion, Beaucastle, meeting was held in the townhall (1862-1936), the future Guild historian and which became Baker’s principal (sic) to promote the effort which is Wyre settler, remarked: residence in the 1870s. It is often now being made to make Bewdley Bewdley has been tending to remarked that Baker was highly unusual an attractive health resort. The become a new Guild centre, & in serving two different towns as Mayor, Mayor, Mr. George Baker, presided therefore seems the most suitable but it is not sufficiently appreciated that over a large attendance, which place for at least beginning any new when Baker served as Mayor of Bewdley included many of the leading Guild work. The Master lives there. in two consecutive years between residents and tradesmen of the The 20 acres of Ruskin land are October 1888 and September 1890, he neighbourhood. there. And two Guild companions did so at the same time as continuing to The MAYOR said that what was already own small plots of land represent St George’s Ward in now being done was an experiment, there. Birmingham and carrying out his but it had answered at Bridgnorth, —Brotherton Library: Edith Hope formidable burden of committee work Malvern, and other places. They Scott, unpublished letter to Sydney there. In reality, he was more of a figure desired to attract visitors to Morse, n.d. 1901. -head in Bewdley, but as the Bewdley, not only the Much of that hope, which promises to be Worcestershire ‘trippers,’ [but] for persons who fulfilled by the Guild in the coming years Looking out from the viewing with a greater degree of success and fidelity tower at Beaucastle. Chronicle desired healthy and well-situated
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to Ruskin’s vision than was ever possible in the past, nevertheless owes a great deal to the considerable foresight and prodigious energy of George Baker, Acting Master during Ruskin’s long decline, and second Master of the Guild from 1900 until his death in 1910. ‘Until within a few weeks of his death,’ the Quaker Annual Monitor recorded: [George Baker] was still engaged in public life. Taken ill whilst visiting his wife’s mother [Mary Patching née Wheeler (1830- 1914) ], [at 19 Charlotte Street] in Edgbaston, his malady became so serious that he could not be moved to Bewdley. Late at night on the day he died [10th January 1910] a great fire broke out in the Cornwall Works, and the sounds of many alarm-signals reached the ears of the dying man. Recognising their import, he feebly asked his wife whose works were on fire. On inquiry through the telephone, he was told that it was George Tangye’s works. ‘Give him my love and sympathy’ were almost his last words. —Annual Monitor, p. 9-10. That love would have been genuinely felt. Baker’s relationship with the Quaker, manufacturer and philanthropist, George Tangye (1835- 1920), stretched back many decades, and was strengthened by a shared commitment to education that expressed itself in an active involvement with the Severn Street Schools. Together with his brother, Richard Tangye (1833-1906), George had given £11,000 towards the foundation of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, and a further Companion Annie Creswick Dawson with three of the capitals carved by her great grandfather, Benjamin £10,000 towards the Birmingham Creswick, which adorn the Bachelor Staircase at Beaucastle. Edith Hope Scott wrote that Creswick ‘carved School of Art. Richard, who had the capitals of the short pillars on the outside stone staircase [at Beaucastle] with the wild life of the forest, served as a Liberal Councillor in squirrel and rabbit, deer and bird among the oak and the wild growth of the wood. Work delightful to himself Birmingham, had been particularly and a delight to everyone who sees it.' Photo: Paul Dawson. influential in the choice of J. H. Chamberlain as the School’s architect. valued at £15,500 (a simple RPI Special thanks to Dale and Alex Parmeter, The School would eventually count the multiplication would measure the modern the current owners of Beaucastle, for sculptor, artist-craftsman and Guild equivalent value at £1.5m but by many welcoming a party of visiting Companions to Companion Benjamin Creswick (1853- factors it was probably worth more than their home on June 11th this year, and for 1946), among its leaders. When Sir that figure suggests). His widow never permission to reproduce the ‘miniature’ of Richard Tangye came to publish the remarried and moved back to Edgbaston Baker and to publish photographs taken on catalogue of his own library, it revealed where she died in 1930. that day (an account of the visit will appear that he owned many Ruskin volumes, ‘For over fifty years,’ reported the next time). Heartfelt thanks, also, to Celia including Chamberlain’s Ruskin Birmingham Gazette, ‘Mr. Baker ranked as a Wolfe, honorary archivist at Ackworth bibliography. public man, and for the last forty, at any School, for providing me with valuable Like many members of his wider rate, he occupied a very prominent position information for this article. family, George Baker was buried in the in the municipality.’ [Birmingham Gazette Friends’ section of Birmingham city (January 17th 1910).] cemetery, at Witton. His estate was
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SOURCES The Times (January 17th 1910). Birmingham Daily Post E. P. Hennock, Fit and proper persons: th (January 17 1910). ideal and reality in nineteenth-century urban Birmingham Daily Gazette government (1973). (January 17th 1910) · S. Pettitt, ‘Nonconformity and Anon., ‘Death of municipal reform in Birmingham and Alderman George Baker’, Wolverhampton, 1858–1900’ MPhil in Birmingham Post diss., University of Cambridge, 2009. (January 17th 1910). M. H. Bailey, ‘The contribution of Anon., ‘Death of Quakers to some aspects of local Alderman Baker, “Father government in Birmingham, 1828– of the Birmingham City 1902’, MA diss., University of Council” Birmingham, 1952. Ex-Mayor of Bewdley’, in C. A. Vince, History of the Corporation Birmingham Mail (January of Birmingham, vol. 3: 1885–1899 15th 1910). (1902); vol. 4: 1900–1915 (1923). Anon., ‘Death of A. Briggs, History of Birmingham, vol. Alderman G. Baker, 2: Borough and city, 1865–1938 (1952). Mayor of Birmingham in P. Wardle and C. Quayle, Ruskin and 1876, Civic Pioneer’, in Bewdley (1989). Birmingham Gazette E. H. Scott, Ruskin's Guild of St George (January 17th 1910). (1931). ‘George Baker’ in Annual S. Pettitt, ‘Baker, George (1825– Monitor for 1911, Being an 1910), municipal politician and Obituary of Members of philanthropist’ in Oxford Dictionary of the Society of Friends in National Biography.. Great Britain and Ireland (1910), 2–10· The next issue will carry an article E. H. Milligan, about past Master, George Thomson. Biographical dictionary of Please email British Quakers in commerce [email protected] with any George Baker, photograph published in the and industry, 1775–1920 contributions for this magazine. Annual Monitor (1911). (2007). The Cambridge Companion to John Ruskin. Ed. Francis O’Gorman. (Cambridge: CUP, 2015).
In his Introduction to this volume, editor gendered, or political aspects of his work, to read a book of essays about Ruskin rather Francis O’Gorman writes of the modern to what O’Gorman calls a new strand than immerse themselves at once in the tendency to require that writers and their concerned with his legacies in culture, Library Edition. Yet the articulate and ideas be ‘relevant’ or (ugly word) politics, education, and the environment in intelligent commentary offered here is just ‘relatable’ (1). He observes that ‘Ruskin particular. what’s needed to draw new readers to trips the switch on a journalistic habit of Yet this Introduction is an appreciation as Ruskin. As O’Gorman observes, the requiring historical thinkers and authors to well. O’Gorman rightly points to the voluminous nature of Ruskin’s writing means speak directly to the present in order to be pleasure of reading Ruskin. He is ‘a writer of that he is ‘mostly read in pieces’ (2) today, worth reading . …. We can apparently praise’, the power of his writing deriving which too often means that his ideas are value him for being a little like us” (1). from ‘the depths of his care’ (10). poorly or incompletely understood. The While O’Gorman enumerates the real and O’Gorman expresses this beautifully in a Cambridge Companion fulfils a useful role in important reasons that Ruskin may be passage that is as much an affectionate providing readers with a map, as it were, to considered relevant, he warns against the tribute as a critical assessment: Ruskin territory. desire to make Ruskin over in our own Writer of praise, writer of hope, One of the greatest challenges, in a book of image, emphasising the necessity of elegist and witness to ruin, articulator this sort, is determining what ought to be understanding his ideas in the context of of disappointment and of promise: included: what topics are essential in a yet in the end it seems to me that his life and times. Companion to volume? The headings here are Ruskin is finally worth reading simply O’Gorman’s Introduction is an expertly because he is a writer … He has a somewhat alarmingly broad—Ruskin’s ideas condensed consideration of Ruskin as both luminous gift for the expression in about topics such as art, architecture, thinker and writer. He points out that words of what is passing in a rich and technology, and religion, for instance, are the Ruskin ‘is a remarkable commentator on complex mind …. Reading Ruskin in stuff of book-length studies. Yet O’Gorman his own continuing education’ (2), his own words, contemplating the and his sixteen contributors (who include unafraid of revising his ideas and positions dazzling management of his prose, we some of the finest scholars working on (for which flexibility he was accused of can perceive how language at its Ruskin today) know that there can be no contradiction). O’Gorman also examines highest reach can shift the view … He Ruskin in a nutshell and have wisely used the enables us, daringly, to see with the different strands in Ruskin scholarship, headings as a guide, mining narrow, yet rich words. (13) which range from criticism of Ruskin’s In mounting such a strong and elegant veins of inquiry that yield valuable lodes. work as an expression of his life, to case, O’Gorman might seem to undermine The book is divided into four parts: Places, contextual criticism that examines the the aim of this volume: readers may finish Topics, Authorship, and Legacies, comprising intellectual, aesthetic, historical, his Introduction wondering why they ought a total of seventeen essays. While the
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demands of space mean that my review gleaned from years spent looking at and Readers curious about Ruskin’s worldly will necessarily highlight only a handful writing about Ruskin’s plates. affinities will want to turn to Clive Wilmer’s of these essays, all are worthy of the In Part III, dedicated to ‘Authorship’, essay on ‘Creativity’ which looks at Ruskin as reader’s attention. Part I includes essays Dinah Birch offers a characteristically poet, artist, and prose writer. Summing up on places of emotional, aesthetic and perceptive assessment of the religious and the message of Modern Painters in an 1888 intellectual importance to Ruskin: cultural influences that helped shape Epilogue, Ruskin asserted his conviction ‘that Edinburgh-London-Oxford-Coniston; Ruskin’s public voice and lecturing style. the knowledge of what is beautiful leads on, the Alps; France and Belgium; and Italy. Birch argues that ‘The confluence of and is the first step, to the knowledge of the Writing about ‘The Alps’ Emma Sdegno Evangelical faith and Romantic feeling things which are lovely and of good report; and observes that ‘Ruskin substantially formed Ruskin’s identity as a writer’ (207) that the laws, the life, and the joy of beauty in the contributed to the myth of the Alps that and describes Modern Painters as ‘one of the material world of God, are as eternal and sacred shaped the imagination and travel habits last great works of European parts of his creation as, in the world of spirits, of the Victorians’ (32). Ruskin deeply Romanticism’ (107). Discussing the power virtue; and in the world of angels, loved the Alps; he drew them, walked and popularity of Ruskin’s public lectures, praise’ (7.464, my italics). It was in this sense, and climbed in them, studied their she notes that they influenced Ruskin as of the richness of experience generated by geology, and came close, at one point in much, though differently, as they did his looking, drawing, thinking, and reading, that 1863, to building an Alpine home. He audiences. While the lectures helped spread Ruskin yearned to belong to the world—as he returned to them in memory in his ideas to the public, they also required declared so memorably, ‘THERE IS NO Praeterita. Sdegno argues that ‘within his him to visit unfamiliar towns and cities, thus WEALTH BUT LIFE.’ Wilmer explores the massive corpus is a composite work shaping and refining his ideas by extending imaginative power of Ruskin’s art and devoted to [the Alps]’ (32). In her essay writing, his talent for integrating into life a exploring Ruskin’s response to France deep and multifaceted way of looking at and and Belgium, Cynthia Gamble reaches a engaging with the world. Wilmer similar conclusion, noting that the two demonstrates ‘the quite exceptional beauty of countries ‘are interwoven into his [Ruskin’s] prose’ (231), the ‘organizing and writings on art, architecture, landscape, symbol-making power of an artist’s history, culture and politics’ (79). imagination’ (237) expressed in his drawings, Part II, ‘Topics’, is the lengthiest and the ways in which his work reflects his section of the book, comprising seven complex personality. A poet himself, Wilmer essays: on Art, Architecture, Politics and is particularly good on Ruskin’s use of Economics, Nation and Class, Religion, language and imagery, noting that he Sexuality and Gender, and Technology. ‘communicates his meaning through rhythm Alan Davis, in particular, has chosen a and cadence, imagery and the choice of unique approach to Ruskin and resonant words’ (244). He is surely right in Technology. Ruskin’s resistance to concluding, as did Oscar Wilde before him, technology is amply documented. Thus, that ‘the critic was an artist’ (244). while Davis concedes Ruskin’s criticism, Stuart Eagles and Marcus Waithe ably cover and often outright rejection, of many Ruskin’s “Legacies” in Part IV. Eagles is well- forms of modern technology, he has positioned to report on Ruskin’s political chosen to explore a more positive aspect legacies, having explored the subject in detail of the subject—Ruskin’s long in his 2011 book After Ruskin. Here, Eagles engagement with printmaking. As Davis takes up the thread of his earlier argument, argues, ‘Printmaking (etching, line looking closely at the various ways in which engraving, mezzotint engraving, wood Ruskin was ‘appropriated, assimilated, engraving, and lithography) was the ‘his understanding of social and economic harmonized, sometimes distorted and rarely branch of technology about which conditions in Great Britain’ (210). taken whole’ (250) by his admirers, both Ruskin was most fully informed, and Ruskin’s understanding of these during his life-time and afterwards. Eagles with which he was most deeply conditions owed something to his mentor offers an astute analysis of the men and involved, for most of his active adult Thomas Carlyle as well. Yet despite women inspired by Ruskin and of the life’ (176). Focusing on printmaking of Ruskin’s deep admiration for the older man, sometimes uneasy relationship between their the 1860s, Davis considers the ways in David R. Sorensen argues that ‘their work and Ruskin’s ideas. Eagles’s knowledge which conventional printmaking, association was never as harmonious as of his subject is both broad and deep. He concerned primarily with reproduction appearances suggested’ (189) or as the two follows the often slippery line of Ruskin’s and imitation, diverged from Ruskin’s men wanted others to think. In an insightful influence with admirable discipline, always principles and practice, which were account of their often complicated careful to avoid ‘finding Ruskin lurking in grounded in a commitment to creative friendship, Sorensen observes that Ruskin’s every shadow’ (250). He considers the labour and truth of expression – ‘doing moral vision was ‘underpinned by a ‘Ruskin credentials’ (254) of progressive with each material what it is best fitted spirituality that put him at odds with reformers and politicians including T. H. to do’ (qtd 181). Ruskin’s primary Carlyle, whose faith was a mercurial Green, H. D. Rawnsley, T. Edmund Harvey, concern, with printmaking as with all muddle’ (194). Sorensen suggests that C. R. Ashbee, Clement Attlee, W. T. Stead, technology, was with the ‘contrast Ruskin was often wearied by being Carlyle’s and Keir Hardie, to name only a few. We also between the advanced technology of the disciple, unable to become ‘the “Sage” that learn about Ruskin’s impact on John Coleman doing, and the questionable nature of Carlyle wanted him to be’ because he Kenworthy’s co-operative Tolstoyan what is being done’ (172). Davis’s ‘yearned to belong to the world whose community at Purleigh in Essex. Kenworthy’s insightful discussion reflects his own misguided ways he sought to reform’ (199- story leads us to Tolstoy’s admiration for extensive knowledge of the subject, 200). Ruskin and the ‘crucial part’ it played in
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‘mediating, reinforcing, and augmenting delusions’ (259). In bringing this story to attention. There are a number of typos Ruskin’s teaching’ (258) for Gandhi, light, Eagles draws upon a 1901 essay by throughout and many of the images are dark who had ‘first read about Fors in an essay Trotsky (published under his real name, Lev and indistinct. This is particularly unfortunate by Tolstoy published in 1897’ (259). Bronshtein). This essay, ‘almost completely in essays in which the images are central to the After reading Unto This Last, Gandhi unknown in the West’ (259) is certainly argument, such as Lucy Hartley’s ‘Art’ and declared that he had ‘decided to change new to Ruskin studies and Eagles has thus Alan Davis’s discussion of printmaking. In my life in accordance with the ideals of opened an entirely new and intriguing line Hartley’s essay, an image of Ruskin’s engraving the book” (qtd 258). He produced a of inquiry. after Turner—‘Advanced Naturalism’—is so paraphrased version of Unto This Last The Cambridge Companion has been given a dark that the foreground details are almost under the title Sarvodaya (the welfare of lovely cover, combining Turner’s Fighting completely obscured. One expects better— all) and would go on to invoke Ruskin in Temeraire with Ruskin’s Study of a Kingfisher and O’Gorman and his contributors deserve his own published work. Perhaps the (1871), the two images pointing nicely to better—from an esteemed University Press. most fascinating part of Eagles’s essay, the link between Ruskin and the artist he so However, these flaws do not detract from the however, is his account of Leon famously championed. It is to be regretted, high level of scholarship presented in this Trotsky’s dismissive and incomplete especially given the value Ruskin placed on volume, which is a welcome addition to Ruskin understanding of what he called clarity and accuracy, that the text itself has studies. ‘Ruskin’s reactionary romantic not been shown the same level of care and Sara Atwood
Sara Atwood, ‘The earth-veil’: Ruskin and Environment. (York: Guild of St George Publications, 2015).
of the essay, but to use it as a springboard: And (one might add) not merely are our to take up one or two of the issues it raises experiences nature itself, but so are we, and and to pursue them a little further in an so are the things we make. This was driven unusual direction, to see where they might home forcibly to me recently when I lead us. For instance, the author aptly encountered the work of the artist Briony observes that because ‘we like to listen for Clarke.[4] She designs machines that enable the echo of our own thoughts [Ruskin] is the sea, during an incoming tide, to make often labelled an early or proto- drawings that display with exquisite beauty environmentalist’ (3). This tendency the same kind of organic rhythms that Ruskin reminds me of what I have called a perceived in the natural world. She calls the ‘temporal pathetic fallacy’,[1] whereby we machine a ‘Sea Fax’, and the drawings, ‘sea project our own emotions and attitudes scrolls’ (see the accompanying illustrations). into the past. It will almost always lead us The device, made of black perspex, is laid on astray, as Sara Atwood recognises: ‘we the sand in the path of an incoming tide. The must first understand [Ruskin’s] ideas in movement of the water turns a paddle, the context of his worldview and of the whose rotation causes a scroll of paper to intellectual and cultural forces that shaped unroll beneath the water surface. Oily ink it, drawing out his meaning rather than [5] is dropped in front of the machine, from imposing our own’ (4). Easier said than where it is carried by the water and done of course, but the attempt must be deposited on the unrolling paper, making a made. series of beautiful, rhythmic, intricate, and I must begin with a declaration of interest: The primary difficulty of trying to take yet utterly unpredictable marks. More than Sara Atwood is an old friend, and I was Ruskin ‘in the context of his worldview’ anything else I have seen, they demonstrate consulted during the development of early arises because there are no limits to the abstract rhythms that Ruskin sought to drafts of the lecture on which this essay is Ruskin’s organic vision of nature. For him, express in his finest drawings of landscape— based. So I’d be unable to claim everything is connected to everything drawings made in pursuit of the ‘laws which impartiality in writing a formal review, else—not merely in a material sense, but guided the clouds, divided the light, and but I hope this does not disqualify me from in a moral and spiritual sense too. In this balanced the wave’ (11). They penetrate offering this response to the essay. respect, much of Ruskin’s thinking beyond the veil of normal perception, and A great deal has been written about anticipates the philosophy of Alfred North reveal layers of mystery that we could ‘Ruskin and Environment’, and much of it Whitehead (1861-1947), for whom there perceive in no other way.[6] is excellent. If someone were to ask me is no such thing as an independent mode of This is not ‘technology versus natural where to find a brief introduction that existence: ‘every entity is only to be environment’; it is ‘technology as part of covered most of the key points, and understood in terms of the way in which it natural environment’. The Sea Fax has introduced some new ones, this booklet of is interwoven with the rest of the undergone a number of developments to Sara Atwood’s would be among my first Universe’.[2] I am not sure whether reach its present (still developing) state, and thoughts. It has been thoroughly Ruskin would have willingly followed the artist tells me that the machines have researched and shaped over a significant Whitehead’s further development of this ‘pretty much been designing themselves’. period of time: in a variety of states of idea, though it seems a logical enough Her aim is to remove the intervention of her development it has been delivered as extension: hand as far as possible: ‘For me the machines lectures at Berkeley (California) and at Nature is … a totality including are just as much part of nature as my digits, Brantwood, and published as essays in The individual experiences, so that and I want them to keep reminding me of Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies, and the we must reject the distinction that’.[7] I am not suggesting that Ruskin magazine Earthlines. Concise, expertly between nature as it really is and would have accepted such a viewpoint, or experiences of it which are written and attractively illustrated, it sits approved such use of technology to make purely psychological. Our well in its present form as a Guild booklet. experiences of the apparent art—that would be a temporal pathetic My purpose here is not to offer criticism world are nature itself.[3] fallacy. But it is important to stress (as Sara 60
Atwood explains in her essay) that NOTES Ruskin was not ‘anti-technology’, per 1. Alan Davis, Editorial, The Ruskin Review se. Neither was he ‘anti-science’.[8] and Bulletin (Autumn 2009), pp. 3-4.. The central issue for Ruskin is 2. A. N. Whitehead, Essays in Science and whether the technology (or anything Philosophy (London: Rider, 1948), p. 64. else) ‘avails towards life’, or not 3. Quoted in Colin Wilson, Religion and (17.84). Sara Atwood’s essay reminds the Rebel (London: Gollancz, 1957), p. 305. us of the key to understanding this: it 4. See Alan Davis, ‘The laws that balance is the Law of Help (2). The Ruskinian the wave: Ruskin and the art of Briony moral imperative we face, when we Clarke’, The Ruskin Review and Bulletin, contemplate the organic unity of the vol. 11, no. 2 (Autumn 2015) pp. 19-35. I world, arises from the necessity for am grateful to the artist for granting the help of everything, by everything permission to reproduce one of her ‘sea else. When we contemplate Briony scrolls’ here. Clarke’s Sea Fax machine, submitting 5. The powder base for the ink is ground itself to the creative energy of the sea from local slate. The oil is biodegradable. (‘go to Nature in all singleness of 6. See Ruskin’s three laws of good heart … having no other thoughts but landscape drawing in The Elements of Drawing how best to penetrate her meaning, (15.115-16). and remember her instruction’ (3. 7. Briony Clarke, pers. comm. 624)), we see the Law of Help in 8. Sara Atwood rightly points out that operation: the artist and her concept, Ruskin’s objections were not to science, but the machine, the incoming tide, the to what we today would call ink, and the paper, are all united in ‘scientism’ (13). Ruskin’s observations helpful cooperation. This takes us about science may, however, be sometimes close to the essence of Ruskinian called into question. I am inclined to ‘environmentalism’ as Sara Atwood quibble a bit with his stricture that ‘Science explains it in her essay—not cranky, does its duty not in telling us the causes of or reactionary, or anti-technological, the spots on the sun; but in explaining to us but recognising the infinite mutuality the laws of our own life’ [p. 14]. Telling us of the Law of Help, and the causes of the spots on the sun is most acknowledging its moral and aesthetic certainly one of the duties of Science, implication, in whatever we are whatever others there may be. doing, and however we are doing it. Alan Davis (Right) Briony Clarke, Sea scroll. ‘The earth-veil’; Ruskin and Environment, Reproduced by permission of the artist. like all Guild of St George publications, is available from the shop: (Below) Briony Clarke, Detail of Sea scroll.
Briony Clarke. Detail of Sea scroll. Reproduced by permission of the artist.
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PROUST RUSKIN ‘La Bible d’Amiens’, ‘Sésame et les lys’ et autres textes, édition établie, présentée et annotée par Jérôme Bastianelli (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2015).
The main title PROUST RUSKIN is Amiens and Sesame and Lilies respectively. In in old age to be the source of Proust’s emblazoned in red above a photograph fact, Proust only had sight of volume 18 at Monsieur Vinteuil, musician and of Marcel Proust, suggesting that the the very moment when his own complete composer and father of a lesbian focus of the book is on the French writer translation of Sésame et les lys—two of the daughter on whom he doted (40, n2). and aimed at a French-speaking market. three lectures by Ruskin—was being Bastianelli argues that the abundance of The book is in French, with an printed. He requested the return of his etymology in Proust’s novel owes its occasional reference in English. manuscript, and hastily translated and added source to Ruskin’s writings on this The main contents are: a few notes by Cook and Wedderburn, subject. A particularly strange —an introduction by Bastianelli: hypothesis—one of many—is that an ‘Ruskin, le prophète de Proust?’ (note obscure and very brief comment by the question mark); Ruskin on the vulgarity associated with —two obituary articles on Ruskin by the bicycle (34.617) is the inspiration Proust published in 1900; for Proust’s description in his novel of a —La Bible d’Amiens, Proust’s translation female cyclist displaying her sexuality (1904); with an exaggerated movement of the —Sésame et les lys, Proust’s translation hips and speaking loudly in slang (127- (1906); 128). —13 short texts by Proust that are In June 2015, I took the RER (high redolent of Ruskin; speed underground train, a kind of —Pages choisies by Robert de La Cross Rail) from central Paris (Auber) Sizeranne, but with the excision of to Nanterre, a journey of about 35 or 40 passages from Sésame et les lys; minutes, on my way to the Université —extracts of a selection of reviews of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Proust’s translations; formerly Paris X Nanterre, for a —a translation into French of The Times colloquium on Proust and Sound. We obituary of Ruskin on January 22nd travelled to the modern area of La 1900. Défense with its high-rise, multi- This may suggest simplicity, but this is coloured tower blocks, and on through not the case. The book is overladen with suburbs in a north-westerly direction. extensive notes on almost every page— Nanterre is remembered as the Ruskin’s notes, Proust’s notes, birthplace of the student revolution of Bastianelli’s notes on Ruskin’s and 1968, fired by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Proust’s notes, and further notes by otherwise known as Dany le Rouge. A Bastianelli on the text. In addition, there new University had been hastily are sections of complementary notes by constructed in 1964 to accommodate Bastianelli on each article or chapter. the increasing student population. This proliferation of layer after layer of always scrupulously acknowledging them as Concrete still dominates, interspersed notes creates a heavy scaffolding. So he pointed out. Proust was immensely with saplings and touches of greenery as complicated is the system (Arabic, impressed by the volumes of the Library the University continues to mature. Roman, upper case, lower case, italics, Edition that he described as ‘la magnifique However, there is at Nanterre a different fonts, etc etc) that detailed édition anglaise’. fascinating link with Proust and Ruskin explanatory notes are provided in an As well as presenting some of Ruskin’s that Bastianelli highlights. In chapter II ‘avertissement au lecteur’ on pages works and thought to the Francophone of The Bible of Amiens, ‘Under the xxxiii and xxxiv that are essential world, Bastianelli seeks at almost every Drachenfels’, Ruskin relates the story of reading before commencing the book. In possible moment to demonstrate that the Geneviève, the Nanterre-born patron addition, these very faint and tiny fonts inspiration for Proust’s novel, À la recherche saint of Paris, a ‘shepherd maid … the indicating a number or a letter are du temps perdu, variously translated as hired servant of a richer farmer of difficult to find in the textual forest. Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Nanterre’ (33.55). This is immediately Very extensive, meticulous work has Time, can be traced to Ruskin. One of the followed by two questions and a already been done on Proust’s hypotheses is that Anne, the Ruskin family comment: ‘Who can tell me anything translation of La Bible d’Amiens with the servant, is the prototype for Françoise, the about Nanterre?—which of our pilgrims publication in 2007 of Yves-Michel faithful housekeeper who first appears in the of this omni-speculant, omni-nescient Ergal’s excellent book.[1] Bastianelli has employment of aunt Léonie in the small age has thought of visiting what shrine used this as a basis for much of his town of Combray. Bastianelli substantiates may be there? I don’t know even on commentary on that work, and owes an this by referring to a passage in Praeterita, what side of Paris it lies, nor under immense, unacknowledged debt to translated by Robert de La Sizeranne in his which heap of rail-way cinders and iron Ergal, and indeed to others for their Pages choisies, in which the servant’s one is to conceive the sheep-walks and pioneering research. I much regret this kindness, loyalty and submissiveness are blossomed fields of fairy Saint lack of generosity. counterbalanced by petulance and bad Phyllis’ (33.55). Proust’s note on this Proust translated the two works in temper (778-779). He quotes at length passage references a work by abbé question by Ruskin without having similar examples of Françoise’s Vidieu, Sainte-Geneviève, patronne de available at the time volumes 33 (1908) contradictory temperament found in À Paris, confirming that a ‘parc’ and a and 18 (1905) of the Library Edition of l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs and in La ‘clos’ bearing her name still exist at Ruskin’s Works containing The Bible of Prisonnière. Bastianelli considers John Ruskin Nanterre. Bastianelli takes this further in 62
an additional note (226-227), the genesis however, be slightly different! A for scholars of Proust and Ruskin. Bastianelli of which can be found in Cook and ‘Rosière’—the word is retained in French expresses the hope that his book ‘permettra Wedderburn, and translates into French by Ruskin for it is impossible to translate … de faire mieux connaître l’étonnant the letter Ruskin received in response to into English—means a ‘village maiden penseur britannique et de donner envie de his questions that was published in 1884 publicly rewarded for her chastity’. relire La Recherche’ (xxxi). We hope so too! in letter 96 of Fors Clavigera (29.518). Ruskin’s May Queen was the student judged Cynthia Gamble The correspondent informs Ruskin to be the ‘likeable-est and the loveable-est’. NOTE about the ceremony of the ‘Rosière’. However, the notion of a Queenly virgin 1.Marcel Proust, Préface, traduction et notes à Bastianelli connects this story of the girl and roses at Nanterre must have revived ‘La Bible d’Amiens’ de John Ruskin, Édition annual election of a ‘Rosière’ of in Ruskin the unhappy memories of Rose La établie par Yves-Michel Ergal, Paris: Nanterre, crowned with a garland of Touche. Bartillat, 2007. roses in May, with Ruskin’s May Queen This magnum opus is a most useful (227). The criteria for this honour may, reference book and an indispensable guide Cynthia Gamble, Wenlock Abbey 1857-1919. A Shropshire Country House and the Milnes Gaskell Family (Much Wenlock: Ellingham Press, 2015). In the 1530s the monasteries and In assembling this very interesting book priories of England were dissolved. Cynthia Gamble has had access to a huge In a few cases, the monastic churches family archive, and sifting, sorting and were adapted as parish churches, or selecting from it must have taken a great deal developed into our great cathedrals. of time. The result is a fascinating study. Most others eventually fell into ruins Apart from the fact that it is written by a and largely became quarries from Companion, why should we be interested in which a variety of materials were it? The abbey was painted by such people as looted to enhance other local Turner, Sandby and de Wint, and visited buildings. In some cases parts of the by many other artists and authors. The abbeys were developed into large Milnes Gaskell family were great hosts. private houses. At Furness the great And among other writers and authors who Gate House became the Manor visited was Ruskin. He went there with Effie House; at Wenlock it was the Prior's in the summer of 1850—probably not for Lodging which was eventually very long—but for long enough to draw the developed into a large private house. detail of a cornice for reproduction in The In 1857 the manor was bought by Stones of Venice volume I. From here the James Milnes Gaskell and he and Ruskins went on to stay with other friends, future generations of his family did John Pritchard and his family at Broseley, much hard work to restore the and, at Badger, Edward Cheney, whom they lodging and the ruins generally. had first met in Venice. And the house and family were This is a volume which I can heartily constantly visited by streams of recommend. interesting people. James S. Dearden
SCUOLA SAN ROCCO VENICE IN SHEFFIELD Introduction Clive Wilmer Readers will remember a report in last year’s issue of The Companion about a Guild visit to Venice in March 2015. The piece was by a new Companion, Peter Carpenter, and it described among other things a colloquy we held at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco on March 27th. I was living in Venice at the time, working for five months as a Visiting Professor at Ca’ Foscari University, and with Companion Emma Sdegno, who is now a Consorella of the Scuola, I set up this event as a sort of conversation between the Guild and the most prominent of the institutions that inspired Ruskin. It was Ruskin’s discovery of the fifty-two paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto in the Scuola in 1845 that drew him into his study of Venice and inspired both the second volume of Modern Painters Guild presentation to friends visiting from the Scuola di San Rocco, Venice. (1846) and The Stones of Venice (1851-53). 63
Later on, in 1871, when he founded St theme of ‘intangible heritage’, which is to person moved by their offer of future George’s Fund, he clearly had the say those aspects of cultural heritage which friendship and co-operation and their Venetian scuole—charitable institutions cannot be measured by material standards, sense of the deeply humanistic value of that set a high value on art—at the back though often they reside in material things. such inter-European bonds, based as they of his mind. His writings of the 1870s on It was a talk wholly in harmony with are not only on art but on ethical notions Vittore Carpaccio are crucial here. The Ruskin’s ideas. of social good. In the evening we moved St Ursula cycle, now in the Accademia, As a conclusion to this very happy on to the Fusion (Organic) Café, part of originally belonged to the defunct Scuola occasion I invited the Guardian Grando and the Ruskin Mill Trust’s base in Sheffield, di Sant’ Orsola, and the St George and the any of his colleagues who might want to join for a delightful dinner and warm and Dragon, which he copied for the Guild him to come and visit the Ruskin Collection productive conversation. We are Museum and which now provides the in Sheffield. To my delight they decided to incidentally immensely grateful to image in our logo, hangs in the Scuola di do so, and twenty-three of them led by the Companion Carole Baugh for her part in San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. The nearest Guardian arrived in Sheffield on February this and the co-operation of Butcher translation one could find for the Italian 19th this year. Directors Janet Barnes, John Works and Freeman College. scuola in this sense would be ‘guild’, so Iles and Peter Miller joined me there to On February 20th the Scuola delegates Scuola di San Giorgio is Guild of St meet them, together with Ruth Nutter of set out for a visit to York Minster. They George. Nevertheless, much as Ruskin the Ruskin in Sheffield project and our acting were joined by Janet, Peter and myself valued Carpaccio, it was the Scuola San Curator Hannah Brignell. We were and we all attended an ecumenical service Rocco that influenced him most fortunate in being able to show them not in the crypt, conducted in English and profoundly and it was that scuola that only the current display in the Gallery but Italian by the Rev Canon Christopher uniquely survived the closure of the also the exhibition, In the Making. Collingwood of the Minster and Father scuole by Napoleon and functions to this Afterwards we held a further colloquy, at Vittorio Buset, a Confratello of the Scuola. day as an active charity. which we were joined by seven of our We gathered for a farewell lunch in the I spoke on these matters in the Sala Sheffield Companions. I gave a welcome and Assembly Rooms in York and our dell’Albergo there. The occasion was introduction to the day. This was followed Venetian friends then left for Lincoln. The introduced by Emma, and there were by excellent talks on the Collection by Cathedral, some of them have told me, also talks by John Iles on our work in the Janet, on the exhibition by Hannah and on was a revelation. It was, I was delighted to Wyre and Louise Pullen on the the involvement of Venice in recent years inform them, the English Cathedral most Collection. The Scuola responded with a with Ruskin and the Guild by Emma. admired by Ruskin. welcome from the Guardian Grando Hannah had also ably arranged a display of The Guardian Grando has very kindly (the Master, in effect), Franco Posocco, work from the Collection, which notably shared with us the text of his Sheffield distinguished architect, town planner included the full set of copies after address. He has asked me to make some and one-time pupil of the great Carlo Tintoretto commissioned by Ruskin from improvements to his English. I have done Scarpa, and a brilliant impromptu Angelo Alessandri. Our talks were followed as he asked but my changes are very address from Consorella Maria Laura by speeches from the Guardian Grando and minimal. The Guardian’s English may be Picchio Forlati, Emeritus Professor of his Vicario (Deputy), Demetrio Sonaglioni, less than perfect, but it is profoundly International Law at the University of both of whom spoke with great warmth and expressive and, anyway, we know what Padua. She spoke on the important enthusiasm. I know I was not the only Ruskin thought about perfection!
A speech by Franco Posocco, Guardian Grando of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco (former Professor of Architecture at the University of Padua) Millennium Gallery, Sheffield, February 19th, 2016
Dear Master, dear Companions of the England, not to buy the famous knives of help given by the United Kingdom to the Guild of St. George, ladies and Sheffield, which are known all over the world, project of the Italian unification was decisive. gentlemen: first of all, I want to thank or to see the romantic misty moors of the At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, the you very warmly for your welcome, for English landscape, but above all, to honour Austrian Chancellor Prince Metternich said: your kind reception in Sheffield. John Ruskin for his intellectual enterprise and ‘Italy is only a geographical expression.’ At that I wish to introduce you to my to compliment the Guild, which he founded in moment the continental powers decided to colleagues in the Scuola Grande di San 1871 as St George’s Company, for its activity. keep Italy divided into many small states. Rocco. You are continuing the work of the founder. Great Britain alone stood against the It is not easy for me to express our Compliments! reactionary restoration, taking in the exiles feelings at being in this city, historically The friendship between Italy and Britain has a (Ugo Foscolo and Lorenzo Da Ponte from so significant for the culture, thought and long history. Venice, Giuseppe Mazzini and Carlo development of the first industrial age in Except for the bad time of Fascism, the Cattaneo, the fathers of the new Italy and Europe. twenty years of Mussolini, the ideal affinity of many others) and granting them political I think it is necessary to explain why the two countries was continuous in the freedom. we have decided to come and why we context of European culture. Disraeli and Cavour signed the treaty of care about this place. The examples in this regard are numerous. alliance between Britain, France and the It is good to say publically why we have Looking to modern times alone—I mean small Kingdom of Sardinia in 1855, to come here to meet you. after the Napoleonic adventure, when the declare war upon the Ottoman Empire. In fact we arrived here, in the North of Republic of Venice died—we can see that the As you know, the family of Benjamin
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Disraeli came to London from Ferrara. The Scuola di San Rocco is an urban Venice’ over the world. The fleet of Her Majesty Queen institution and the Guild is spread Last Wednesday, February 10th, the Victoria moved from the harbour of over both town and country, so Scuola Grande and the Fondazione Musei Malta, at that time British, to protect the there is no similarity there, but the Civici of Venice, which brings together the boats of Giuseppe Garibaldi and the two institutions share this common city’s public museums, had a working Thousand from Quarto near Genoa to concern for the interlocked meeting. Marsala in Sicily. importance of beauty and ethical The Director of the Fondazione said that Many of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi good. If we turn our backs on the decision to organise this exhibition of have subjects taken from the plays of Tintoretto, we also turn our backs John Ruskin in Venice in 2018 was William Shakespeare (Otello, Falstaff, on the feeding and healing that are imminent. etc.). his subject. It is my hope that the The following year, 2019, will be In the same period Lord Byron went Guild can extend the hand of dedicated to an exhibition of Jacopo to Venice, not only to swim in the friendship to Venice and do so, first Tintoretto. Grand Canal, as he had in the river of all, by way of this great The reason is that the centenaries of both Thames, but also to advance the cause of confraternity. Its fundamental artists fall in the same year and the Scuola Greek and Italian independence. purpose was to make Britain a Grande has been asked to join the There was also the important age of better place to live in. That was promotional committee. the Grand Tour, when in Europe the perhaps ambitious enough, but in We are here in Sheffield to ask for the culture was able to lead policy and drag the hopeful early years Ruskin Guild's collaboration as we begin to it forward. declared that, more ambitious still, explore the problems and issues related to Consider the interest in Classicism in it was designed ‘to extend its it. John Ruskin deserves an exhibition not architecture, when the Palladian style operations over the continent of only of paintings and drawings, but of became the official style of the British Europe’. personal purposes, intentions, tastes, Empire, in town planning with the We completely agree with you and think desires. adoption of Vitruvian models, in that Venice, too, should be ‘a better place Take, for example, the importance of his painting with the style of the Pre- to live in’. book, The Stones of Venice. Raphaelites, in sculpture (see the With the help of our universities, It is our intention to get to work on this influence of the Venetian Antonio institutions, scuole/guilds and academies, project over the next few months. Canova), in music, and so on. we can promote study, research, We believe in the English presence from Italy was still disunited, but in terms exhibitions, meetings, conferences and the beginning of the adventure. of universal culture there was unity of other events and initiatives. Thank you very much, dear friends of the expression, fashion and taste. Though We can also organise scholarships and Guild of St George, for your warm politically weak and subjected, it played publications, to study and represent this reception. a leading role in the cultural field; it had important time of our common European Thank you for having lit a candle, arriving a cultural system that was internationally culture. first with Clive Wilmer in Venice last year relevant. In Britain, in Venice, in other places. and proposing the exciting theme of the If you look at the relation between I suppose that our institutions are well relation between Ruskin/Britain and our Henry Moore and Giacomo Manzù, disposed, happy to support such projects. city/country. perhaps the two most important It is enough, today, to have an agreement. It is one brick for building a good culture, sculptors of the last century, you will We can make programmes and initiatives a brick to build a good Europe. understand that this elective affinity is tomorrow—in Britain, and here in Grazie. still alive. Sheffield, During the twenty years of Fascism, without any many intellectual people, in prison or in hurry exile, were writing about a United I think, for Europe. (Altiero Spinelli, Alcide De instance, Gasperi, etc.) that we are We believe in this ideal. The European ready and states have different histories, but the the time is same culture: that is, the same mission ripe for an and the same destiny in the global exhibition of world. John Ruskin This is the ethical and spiritual in Venice: to dimension of John Ruskin: a general thank this pressure toward universal values, a great genius, comprehensive humanism. this The message of Ruskin and the generous challenge of his ideals are, perhaps, and more than yesterday, alive and active prophetic today, when miserable relativisms are friend of our advancing everywhere. city, who In April, at Ca’ Foscari University, was one of The two celebrants: Canon Christopher Collingwood of York Minster (left) and your Master Clive Wilmer said —and I the Father Vittorio Buset of the Church of San Rocco, Venice. Between are the the repeat his words (a piece of good English legendary Master of the Guild, Clive Wilmer, and Architetto Franco Posocco, Guardian at last!) – founders of Grando of the Scuola Grande Arciconfraternità di San Rocco, in the crypt of York the ‘Myth of Minster where an ecumenical service was celebrated by both clergymen. 65
Ken Jacobson and Jenny Jacobson, Carrying off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes (London: Bernard Quaritch, 2015).
The earliest known surviving The story of the photographic image made in a camera Jacobsons’ remarkable find was created by the French inventor is described in the preface to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who in 1826 their magnificent book, produced a view of his courtyard, fixed Carrying Off the Palaces: John on pewter-plate, after an exposure to Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes, sunlight of eight hours. He went into published by the antiquarian partnership with Louis Daguerre who, book dealers, Bernard after Niépce’s death, developed and Quaritch. Their discovery at patented the metal-based Penrith set them off on a ‘Daguerreotype’ process, involving a long journey of intensive photographic procedure that required research, as well as a only a few minutes’ exposure in the thorough programme of camera to produce clear and detailed restoration and conservation results on a polished plate of silver- of the precious plates. The book is a valuable restorations being carried out on that coated copper. Announced at a meeting document, both for its contribution to the ‘noble pile of very quaint Gothic’ horrified of the French Academy of Sciences in history of nineteenth-century photography Ruskin, and his 1845 watercolour drawing 1839, the process was commercially and for the new light it sheds on Ruskin’s of the building deliberately blanks out the introduced in the same year; thus 1839 working practices. details of the destructive procedures being is the date generally accepted as the year Although Ruskin’s attitude towards carried out, clearly visible on the of the birth of practical photography. photography was ambivalent throughout his photograph. From the manuscript list of life, he began as a passionate enthusiast for The thirteenth-century Fondaco dei daguerreotypes now held at the Ruskin the new invention. On his 1845 visit to Turchi on the Grand Canal was to become Library, Lancaster (published in 1986 Venice, he had become aware of the another casualty. A comparison of the by Paolo Costantini and Italo Zannier in existence of the daguerreotype photograph, daguerreotype (1845–6) with Carlo Naya’s I dagherrotipi della collezione Ruskin), it and was quick to recognise its potential photograph (c.1870) of the reconstructed was evident that throughout his working power in providing an accurate historical building demonstrates the extent of the life John Ruskin had collected, made or record of the state of endangered buildings. liberties being taken at the time by commissioned more than 300 ‘[Daguerreotypes] are glorious things,’ he architects involved in restoration and daguerreotype photographs. Of this wrote to his father, ‘… it is very nearly the rebuilding in Venice. The Fondaco dei collection, it was known that some 131 same thing as carrying off the palace itself— Turchi was rebuilt from 1860–69 by photographs had survived, the majority every chip of stone & stain is there—and of Federico Berchet in a style that was of them now at Lancaster, but it had course there is no mistake about proportions.’ considered to be Veneto-Byzantine: instead long been assumed that the missing And although he later changed his views, of trying to restore and conserve what was daguerreotypes of Italy, France and writing that photographs ‘are not true, even actually there, Berchet reconstructed the Switzerland were lost for good. though they seem so’, he recognised their building in the style in which he imagined it Then, in March 2006, Ken and Jenny value as records, and continued to might once have existed, adding towers at Jacobson, collectors and historians of commission and to make use of photographs each end. The overall effect of the altered nineteenth-century photography, until the end of his working life, both as aids façade is what we nowadays tend to think followed a hunch and acquired at auction for engravings and book illustration, and for of as ‘Disneyfication’. in Penrith, Cumbria, a worn mahogany his lectures. During the 1845 Venetian visit, With the help of the daguerreotype box of nineteenth-century photographic he bought several plates from a photographer photograph, Ruskin was able to make plates, described in the catalogue as he described as ‘a poor Frenchman, said to be drawings and watercolours of details that ‘photographs on metal’. The box in distress’. The impoverished Frenchman, as were far out of reach and almost out of contained a thrilling discovery: 188 the Jacobsons were to discover in the course sight. His drawing of the Fondaco dei ‘missing’ daguerreotypes from Ruskin’s of their meticulous research, was almost Turchi (reproduced in chromolithograph as collection, long presumed lost. These certainly an early photographer named Le the frontispiece to volume II of Stones, are of particular interest and value Cavalier Iller, who had been using the Library Edition) gives a detailed section of because many of the Venetian subjects daguerreotype process in Nice and Florence the upper right-hand part of the façade: a among them had been made as studies before attempting to find work in Venice. for The Stones of Venice (1851–53). The Ruskin purchased photographs from him, and collection includes many views of commissioned him to take special views architectural details of St Mark’s and the under his direction. (Le Cavallier Iller’s Ducal Palace as well as photographs of photographs of Venice were not the first: lesser-known buildings and their details. sixteen daguerreotypes of Venice taken by The plates, collected and commissioned the English philologist Alexander John Ellis in by Ruskin or taken under his 1841 are conserved at the National Media supervision, represent the largest single Museum in Bradford, and are the earliest collection of daguerreotypes of Venice known daguerreotypes of Venetian scenes.) in the world and probably the earliest The front cover of the book reproduces a surviving photographs of the Alps. Also daguerreotype taken in 1845 by the included are studies taken in Florence, ‘Frenchman’ of the façade of the Ca’ d’Oro Carlo Naya, photograph c. 1870, Lucca, Verona, Bellinzona and Turin. on the Grand Canal. The insensitive Fondaco dei Turchi. 66
was still in its infancy—photographs were usually taken in the photographer’s studio, with subjects limited principally to portraiture—and it marks an important early stage of the recording of northern Italian architecture and sculpture in photographs. Not long afterwards, in 1852, the photographic studio of Fratelli Alinari opened in Florence and the daguerreotype’s brief life began gradually to be superseded by new photographic processes. Photographers such as Carlo Naya (whose Venice studio opened in 1857), Carlo Ponti, Domenico Bresolin, and the German Jakob August Lorent were becoming active in Venice, and from the mid-1850s were making extensive photographic documentation of individual Venetian buildings. Even then, the tendency was to compose the image of an entire building or scene. Some of Ruskin’s carefully planned compositions of 1849– 52, taken from unusual angles and showing John Ruskin and the ‘Frenchman’, daguerreotype, c. 1845–46, The Fondaco dei Turchi. close-up details of sculpture, were groundbreaking, as was his prescience in drawing that would have been almost the public of wreckers.’ But he did add: recording decorative details, so many of impossible to achieve without reference ‘As regards art, I wish it had never been which, by the end of the nineteenth to the photograph, combined with discovered: it will make the eye too century, had been removed, destroyed or Ruskin’s own close observation. ‘I fastidious to accept mere handling.’ sold to antiquarian dealers. Such was the believe a new era is opening to us in the The Jacobsons’ collection of case with the marble incrustation above the art of illustration,’ he wrote, ‘… [and] daguerreotypes, now known as the windows of Palazzo Zorzi Bon (entirely lost an infinite service will soon be done to a Penrith Collection, covers the period now, but preserved in Ruskin’s delicately large body of our engravers … making 1845–52, when outdoor photography detailed watercolour of 1852, made from them draughtsmen in black and his daguerreotype), as well as the white on paper instead of steel.’ Veneto-Byzantine sculptures on the By 1849 Ruskin had acquired his façade of Palazzo Grandiben at San own quarter-plate daguerreotype Martino (later to be sold and to camera equipment. His secretary- reappear, set into the wall of the valet John Hobbs (generally courtyard of Ca’ d’Oro). Ruskin’s known as ‘George’) was pressed daguerreotypes are the only existing into service as photographer, and records of those artefacts, shown in quickly learned how to expose and situ on the buildings for which they develop the daguerreotype plates. had been created. Valuable carved Sometimes Ruskin would operate wellheads also suffered, with many the equipment himself, as we of them being sold to dealers and know from a letter that his wife disappearing abroad. Effie wrote to her mother: ‘… It is particularly exciting to see the whether the Square is crowded or daguerreotypes of the fourteenth- empty he is either seen with a century octagonal capitals from the black cloth over his head taking ground-level arcade of the Ducal Daguerreotypes or climbing about Palace, photographed between 1849 the capitals covered with dust.’ and 1852 when the capitals were still Ruskin had begun to make real use in place in their original positions. In of photographs, both as studies for the mid-nineteenth century the drawings and for recording Ducal Palace was in a parlous state of architectural details. Artists were repair. Only a quarter of a century understandably becoming anxious later, between 1876 and 1889, forty about this invention, which they -two capitals from the upper-loggia saw as a potential threat to their and ground-level arcades were livelihoods. Ruskin saw it as the gradually removed to the interior of means to record buildings the building for their protection, and accurately before they were replaced by the identical copies that destroyed, writing: ‘ … it is the we see today. Ruskin’s photographic most marvellous invention of the documentation of the original century, given us, I think, just in John Ruskin and John Hobbs, daguerreotype, c.1849, capitals, carried out with John time to save some evidence from Palazzo Zorzi Bon, detail. b Hobbs, demonstrates his almost
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the present series; ensuing 150 years, until a lengthy and I much regret programme of restoration and cleaning that artists in of the palace took place between 2005 general do not and 2010.) The fine details of the think it worth individual carvings are now a good deal their while to more visible than they would have been perpetuate some at the time Ruskin was researching of the beautiful them. effects which the After their discovery at Penrith, one of daguerreotype the first priorities for the Jacobsons was alone can seize.’ to initiate a long and complex There are also programme of conservation of the several studies of daguerreotypes, which is fully described the large figure in one of the appendices to the book. sculpture of the They give a history of the Drunkenness of daguerreotype, and describe the Noah on the south technical problems that the process -east ‘Vine’ angle, entailed. Also included is a detailed and described in detail informative catalogue raisonné of all the in the Ducal 325 daguerreotypes known to have been Palace chapter of in Ruskin’s collection. The Stones of Carrying Off the Palaces is meticulously Venice. Again, researched, lavishly illustrated and these are unique beautifully produced. Ken and Jenny photographic Jacobson have created a work of lasting records, showing documentary and historical value, the extent to making a major contribution towards which the capitals our understanding of Ruskin’s and figure engagement with photography, and to sculptures had Ruskin studies generally. been blackened by Sarah Quill atmospheric and Sarah Quill’s book Ruskin’s Venice: The industrial Stones Revisited was published by Lund John Ruskin and John Hobbs, daguerreotype, 1849–50. pollution. (Their Humphries in a new and extended edition in Eighteenth capital, seventh side: The Planets [Ducal Palace]. condition would 2015, and reviewed in The Companion worsen over the last year. prophetic ability to select the most important works and to anticipate events. Among the subjects he chose to illustrate are details from the great corner capital of the Creation of Man and the Zodiac on the south -west ‘Fig-tree’ angle; the Virtues on the south side, and Animals with their Prey on the west side. This last he considered so fine in workmanship that he selected it for reproduction in mezzotint as the first plate in his folio publication Examples of the Architecture of Venice (1851), writing in the preface: ‘… I have used the help of the daguerreotype without scruple in completing many of the John Ruskin and Le Cavalier Iller, half-plate daguerreotype, c.1851. The Ducal Palace, the Zecca and the Campanile. mezzotinted subjects for 68
A SERMON GIVEN AT ST GEORGE’S (ANGLICAN) CHURCH IN VENICE APRIL 26TH 2015 Clive Wilmer The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. —John 10:10 Those words of Jesus’ always put me in to committed Evangelical parents, he thrown at them—earthquake, flood and mind of the man I am here to talk about rebelled in middle age against his fire—everything but these modern today: John Ruskin, whose name is upbringing. But it left him with a conviction troubles which we have brought upon rightly recorded in one of the clerestory that scripture should be taken to mean what ourselves. windows here in St George’s. Ruskin it says. He wanted it to be understood that Ruskin wrote The Stones of Venice partly was always the enemy of thieves— God did indeed make the world—the in order to warn. The situation we find especially of the kind who cloak material world we live in, not just some ourselves in today was one he foresaw in themselves in authority, power and spiritual essence of it—and he made it for several of his books. In The Storm-Cloud of respectability, while robbing their us to be happy in. He wanted us to love it. the Nineteenth Century (1884) he predicts fellows through exploitation. And he For Ruskin, the God of the Venite, whose climate change. In Unto this Last (1862) he was at the same time the champion of hands prepared the dry land, is like a human shows how ‘prosperity’—as we have life, as against those who, as he would artist, working with material substances to recently learned—is too often the have put it, bring nothing but death, make physical things: flowers, animals, triumph of illusory riches over real literal or metaphorical. His watchword human bodies, sky, sea and earth. ‘[A]ll wealth. In 1871, he declared, ‘I will put was—and I quote—‘There is no wealth great art is the expression of man’s delight up with it not a moment longer’ and but life’. in God’s work...’ he wrote, and ‘All Great announced that he was vesting a tithe of I read Ruskin, think about him and art is praise.’ Praise of the work, the things, his income in a new fund designed to learn from him quite a lot of the time, of course, is ultimately praise for the God establish an alternative to greed, but living among ‘the stones of Venice’ it who made them. oppression and pollution: is simply impossible ever to avoid him. I I ... vest my gifts in trustees, don’t need to remind you—though I do desiring them to apply the need to say it—that all of us here this processes of the St George’s Fund morning are living, or temporarily to the purchase of land in England lodging, in the most beautiful city in and Scotland, which shall be Europe—perhaps (who knows?) in the cultivated to the utmost attainable world. It is something for which we fruitfulness and beauty by the must often want to give thanks, and it labour of man and beast thereon, may remind us of the many less obvious such men and beasts receiving at things that we take for granted. But what the same time the best education is beauty? In the language of many attainable by the trustees for modern politicians and business people it labouring creatures. is an unnecessary luxury. If we want it, St George’s (Anglican) Church, Venice. Ruskin wanted to return to traditional we must first make our way in what they agricultural communities, but he also like to call ‘the real world’: the world of So what Ruskin admires about Venice is wanted to equip them with some of the bank balances and figures on computer the way the city in its very existence, assets of modernity—their own schools, screens. That was not what beauty was constantly pays tribute and homage to libraries and art galleries, for instance. for Ruskin. Beauty for him is our nature. There is no other city on earth in Before the end of the decade the Fund had common human birth-right; it is a which a balanced and respectful relationship become first a Company and then the primary human need, and the primary between human artefact and natural force is Guild of St George. It is the body which I source of it is nature. so essential or in which it has been so am privileged to lead today. Soon after God, as Ruskin teaches, made Nature gracefully and delicately managed. As I walk founding it, Ruskin’s life began to fall to for us. Nature sustains our lives, but God around Venice I notice the occasional green pieces and he suffered a series of mental also made it (Ruskin argues) to please banner hanging from a window with the breakdowns, which eventually disabled our senses and give our hearts words on it: Venezia è laguna—Venice is the him completely. So the Guild did not contentment. He was fond of quoting lagoon. It is a view Ruskin would have really meet with the success he had hoped Psalm 95, the Venite of the service of endorsed, and had he been able to see how for. But what he created in his Morning Prayer: endangered the city is today—from floods imagination is something we can build on [T]he Lord is a great God, and a caused by sinking piles and rising tides, from today, and that is what we try and aim to great King above all gods. In his industrial pollution, from excess tourism do. We care for art, craftsmanship, a hand are all the corners of the and consequent depopulation—Ruskin healthy rural economy, good housing earth: the strength of the hills is would justly have said, ‘I told you so,’ for with fair rents, and social justice; we his also. The sea is his, and he these are all phenomena he warned against, believe in reverence for the created earth made it: and his hands prepared and all derive from an inflated trust in and the creatures (including the human the dry land. O come, let us human inventiveness and the profit motive, creatures) that live on it. worship and bow down: let us and a consequent loss of that humility that is Three days ago it was St George’s Day: kneel before the Lord our expressed by the Psalmist. Such humility that national day which nobody maker. (Ruskin argued) governed the lives of the celebrates. The Guild, to be honest, does Though Ruskin was not a fundament- old Venetians, whose houses and churches not make much of its patron either, alist, he liked the literalness of this. Born have endured everything that has been despite the fact that April 23rd is also the 69
birthday—theoretically at any rate—of corrupting the air and water, shrivelling the most inspired by the paintings in the Scuola England’s greatest poet, William lives of the working people on whom the di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni: paintings by Shakespeare and her greatest painter, nation and its economy depended. Vittore Carpaccio, in Ruskin’s day largely Ruskin’s hero, J.M.W. Turner: a pair of But where did he find this saint and his forgotten, but enthusiastically revived in his fine if engineered coincidences. These antagonist? In English tradition, of course, later work. Today, Carpaccio’s saint at war days St George and his flag seem to but Ruskin was an internationalist too, and with the dragon provides the Guild with its belong to fans of the England football he also found him in what he once called logo and its inspiration, and indeed, the team, which I suppose is fair enough, and ‘the Paradise of cities’—Venice herself. St confraternities of Venice—the Scuola di to various parties and pressure groups of George, like the elaborations of Venetian San Rocco, for instance, as much as that of the extreme right, which is anything but architecture, comes from the east, from San Giorgio—were inspirations for fair. Our patron saint should surely unite Cappadocia and Byzantium. He was brought Ruskin’s Utopian body: societies of men rather than divide. That at any rate was to Venice by the Schiavoni, the Slavic and women, confratelli e consorelle, dedicated why Ruskin chose him: a champion of the people from the Dalmatian coast, just as he both to beauty and to carrying out that weak, not the powerful and not the had been brought to England by the ‘new commandment’ of Jesus: ‘That as I bigoted either; the implacable foe of Crusaders returning from Palestine. Though have loved you … ye also love one dragons—perversions, distortions and his image is that of a man armed for another.’ corruptions of nature. In the symbol of combat, St George is really a bringer of the monster breathing out fire and smoke concord and harmony; he kills the dragon to Ruskin saw the modern demon of bring in the empire of peace. His image is to industry poisoning the countryside, be seen all over Venice, but Ruskin was
SECRETARIES OF THE GUILD OF ST GEORGE James S. Dearden
When, in 2014, Cedric Quayle suggested of the Guild's administration must have caused July 1875 a draft Constitution was finally that he and I should compile a list of many difficulties for those who helped him! arrived at. Secretaries to the Guild, we saw no reason The genesis of the Guild was announced in A few of Ruskin's friends, and some why it shouldn't be ready to offer to the January 1871 in Ruskin's first Letter to the others, began to subscribe to the Fund, and Editor of The Companion for the 2015 Workmen and Labourers of Great Britain, Fors at the end of the December 1873 Fors letter, edition. How wrong we were. The years Clavigera.[2] Having devoted the first few pages Ruskin published the first accounts which that we could remember—Cedric from of the Letter to deploring the state of the gave details of subscriptions to the end of 1969 and myself from 1979—were nation, Ruskin wrote: ‘For my own part, I will the year, a total of £236 13s 0d.[4] relatively straightforward. All we had to do put up with this state of things, passively, not The administration of the Fund added was to check what we actually an hour longer’. He said that he would devote enormously to the strain of Ruskin's already remembered. But we had no idea how part of his income to his attempt to make busy life. In November 1875 William complex the middle years of the Guild's England a better and happier place, and he Walker, manager of the Chancery Lane history would be, and even worse, how hoped that others would join him in his Branch of the Union Bank of London, almost impenetrable the early years would crusade. ‘St George’s Fund’ was established to agreed to accept the post of Honorary be. hold gifts of money or land, and in Fors Accountant to the Fund. His accounts to the Mark Frost has drawn attention to the Clavigera, Letter 9 (September 1871),[3] end of 1875 were included in the March fact that man-management was not one of Ruskin announced that his friends, Sir Thomas 1876 Letter of Fors.[5] Egbert Rydings, who Ruskin's greatest abilities.[1] Ruskin had Acland and the Rt.Hon. William Cowper- had established a woollen mill at Laxey on made it clear that those who gave real estate Temple, had agreed to become Trustees. In the Isle of Man, began to correspond with to the Guild continued to be responsible for announcing their appointment, Ruskin Ruskin in 1875 about his books, and in its management. Ruskin's own management explained that their sole function was to take March of the following year, he wrote to charge of money Ruskin pointing out some errors in the and land given to published accounts. A few days later he St George's wrote again, applying to become a Fund, but he Companion of the Guild,[6] and in the also made it following year, he wrote to Ruskin offering clear that they his services to help with the accounts. were to have no So now the Guild had two accountants, control over Walker and Rydings. It is clear that some how funds were cheques for the Guild were being sent to to be used or Laxey, others to Chancery Lane, and others spent. to Ruskin himself. In the case of the latter, For the next some were re-directed to the Guild few years, accounts and others Ruskin paid directly protracted legal into his own account to help defray his own negotiations to expenses on behalf of the Guild! examine the possibilities of Meanwhile, in 1875, Ruskin had visited establishing a Sheffield and had determined to establish Jim Dearden in the Ruskin Library at Lancaster University, conducting Company took the Guild museum there. In Sheffield again research for this article, November 2015. place, and in in the following year, Ruskin met a group of 70
men who were interested in his ideas for Ruskin's frustration is evident the Guild and, as a result of the meeting, in a letter written on 25 August the Guild bought a small farm at Totley 1876 to Somervell from Geneva: where the men set up a commune. The ‘You and the other Companions Trustees of the Guild, Acland and must now manage all such Cowper-Temple, disapproved of the business for me ... and I will not spending of the Guild's money on this be fretted with the law business, venture, and they resigned. George so if the Companions can't Baker of Birmingham, who had given the manage it themselves, they must Guild seven acres of land at Bewdley in let it alone for the present.’ 1871, eventually became a new Trustee, Meanwhile, Somervell had as did Quartus Talbot, whose mother, become involved in the vexed Queens Hotel, Birmingham, venue for the first Guild AGM. Fanny, had given some properties at question of Thirlmere becoming Barmouth, Wales, to the Guild. enlarged as a reservoir and his pamphlet, ‘Life Long Master of the Guild’; Egbert Meanwhile, help was at hand in the Water for Manchester from Thirlmere, was Rydings and William Walker were person of Robert Somervell whose distributed with Fors Clavigera in 1877. appointed ‘Auditors of the Guild’ and family had established the successful firm Finally, by October 1878, the lawyers Robert Somervell ‘was requested to act as of K Shoes in Kendal. In his had completed the Guild's Memorandum of the Hon. Secretary to the Guild pro tem.’ autobiography,[7] Somervell records Association and Articles of Association. However, there was an Extraordinary that he first fell under Ruskin's spell in Somervell was a signatory to both General Meeting less than a month later about 1872 (when he was about twenty documents. when it was resolved that Somervell be years old) as he read Ruskin's Political appointed Treasurer and the Master was Economy of Art. Somervell ‘set about empowered to appoint a Secretary at a fee of buying more of Ruskin's works ... He not more than £100 per year. From this, one opened my eyes to see, both in the must assume that Somervell had turned world of Nature and in the world of down the original request to act as Art ... as I had never seen before’.[8] Secretary. It is not clear when the two men first Robert Somervell, who had left school at met. Somervell became involved in the the age of fifteen in 1867 to work in the question of railways in the Lake District family business, went up to Cambridge in and in 1875 or ’76 he issued a pamphlet, 1878. However, he returned to the A Protest against the Extension of Railways in company for a couple of years before going the Lake District, to which Ruskin back to Cambridge to take his degree. contributed the Preface. The Ruskin- Following his final term at Cambridge, Somervell Correspondence in the Somervell married and settled in Liverpool Ruskin Library at Lancaster University where he had been appointed to teach in a begins with a letter from Ruskin dated Robert Somervell (detail from a school. He stayed there until 1887 when he May 31st 1876 in which Ruskin says, family photograph) 1886. left to take up an appointment as a Tutor at ‘Well, but you can help me infinitely, if Harrow (to Winston Churchill, among many you have any time to spare. I will put In the final letter of the correspondence at others). He later became a Housemaster at you in communication with the other Lancaster, on March 14th 1879, Ruskin Harrow, and eventually Bursar. Companions, and with their help you wrote to Somervell: I can only assume that, on embarking upon can answer all general questions about Please, I want you to be treasurer his teaching career, Somervell's interest in what we are ... I feel the need of this to St G.—My own secretary can be the Guild lapsed, probably due to other help more and more every day’. And on secretary—(or almost any trained pressures. 7 June, Ruskin wrote, ‘I am grateful for clerk) but for Treasurer, I must I can find no further references to him your letter saying you can help me ... I have someone established in either as Secretary or Treasurer to the hope you and a few other Companions business and known to be upright in Guild. When he lived in Liverpool there was will be able to manage the Company's it and safe—and I should like you an active Ruskin Society in the city, but I affairs with only a question or two to me please—if you don't mind. And if have found no evidence to suggest that he now and then.’[9] possible will you go to this meeting was a member, and there is no evidence that At this time Ruskin was frustrated by at Birmingham on the 28th[?] I can’t he took any part in the activities of the the considerable pressure under which and am afraid of there not being Mulberry Cottage group of Ruskin he found himself. The Guild was not yet power enough to get the work enthusiasts associated with the Society. properly constituted and this work was done. Ever your grateful J.Ruskin. Somervell's name is included in the list of in the hands of solicitors. Because of It seems possible that there was confusion Companions printed in the December 1883 this, the Guild as such could not yet over the dates! The first Annual General letter of Fors.[11] He is also on the list of become the owner of the land given by Meeting of the Guild was held at the Companions in the 1884 Trustees’ Report. Mrs Talbot; and there was also the Queen's Hotel in Birmingham on 21st [12] But, perhaps significantly, his name is dispute with the Trustees over the February 1879. Somervell's name is not not among those Companions of the Guild Totley land purchase. One of the included among the nineteen Companions listed in the 1899 Birthday Address to commune's projects was to make boots who attended. Ruskin. and shoes, and Ruskin had suggested to At this meeting, the businesslike George I think perhaps George Baker, who was Henry Swan, Curator of the Guild's Baker took the chair and wrote the minutes. running the Guild during Ruskin's museum at Walkley, that Somervell Among the items of formal business incapacity, decided to manage by employing might be able to give some advice.[10] transacted was the election of Ruskin as his own secretary on Guild work.
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The next slightly ambiguous reference years until the whole structure of the most of the day-to-day administration. to a secretary that I have found is in the Guild’s administration changed. Perhaps he During its years as the secretariat, Le Play 1899 Birthday Address to Ruskin. Under had only looked on his appointment as House changed its geographical location the Guild listing, William White appears short-term. several times. In the beginning it was at 65 as ‘Honorary Secretary to the Joint The Master, who was also elected in Belgrave Road, Westminster, moving in Committees and Curator of the Ruskin 1925, was Hugh Fairfax-Cholmeley. When 1932 to 35 Gordon Square, London WC1. Museum’. Fowler resigned as Secretary, it was the During the War, the establishment moved White had become the Curator of the Master’s responsibility to find a out of London, first to Albert Road, Ruskin Museum at Meersbrook Park in replacement. In this same year there had Malvern, in 1939, and from 1945 to 1890. Perhaps the ‘Joint Committees’ been an Extraordinary General Meeting of Ledbury. were the Guild and the Museum's the Guild to confirm some changes to the Although he was Master for less than three committee. He was not liked at Articles and Memorandum of Association years, Farquharson, as Director of the Brantwood and the arrangements for the and the minutes reveal that a Miss A. Institute of Sociology, was drawn into the delivery of the 1899 Birthday Address Churton was acting as Secretary. There Guild's work and he did much in its service. had originally received a frosty reception were further discussions regarding the He had a deeply Ruskinian mind, sharing at Brantwood because it was thought secretaryship at the Annual General Meeting Ruskin's concern for spiritual well-being, that the Address was to be delivered by in 1926. Discussions continued a year later physical health and cultural life, and White.[13] Had he been secretary to the when Miss Churton was still recorded as considering them indivisible. Those who saw Guild, this would have been a logical Secretary. At the 1928 AGM there was a Farquharson at work in the conferences assumption. feeling that the Secretary ought to be a organised by the Institute were able to William White was apparently at Companion, but as the Master pointed out, observe his power of bringing together cross-purposes with the city's Museum volunteers had been sought ‘but hitherto no people of widely differing backgrounds and Committee and in 1899 he resigned as help had been forthcoming for such making them talk freely of their common Curator. Had he also been the Guild's services’. concerns. secretary, he would have given up this It was at the 1928 AGM that the Master By the early 1950s, Farquharson was not a post at the same time. After all of the announced that the future secretariat of the well man and at the 1952-3 AGM, Bernard changes, stability came to the Guild would be based in London, at Le Play Wardle, William's son, and an archivist by secretaryship when, on 28th October House. At this meeting, Miss Spear profession, was authorised to become Acting 1901, William Wardle was elected to (Secretary at the Le Play House Master. the post. He was one of the group of organization) acted as Secretary. Many changes in the Guild's arrangements dedicated Ruskinians who lived in During a discussion at the 1927 AGM, on were soon to take place. Sheffield Liverpool and whose activities centred the future policy of the Guild, J. E. Corporation found itself no longer able to on Mulberry Cottage. A founder- Phythian, a leading member of the Ruskin make Meersbrook available for the Guild's member of the Ruskin Society of Society of Manchester who had been active museum, and the bulk of the Collection was Liverpool, Wardle, in company with J. in the arrangements for the great 1904 put into storage which was not acceptable to Howard Whitehouse, founder-member Ruskin Exhibition in that city, said that ‘the the Guild. Various possible new locations and secretary of the Ruskin Society of Guild should co-operate with Associations were examined, including Edinburgh Birmingham, took to Brantwood the having similar objects to the Guild’ and he University and Brantwood. National Address of Congratulation on had suggested co-operating with the Le Play Farquharson knew H. A. Hodges, Ruskin's 80th birthday in 1899. They House organisation. At this time Le Play Professor of Philosophy at Reading both met Ruskin on that occasion. It is House was directed by Alexander University. They shared a keen interest in unclear when Wardle became a Farquharson. both Ruskin and the Institute of Sociology. Companion, but he appears to have been He had come into contact with people like After much negotiating, the Collection was admitted during Ruskin's time as Patrick Geddes and Victor Branford, who moved to Reading and, following Master. Whitehouse was admitted by were carrying on the work of the once- Farquharson's retirement as Master in 1953, Ruskin's successor, George Baker. flourishing Sociological Society. Branford Professor Hodges became Master of the William Wardle continued as and Geddes were much interested in the Guild. Secretary until September 1925. In June work of the French sociologist, Fréderic Le The closure of the Le Play House 1908, he was joined as Secretary by Play, and from the Branford-Farquharson organisation led to the need for a new another of the band of Liverpool association grew the Institute of Sociology Secretary, and in 1954 Bernard Wardle, Ruskinians, Thomas Harley. The with its headquarters at Le Play House. having given up the Acting Mastership, was Harleys had moved from Liverpool and Victor Branford (d.1923) in fact became a appointed Secretary, an office which he settled in Bewdley in 1889. In 1924 Companion of the Guild during Fairfax- filled until 1976. Wardle was joined by John Cuthbert Cholmeley's Mastership, and his signature It was during Bernard Wardle's Quayle. Letters held by his nephew, on the Roll was witnessed by both the secretaryship that the re-structuring of the Cedric, show that Cuthbert had Master and Farquharson. Farquharson Guild took place, a requirement of the originally turned down the Master’s himself did not become a Companion until Companies’ Acts of 1948 and 1967. From invitation to become Secretary, but after 1946, although both he and his wife, its inception, the Guild had been run by the a second, more firmly worded, letter, Dorothy, were listed as ‘Associates’ in Master with the help of the Secretary. he agreed. In the following year William 1935-6 and 1934-5 respectively. Alexander Additionally, there had been (usually) two Wardle died, having served the Guild as Farquharson was elected Master of the trustees to care for the Guild's money, but Secretary for twenty-four years. Guild in 1951. He had been very much not to have control over its spending. The Cuthbert Quayle seems to have retired involved in the running of the Guild since two original trustees had resigned as a in 1925. Both were succeeded by yet 1928 although people at Le Play House, matter of principle over the Totley another Liverpool Ruskinian, Harrison such as Miss Churton and Miss Spear, both purchase. As part of the re-structuring, a Ruskin Fowler. Fowler served for three secretaries there, must have carried out Board of Directors was established, chaired
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efficiency, kindness and understanding. structure was recently re-arranged to The Annual General Meeting in 2006 was keep pace with the growth of the held in the Fitzwilliam Museum at organisation, and the title of Secretary Cambridge. During the morning the has been abolished, so this article is as Museum's Director showed us all the complete an account of the Guild Turner watercolours which Ruskin had secretaryship as it can be. A new given to the University and spoke about Administrator, Martin Green, has taken them. In the afternoon Professor Sam on the roles associated with the company Smiles delivered the annual Ruskin Lecture secretary, and Stuart Eagles continues to on Ruskin and Cambridge. The usual offer his services as the Guild’s Directors' meeting preceded the AGM on Communications Officer, responsible the Friday and of course it was necessary for among other things for correspondence us to arrive at Cambridge on the previous with Companions, Associates and the day. It was while Cedric and I were having wider public, editing and designing tea on the Thursday afternoon that he broke publicity material, including the the news to me that he intended retiring as website, social media and this magazine. Secretary for various family reasons. During my Mastership, Cedric had been a I am enormously grateful to both Cedric tremendous help. We spoke on the Quayle and Mike Pye, without whose help it telephone several times each week and after would not have been possible to prepare this fifteen years as Secretary, his retirement in paper. Secretaries Cedric Quayle and Norman Hobbs. 2007 was a great loss. I immediately proposed his re-election as a Director. NOTES by the Master, and having a formal As Master it fell to me to find ‘a new 1. M. Frost: The Lost Companions and Company Secretary. The new Cedric’. Looking through the Roll of John Ruskin's Guild of St George, 2011. arrangement was approved at an Companions I spotted three people who I 2..27.11ff. (All references in this form Extraordinary General Meeting on 31 thought might be able to take on the role, are to the Library Edition of Ruskin’s October 1970. but in the event, they were already heavily Works (volume no. page number) – see Bernard Wardle continued as Company committed, and turned down my request. note, inside front cover of this Secretary until he retired in September Then I thought of Norman Hobbs. He was magazine. 1976. For a year he was replaced by R. an Old Bembridgian, had been a member of 3. 28.159 H. Giddings who was the Bursar at my sixth-form Printing class at Bembridge, I 4. 27.[678] Reading University. But the situation at think had been the Secretary of the Old 5. 28.557-60 Reading was not a happy one, and Bembridgians Association and, in fact, was 6. Sue King, A Companion's Story although the Collection was more or less the Best Man at my daughter's wedding in (2012) pp.18ff. brought together on one site in the School Chapel. I knew that Norman had 7. Robert Somervell, Chapters of University by the next Master, Professor been the Secretary to a small company Autobiography, edited by his sons (1935). Cyril Tyler, at the end of 1977, both working in the aviation industry. He had 8. Somervell, op. cit. p. 44. Master and Secretary resigned. retired from that and was now working part 9. Ruskin Library, Lancaster By happy chance, J. Peter Cordery, -time to enable him to spend more time at University, RF L114. who had been the Guild's accountant home with his elderly mother. Like me, he 10. Mark Frost, op. cit., p. 138. from 1950 until his retirement at about lived in Bembridge—in fact, my garage 11. 29.477. this time (1977), agreed to take over the abuts the end of his garden, but it is nearly 12. 30.26. role of Secretary. ten minutes’ walk from door to door! 13. James S. Dearden, ‘The Ruskin Being a good accountant, Peter Cordery Norman decided that he would like to Galleries at Bembridge School, Isle of was a stickler for accuracy. At Directors' take on the role of Guild Secretary but Wight’ in Bulletin of the John Rylands meetings, he would carefully listen to before his first meeting he had an accident, Library, vol. 51, no. 2 (Spring 1969) p. agenda items being discussed and at the damaging a leg. Following this, he decided 311. end of each item he would turn to the to give up working on the mainland to See overleaf for a table listing all the Master and ask, ‘Now what would you devote himself to his home and the Guild. Secretaries of the Guild identified in this like me to record?’—and he wrote the During his years as Secretary we met several article. next minute there and then. Peter times each week to discuss Guild business. continued in the role of Secretary until he He served the Guild well for five died suddenly in 1992. years before finally deciding to retire. RIP Anthony Harris, who was Master at that By now Clive Wilmer had become DR MICHAEL HUDSON time, asked Cedric Quayle if he would Master and it fell to him to find a new take on the role of secretary and the Secretary. His brilliant choice was appointment was confirmed at the AGM Stuart Eagles, a foremost Ruskin Formerly a lecturer at the later that year. Cedric was following in scholar of his generation. Stuart took Department of Chemistry, the footsteps of his uncle, Cuthbert on the role in 2012; all Companions University of Reading. Dr Quayle. will know the success he made of his Michael Hudson became a Cedric had been appointed a Director in appointment, and some will Companion of the Guild 1976, but he resigned from the board comprehend the huge amount of when he was formally appointed work he undertook for the Guild as in 1974, under Master Secretary. For the next fifteen years, he its operations and influence have Prof Cyril Tyler. carried out his duties with great expanded. The Guild’s administrative
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Secretaries to The Guild of St George DEREK HYATT William Walker November 1875 (February 21st 1931 – December 8th 2015) Egbert Rydings 1876 Robert Somervell Acting, May 31 1876 Derek Hyatt was famous for his use of the postal service as an Robert Somervell ‘pro tem’ Feb 21 1879* unofficial art gallery. As anyone who was regularly in receipt of his ? William White 1890-99 letters will confirm, Derek seems to have had his best ideas the William Wardle October 28 1901 moment the letter was sealed—causing him to sally forth on the William Wardle & Thomas Harley June 12 1908 envelope in all manner of delightful and wildly eccentric ways. It William Wardle & J.C.Quayle 1924-25 was part of the irrepressible and excitable man that just burst forth Edith Hope Scott 1924 (assistant) when he had something to share. He was a compulsive Harrison Ruskin Fowler 1925 communicator and an inspired teacher, but first and foremost he Miss A.Churton 1926 was a great artist. Being playful didn’t always serve Derek well Institute of Sociology 1928 when it came to being taken as seriously as he deserved. There (Miss Spear & Miss Wrigley) (from 1932) were those who found his confidence in matters metaphysical Bernard Wardle 1953 unnerving, but as his final exhibitions at the Michael Richardson R.H.Giddings 1976 Gallery revealed shortly before he died, Derek was an artist of J.Peter Cordery 1977 enormous integrity and individuality of vision who occupied an Cedric Quayle 1992 important place in late twentieth-century British art. Norman Hobbs 2007 Derek was the living embodiment of a shamanic-souled artist. Stuart Eagles 2012 There was nothing fake or put-on in his other-wordly embrace of * perhaps only for one month. nature. For him the hidden voices and spirits of the earth were as real and powerful as anything; indeed, more real and powerful than the mundane and conventional. Derek grew up in Yorkshire and its landscape never left him. It was the spiritual home to which he returned both physically and artistically in the second half of his life with a renewed sense of wonder. He was childlike in the inspiration he drew from his ‘meetings on the moor’. An owl, a pre-historic inscription, some melting snow and a sycamore seed: he could weave the forms and colours of nature and symbols from ancient wisdom into a tapestry of rare expressive force. He held closely to Ruskin’s dictum on the importance of seeing clearly. He knew that time spent drawing trained hand and eye and his hand was never idle recording forms and discovering relationships between things. One of his talents was that of bringing unlikely elements into proximity to one another in a way which triggered (Right) an unexpected and often inexplicable emotional charge. In this ‘Territory of the Derek was drawing deeply upon our imaginations as ‘brooding and Owl, Barker dream-gifted’ where another form of pictorial and emotional logic Farm’ (1996) by is at work. Derek Hyatt. Always an admirer of Ruskin, Derek was proud to be a Companion of the Guild. For all that his own approach was so (Below) Derek distinctive, Derek thought of art in a collegiate fashion, sharing Hyatt at his home near Bishopdale, ideas and enthusiasms. It didn’t matter whether you were an artist North Yorkshire. or not. He knew his Ruskin intimately. When he had a show of his Photo courtesy of work at Brantwood, rather than write about himself, Derek Sally Gallagher. imagined Ruskin and Paul Klee encountering one another at a train station—with Derek there to record it. He wrote ‘Every artist is part of a tradition’. The show’s catalogue thus took the form of a small plastic wallet of conversation cards decorated with Derek’s outline drawings of mystical symbols and sycamore seeds. At his heart, though, Derek had the secret of silence. ‘One skill I have always had since childhood is the ability to sit quietly in a wood. My breathing slows. I just sit and watch Nature. Always something unexpected happens. Always I feel better afterwards … So I sit in the wood and rediscover all those moments when I first saw things. Then the new comes forth and looks me in the eye.’ Howard Hull
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I was saddened to hear the news of the death of Derek PETER EMMET Hyatt on December 8th 2015. (January 21st 1946 – June 26th 2015) I first met Derek when I attended one of his workshops at Higham Hall, Cockermouth, Cumbria in 2004. His My father Peter Emmet was a Companion of the Guild of St teaching style was engaging and invoked a degree of George from 1993 until his death last summer. He was introduced magic about working with the landscape and particularly to Ruskin’s work by his grandfather who bequeathed him a its trees. He led us all to a deepened appreciation of the number of Ruskin volumes. Dad was a great enthusiast of Ruskin gestures of the ash trees and how they always turn the for many years, and would continually regale the family with ends of their branches up to the sun. stories about the latest gems he had found as he added to his During a week in which we visited Brantwood, we explored the Ziggy Zaggy garden. Ruskin had designed increasingly large collection of books by and about Ruskin. this in his early years at Brantwood, inspired by the Brought up within an Anglican family he moved into teaching, mountain farmers of Northern Italy. He created a series but found the imposed structures of the educational curriculum of terraces on the steep ground to support cultivation too restrictive, and so he found a calling in social work, initially experiments. This ‘paradise of terraces’ was an allegory working with adolescents, and then later with children and adults of the Purgatorial Mount in Dante’s Divine Comedy. with learning difficulties. An intellectual contrarian, he would In 2003 Derek had been artist in residence at challenge those around him to be the best they could be, and Brantwood and had done a wonderful piece of work encourage them to consider the implications of everything they imagining Paul Klee in conversation with Ruskin. In this did. He considered Ruskin a visionary, almost a prophet, someone work Derek looked at Ruskin as a kind of Shaman in whose ideas have become commonplace, yet it is not widely Victorian society. He had dared to tell his contemporaries the downside of industrial wealth. Derek appreciated who these ideas came from. He admired Ruskin’s led us on a tour of the gardens. Seeing the Ziggy Zaggy writing style and his attempt to integrate apparently unrelated gardens through his eyes—with its textures, colours, ideas into a single, coherent aesthetic. I remember Dad’s delight at forms and imaginative planting—was inspirational and a remark Ruskin made to the effect that he did not feel satisfied brought Ruskin and Klee to life. with an idea until he had contradicted himself at least three times. The garden representation of the seven deadly sins had Dad’s initial interest was in Ruskin’s social philosophy – in been recreated with the help of students from Glasshouse particular, Ruskin’s views on the education of women, his College in Stourbridge, part of Ruskin Mill Trust. combination of social and environmental projects, at Brantwood Shortly after this visit I was invited by Aonghus Gordon and elsewhere, and Ruskin’s concept of illth. Later on he also Director and Founder of Ruskin Mill Trust, to help him came to appreciate Ruskin’s role as a draughtsman and painter, set up Freeman College in Sheffield, the third Ruskin Mill college for young people with developmental delay. especially his sketches and detailed drawings of the Gothic I thought of Derek and his connection to Ruskin and he cathedrals of northern France. I recall a memorable holiday to was delighted to come and help launch the college in Normandy where Dad’s enthusiasm involved us all getting up at September 2005. This was part of the Ruskin Festival the crack of dawn to collectively re-experience a moment Ruskin which was a wonderful celebration of Ruskin’s ideas; describes when he saw Rouen Cathedral in the early morning events were held across the country at each of the Ruskin light. Mill Trust sites. Derek had an exhibition of his paintings Although Dad was not an academic, his reading was very wide at the Merlin Gallery in Sheffield. He also shared the and deep. He liked nothing more than a well-tempered but stage with Richard Parry, author of Slugs and Angels, Dr ferocious discussion without boundaries. Often he would be asked Margaret Colquhoun. founder of The Pishwanton at a Ruskin meeting, ‘So which university do you teach at?’ which Project, and Companion Kevin Jackson, who wrote How to be Rich, a Ruskinian comic book. They held a lively tickled him greatly. He presented a paper on Ruskin and George debate in the Millennium Gallery in Sheffield and Derek Watts at one such symposium in Oxford. spoke energetically about art and his sense of connection He is sorely missed by all who knew him. He is survived by his to nature. wife Lesley, his two children and four grandchildren. Derek helped launch Freeman College with Luke Emmet enthusiasm. He visited the cup and ring stone in Ecclesall Woods, which was very much in keeping with his own love of stone, of their keen exploration, and the stones’ magical significance, something he wrote about in his book Stone Fires-Liquid Clouds. He held a charcoal drawing workshop using charcoal made from the trees in the woods. Derek believed in the work that Ruskin Mill Trust does with young people, engaging them in practical crafts and biodynamic land-work as a way of empowering them to take charge of their own destiny in spite of their struggles and challenges. This is now recognised as an educational method known as Practical Skills Transformative Education and can be studied to Masters level. It was a pleasure and an inspiration to work with and know Derek and I like to think that he worked some of his artistic magic when he helped launch Freeman College. Helen Kippax Trustee, Ruskin Mill Trust 75
ASA BRIGGS (May 7th 1921 –- March 15th 2015)
There can be no member of to Sidney Sussex College, the Guild who does not Cambridge aged 16. He know that Professor Lord achieved a Double First in Asa Briggs was one of the History, and a First in great modern historians, Economics from the LSE in one of our most creative successive weeks. Then he and determined educational went to secret war-time innovators, and a work at Bletchley Park. passionate Ruskinian. He This was followed by was also a warm, friendly, academic posts at accessible, open-hearted Worcester College, man. He married Susan Oxford (1944-55), and the Banwell in 1955, and they Professorship of Modern had two sons and two History in 1955 at Leeds. daughters. He died at his From 1961 he was home in Lewes, Sussex, Professor of History, Dean peacefully, on March 15th of Social Studies, and Pro- this year. Their great loss is Vice-Chancellor, our loss, too, but we can University of Sussex; Vice- be very thankful for his Chancellor, 1967-76; a Life Lord Briggs in his study, with John Spiers (standing). Photo: John Spiers. extraordinary life. peer in 1976. Then Provost Asa gave the first of the Guild's Ruskin Asa was, in addition to his many other of Worcester College, Oxford 1976; on Lectures in 1978 and became a passions, a secret poet. He had only recently the planning committee 1966-79, and Companion at about that time. He had revealed this further important facet of his Chancellor of The Open University, 1979- always hoped to edit a volume of vivid and complex life. The leading young 94. He was also President of many learned Ruskin’s work, in parallel with his prize-winning poet Hannah Lowe had societies, as well as a member of several edited volume of William Morris’s welcomed the work as ‘A very memorable government review bodies. Selected Writings and Designs, published collection, and the necessity of poetic His books remain of permanent by Pelican in 1962. Alas, although expression for the artist is brought home significance. Wherever he worked he writing almost to his last days, this was most poignantly.’ Asa wrote what he called always asked new questions, rather than one of several projects which did not ‘A Strictly Necessary Introduction’, telling framing his writings in the strait-jacket of come to fruition. Yet his whole multi- the story of his poetry and his inspirations theory. faceted life itself stands in witness to and meanings. As an educator at Sussex he set himself Ruskin’s works. He had written poems since his the task of redrawing the map of learning, The bibliography of Asa’s published schooldays but had not published any of reflecting his prime interest in social and writings runs to a bibliography of 30 them. However, in his last weeks he had cultural change, in the past and in his close-typed pages. A recent collection of held in his hands the first printed and bound present. He supported what Sir John historical essays (edited by Professor finished copies of The Complete Poems of Asa (later, Lord) Fulton, his predecessor as Miles Taylor) was very properly titled Briggs. Far From The Pennine Way (published Vice-Chancellor, had done in framing the The Age of Asa. His reach and his grasp by Edward Everett Root Publishers Co. University around innovative Schools of were amazing. As The Times obituary Ltd., of Brighton on April 28th this year). Study—including The School of Oriental said, ‘You can read Briggs on Victorian Ultimately, his body let him down but his and Asian Studies. Students joked that cities, people and things, on steam and mind remained razor-sharp to his last day. there might even be a School of Culture transportation, public health and He had been re-reading Darwin, re-reading and Anarchy—but the realities were education, science and technology, some of his favourite detective stories, and creative and much valued by the students music and literature, food and drink, also planning out the chapters for a further and faculty. The Schools were sport and public entertainment, books volume of memoirs. fundamentally inter-disciplinary. Asa also and broadcasting.’ He was never happy, Asa was one of my tutors at the University demolished old barriers, notably between indeed, unless he could write 1,000 of Sussex (1965-70), an author for my firm the Arts and Sciences, every undergraduate words a day. And he worked hard, and The Harvester Press, and a friend for more being required to take a course from every day. than 50 years. I was one of several students whichever side of that fence stood their He virtually invented modern social that I knew who in 1965 decided to go to major subject. It was a source of great history as a subject, extended Sussex, rather than to Oxbridge, specifically personal disappointment that the pressures significantly by his later work on so that we could be taught by Asa. of student numbers and government communications and the BBC. Similarly, The public record of Asa’s career—and of direction ultimately undermined the he pioneered Urban History. His work his daunting industry—is open to all. The Schools-structure, and he opposed those was always focused on human nature, enormous and detailed obituaries in The changes all his days. He was, however, an human passions and hopes, fears and Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian etc. admirer of the present Vice-Chancellor, struggles, triumphs and setbacks, cares record the adventure of his life, from his Michael Farthing. and joys, sorrows and change, on the beginnings in a lower middle-class family in A man of the left, but not a Marxist, he lives of ‘ordinary’ people, and on a the mill-town of Keighley in Yorkshire to was asked by Attlee if he would become a future possibly understood by global significance. From a scholarship to Labour MP. He declined, but retained this appreciating the past. Keighley Grammar School, he was admitted affection. However, the student riots of 76
the 1960s had troubled Asa with its approach to contextualisation would not member of the new University, and was irrational violence. One day he said to have been in place at all. there for 35 years, 25 of them as its me that this time had shown ‘the limits In developing Sussex University on its Head of Administration. He joined with of liberalism, and of a liberal Vice- beautiful downland campus, Asa relished all Asa, too, in building global links with Chancellor.’ the freedoms of being able to invite who he other institutions, notably in the Far East As a working historian and as a teacher wanted to come to Sussex. He picked the where each became well known. If you at Sussex he originated many important teaching and research talents, asking David seek their monuments, look around you courses in his own field. Two notable Daiches, Marcus Cunliffe, Michael now. examples were The Late Victorian Revolt Hawkins, Boris Ford, Maurice Hutt, Patrick Asa was indefatigable in every respect. in Politics, Literature and Culture and Corbett, Roger Blin-Stoyle, John Maynard- As a researcher, author, servant of many Poverty and Society, both of which he Smith, Donald Winch, Beryl Williams, and organisations, and as a traveller. His taught initially before handing on to many others to join. He also recruited the historian’s eye never slept. At one Stephen Yeo, E. P. Hennock, and Patti brightest as graduate students and as young conference in Hobart, the capital of Thompson—each of whom became lecturers—many of whom have gone on to Tasmania, he used the two spare days to important historians in their own right. be distinguished figures (and authors) in rout out convict papers which no one This was my own (and many other their fields: Peter Burke, Stephen Yeo, had used. At a conference in India he students’) introduction to Ruskin, Eileen Janes (later, Eileen Yeo), Daniel took a 500-mile train journey, diverting Morris, Hardy, and to the social Snowman, Cedric Watts, etc. to see an archive until then unexplored. investigators Charles Booth and B. Asa meant what he said about redrawing In his last weeks he was mapping out the Seebohm Rowntree. the map of learning, its content and how to chapters of a further book of memoirs. It is too easy now to overlook how think about it. He was always concerned as He remained future-focused in this daring, dramatic, and innovative was a historian with how people felt, too. And work, looking for what we could still Asa’s approach to higher education in he looked beyond the GCE ‘A’ level learn to guide us forwards. the 1960s and 1970s. The Schools of production line to encourage mature In the mid-1960s it was said by Sussex Study which he invented, and such over- students, who contributed much to the life students that you could not hope to keep arching, inter-disciplinary, and of the University. This long before ‘access’ up with reading Asa’s books, at least not demanding courses as ‘The Modern courses became a major issue in public as fast as he wrote them. European Mind’, were truly new. As policy He told me he hoped that, one day, were the first year courses, two of which One key to success was the quality of the somebody would write his biography. all arts students had to take in their first administrators with whom he worked. The Most of his papers are now at Boston two terms. The ‘Introduction to University Registrar, Dr Geoff Lockwood, University: a wonderful opportunity for History’; ‘Language and Values’; ‘The was a crucial supporter in helping to make a young scholar. Economic & Social Framework’ all came the inter-disciplinary schools of study Genuinely, we shall never see his like directly out of Asa’s ever-fertile and workable in terms of faculty, timing and again. restless mind. Without him this key teaching. Dr Lockwood had been a founder John Spiers THE CREED OF ST GEORGE A TRIBUTE TO SUZANNE VARADY
To begin my tribute to this remarkable Industrial Revolution which was at the time Those wishing to join the Company (or Companion, I am first going to focus on despoiling the environment and enslaving Guild, as it became known) would accept seven of the eight principles which Ruskin the people of England, Europe, and America as their own the principles Ruskin drafted intended as axioms which should be at breakneck speed, St. George’s Company, (in his own inimitable, occasionally accepted by anyone wishing to become a a band of living (not metaphorical) slayers of wry, way) in 1875. While our responses to Companion of what is now the Guild of St dragons, was born. Born, intentionally, on the articles, a century and four decades on, George. his hero, Turner’s, birthday— that peerless may vary (we would probably wish to One of the things that is most admirable painter having already proven to be a slayer substitute less gendered language than that about Ruskin is the fact that, although he of dragons with few equals. which Ruskin used), there is much in them was defeated time and again in bringing his The Company’s task was to make England which remains wonderful and useful. In plans for making the world a more humane habitable and beautiful once again, to create the capricious, often heartless whirl in and loving place to fruition, he never an island of kindness on which people lived which we presently live, there is ample abandoned the attempt, even in his saddest at ease with nature, and that would, in due room for a set of resolutions such as these, and maddest moments. course, supplant the degenerate state which edited or rephrased as we may prefer. He announced the formation of St. had come to dominate his native land— Suzanne Varady was a Companion of the George’s Company (as it was then called) largely, Ruskin believed, the result of what Guild of St George. She died quite in the early letters of Fors Clavigera, the he called his contemporaries’ unfettered peacefully I’ve been told by her loving sadness already long resident but before ‘rage to be rich’. Instead of exploiting and friends, after a very short illness. She was the madnesses began their visits (the first polluting nature, the members of St. born and lived in Geneva, Switzerland. She came in 1878). Tired of hoping that George’s Company would live in tune with had a second home in Mornex, about five people would resolve to take better care of it; instead of exploiting their neighbours for miles from Geneva, just across the border nature and their fellow human beings, he their own advantage, the members of St. into France. It was because of that second had determined that real change would George’s Company would work not only home that I met her. It was during the only arrive when a group of like-minded with each other but with everyone whom early summer of 2006. Having a few individuals came together to make it they came in contact with–for the mutual weeks to myself after my teaching happen. And so, in the midst of the advantage of all. responsibilities ended in May, I
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THE CREED OF THE GUILD OF ST GEORGE 1863, he had lived in the left above the wall, I found a lovely face I little village of Mornex on peering down at me, trying to decide, I I trust in the Living God, Father Almighty, Maker of the southeast-facing slope of later learned, if the enquirer might be a heaven and earth, and of all things and creatures visible and the lesser of two contiguous wolf in American clothing. ‘What do you invisible. I trust in the kindness of His law, and the mountains known locally as want to know?’ the fine lady asked in fine goodness of His work. And I will strive to love Him, and ‘The Saleve’. I knew, too, English. Surprised, I said: ‘I’m a Ruskin keep His law, and see His work, while I live. that he had selected that scholar. I’m trying to visit places where he II particular vantage-point lived. I believe he lived in this house for I trust in the nobleness of human nature, in the majesty of because, during a prior about a year a century and a half ago.’ ‘Ah,’ its faculties, the fullness of its mercy, and the joy of its visit, he had noted that a came the response: ‘I believe you are right.’ love. And I will strive to love my neighbour as myself; and, few of the houses in the The face vanished and, once again, the even when I cannot, will act as if I did. village afforded a sound of feet negotiating stairs reached my III magnificent view of the ears. I will labour, with such strength and opportunity as God central peaks of the Mont Seconds later the door opened and a gives me, for my own daily bread; and all that my hand Blanc range in the far smiling Suzanne Varady welcomed me into finds to do, I will do with my might. distance. Although my the garden. Immediately we toured it, with IV French was (and remains) Suzanne showing me all the different I will not deceive, or cause to be deceived, any human laughable, on this particular flowers she had planted, the crowning being for my gain or pleasure; nor hurt, or cause to be day, somehow I had made achievement being the beautiful wisterias hurt, any human being for my gain or pleasure; nor rob, or my way to the house where she had caused to grow in such a way that cause to be robbed, any human being for my gain or he had lived. (I carried a they formed an arbor over some of her pleasure. picture of it taken during more sun-sensitive flowers. Then came the V Ruskin’s lifetime; the piece de resistance (my French was getting I will not kill nor hurt any living creature needlessly, nor shopkeepers, not better!): the incredible view of Mont Blanc destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and understanding anything I looming above the Valley of the Arve, the comfort all gentle life, and guard and perfect all natural said, kindly pointed.) view which had so captivated the tenant of beauty, upon the earth. Because the main part of the so long ago. Next we were in the house VI house was well above the where Ruskin had slept and worked! As we I will strive to raise my own body and soul daily into higher street, there was no front talked on, Suzanne kindly (she was powers of duty and happiness; not in rivalship or entrance. Walking around, always kind!) made us tea and lunch. I was contention with others, but for the help, delight, and however, I discovered a thrilled! We talked deep into the afternoon honour of others, and for the joy and peace of my own life. door in the garden wall on with, as the shadows lengthened, some fine VII the house’s east side. rose wine supplanting the tea. I will obey all the laws of my country faithfully; and the Hearing some gentle As it turned out, Suzanne knew almost orders of its monarch, and of all persons appointed to be in digging going on behind the nothing of Ruskin other than the fact that he authority under its monarch, so far as such laws or wall, the garden where, had lived in her house. But I quickly learned commands are consistent with what I suppose to be the law once, Ruskin had walked, I that she was an accomplished classical of God; and when they are not, or seem in anywise to need knocked. The digging musician and, for that reason, had become a change, I will oppose them loyally and deliberately, not stopped. Moments later, walking encyclopaedia on the life and music with malicious, concealed, or disorderly violence. from the other side, I heard: of Richard Wagner, another eminent ‘Qu’est ce?’ (I knew that!) individual who had lived in her house for a determined that I would travel on Mr ‘Ruskin!’ I said loudly. ‘Qui?’ (Knew that, time, a decade before Ruskin. Ruskin’s Road, my goal being to visit as too!) ‘Ruskin!’ I repeated, still louder. Then And so began a truly wonderful many of the places where he had lived a brilliant thought! I added: ‘Ruskin … friendship. You know how it is, you meet and worked in France and Switzerland as Recherche!’ Another pause. ‘Ah!’ came someone for the first time and feel you have I could in the time I had available. back. Another pause. Then: ‘Un instant!’ known them all your life. You leave, come I knew that, for much of the last half Then came the sound of stairs being back two years later, and pick up the of 1862 and most of the first half of climbed. Moments later, above me, to the conversation just where you had left off as if
(Left) Suzanne in the garden of her house in Mornex. (Right) The view of Mont Blanc from Suzanne’s garden. 78
Mornex), the Guild in Sheffield, it happened. With through myself standing proudly nearby as her most of the sponsor and devoted friend, she signed the loveliest Guild’s roll making her Companionship places of official. France, But, in a way, that signing was unnecessary Switzerland because, not long after our first meeting, I and knew that Suzanne, although she was Northern completely unaware of him, had always been Italy (Siena, a life-long subscriber to the principles Florence, (though she might have changed a word here and and there) Ruskin had set down as The Venice!), all Creed of St George because, for her, these places articles for living had always been the beloved by articles she held sacred in her own heart. Ruskin. Along this path of life, I have been And, as all fortunate enough to meet many marvellous these good people. In that company, experience has miles and taught that there are few who are as Suzanne and Jim at Ruskin’s Rock, Chamonix, France. days passed, intrinsically good of soul as Suzanne. For all it was the night before. That kind of she was always our delightful, good- of us who knew her, she was a gem brightly friendship. Linked souls. spirited, good-hearted guide, translating, shining through pebbles and stones. I loved As it happened, Suzanne was delighted asking directions, enjoying herself—and (I her. Jenn loved her. All who knew her loved to listen to my (many!) stories about the like to think) us—immensely. Wonderful her! How could we not? Had he known her ‘other famous person’ who had lived in times! Times full of wonders! (he may now!), Ruskin would have loved her Mornex house; she was delighted, as It was as if, across the years, a continent, her. She was a living, breathing example, an time passed, to receive numerous and a language, Suzanne had been waiting archetype, of what he termed, in the second postings from America, packages for Mr Ruskin and his ideas to make their article of St. George’s Creed, ‘the nobleness containing articles and books about this appearance. So great was her appreciation, of human nature.”’ remarkable Englishman; she was happy, some years after we met, I asked if she Jim Spates too, in later summers, to travel with might like to become a Companion of the myself and other Ruskin folk, and, even Guild of St George. Immediately, eagerly, later, with my wife, Jenn, to and she said, ‘Yes!’ And so, on the November through the French Alps (not far from 16th 2013, at the Annual General Meeting of
VAN AKIN BURD (April 19th 1914 – November 7th 2015): A Tribute by Jim Spates [A] book is essentially not a talked thing but a written thing, [a thing] written not with a view of mere communication but of permanence. [It comes to be] not to multiply the voice merely, not to carry it merely, but to perpetuate it. The author has something to say which he perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully beautiful. So far as he knows, no one has yet said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodiously if he may; clearly at all events. In the sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or group of things, manifest to him; this, the piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his share of sunshine and earth has permitted him to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; engrave it on rock, if he could, saying: ‘This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my life was as the vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.’ That is his ‘writing’; it is, in his small human way, and with whatever degree of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or scripture. That is a ‘Book’.
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So said Ruskin in 1864 in Manchester, different women who are bored with their private letters written during a winter in during one of his greatest lectures, ‘Of lives or husbands, or both, who decide, for Venice, the year after Ruskin’s beloved Kings’ Treasuries’. By ‘Kings’ daring and excitement, that they will escape Rose died, a period when he was Treasuries’ he meant books. Not to a beautiful rented villa overlooking the desperately searching for some way to just any books, however; beautiful Mediterranean in beautiful Italy. communicate with her. the greatest books, those ‘books for all They won’t tell anyone (including those Of the first of these books, The time’ that contain the most brilliant tedious husbands) where they are going. Winnington Letters, Van wrote, as he closed posings of the essential questions with Among them is the youngish Ruth his ‘Introduction’ to the collection, the which we all must wrestle as the decades Arbuthnot. One evening during the days following–simultaneously a testimony to pass, the books that force us to confront when plans for the great disappearance are his commitment to doing as perfect a job of the issues of what it means to be a still evolving, Ruth is home alone, and editing as was possible and to bringing ‘the human being and what constitutes a having a miserable time of it. Her real Ruskin’ to light: meaningful life. Such books are, Ruskin loquacious (and likely philandering) It is hoped that this volume of argued, true treasuries, far more husband, Frederick, is at a party in a Ruskin’s letters brings us as close valuable than gold. Among these he London mansion where those foppish folks to the flat table on which he wrote would have included the Dickens calls ‘The Fashionable Intelligence’ as does any edition of his Bible, The Divine Comedy, (most of) are toasting and drinking to the publication correspondence. In later years, he Shakespeare’s plays, (most of) Plato’s of his new book, a novel which, like all his believed that his books were dialogues, the poetry of Byron, Keats, others, is a sensationalistic, scandal-riddled inadequate as records of his inner and Tennyson. Reading such books account of a London society girl’s feelings. ‘But the truth is,’ he regularly with care, he said, made us, misadventures. In due course, all his wrote Kate Greenaway in 1886, over time, by that very act, more human approaches having been rebuffed, he returns ‘my life never went into my books and humane. His lecture was intended to home more than a little the worse for wear, at all. Only my time.’ For the make it palpable to his audience that, if and asks the still awake and sad Ruth if she record of his heart, we must turn they were reading such books at all, they would read his book. She asks what it is to his autobiography, his journals, were not reading them with that about. Appalled by the forthcoming and his letters. [When writing of] requisite care, and that such ignorance description, she says that ‘No one should his love for children—‘sunlight or negligence was directly responsible ever write a book that God wouldn’t want upon lilies’ [he called them] … — for the human and environmental to read!’ She is, of course, quite right about Ruskin was his most spontaneous. catastrophe which was unfolding in this, as Frederick’s chagrined face tells us. The plan of the editing of the nineteenth-century Britain. It was a Van Burd wrote books, quite a few of letters in this volume is to release hypothesis anyone could test. For them (and dozens of articles), and I believe I this spontaneity. decades, these have been among my would not be alone in saying that not a When it came to crafting a book, Van favourite Ruskin sentences. single one contains anything that would ever understood, as did the thinker who was I’ve been lamenting the loss of a great offend a curious deity. both his subject and hero, that: friend, a fellow Ruskin scholar, one Actually, Van did not write books; The fine arts cannot be learned by of— perhaps the greatest—Ruskin he crafted them, books containing some competition, but, rather, only by scholar ever, Van Akin Burd. Van thousands of his meticulous transcriptions doing our quiet best in our own died in Cortland, New York; he died and interpretations of Ruskin’s letters which way … [We] must paint and build quietly and painlessly in his sleep in the had not, until he published them, seen the [and compose] neither for pride home where he had lived for more than light of day; letters—‘those beautiful nor for money, but for love, for a half century. His passing was not letters’ I heard him call them more than love of the art, for love of our unexpected. He was, after all, 101-and-a once—which allowed us to see, as Ruskin neighbour, and whatever better -half years old. But, for myself and not a had not been anxious for us to see, the great love may be than these, founded on few others, his leaving us was heart and incomparable genius of the man these. particularly poignant because Van held who had written them, letters which Of this first book, Van’s obituary in The an unusual status. He was one of those allowed our hearts to break along with their Guardian, said: ‘The publication of The few ‘great friends’ we are blessed with author’s as his troubles threatened to Winnington Letters of John Ruskin … was in the course of our lives. overwhelm him or when he worried that instrumental in initiating a Ruskin revival.’ Van Burd was a scholar whose special the messages he so urgently wanted to The dozens of reviews the book received in talent was to tell us things about impart in his books had gone awry because the scholarly and popular press were all Ruskin’s days which we had not known. he lacked the imaginative ability to find the laudatory in the extreme, as would be His was great work, work fit, like those words which would convince his readers to equally the case for all Van’s books. Of ‘kings’ treasuries’ for the ages. Without do what had to be done to transform the Van’s work as a whole, Clive Wilmer, the it we would know so much less about needy world into a much better place. Master of the Guild wrote, in a Ruskin and how he came to have his Three of Van’s most important books retrospective review: ‘Van’s books are glorious and challenging views of life and are The Winnington Letters of John masterpieces of the editorial art. Through the world. And so it seemed only right Ruskin (1969)—frank and profound letters them, our understanding of Ruskin has that I compose something to honour him sent over the course of a decade (1858-68) been immeasurably enlarged: his character, and his contributions to the study of this to the headmistress and students of a girls’ his life, his emotional attachments and, great Victorian to whom he gave the school, composed during a time of great above all, the relation of his ideas and majority of his life’s energies. personal crisis; John Ruskin and Rose La preoccupations to his experiences of the One of my favourite films is Enchanted Touche (1979)—the tragic story of Ruskin’s world.’ ‘He was, by common consent,’ April. Set in the early 1920s, just after star-crossed love of a young Irish girl; Wilmer wrote in another place, ‘the the cataclysm known as The First World and Christmas Story: John Ruskin’s Venetian towering figure in modern Ruskin studies.’ War, it focuses on four wonderfully Letters of 1876-77 (1990)—a series of
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Another remark of Wilmer’s gives a by the most prominent Ruskin sense of Van’s enduring influence. ‘In scholars of the day appeared bearing 2009,’ he wrote in the retrospective just the title, Studies in Ruskin: Essays in noted, ‘I was writing a paper on Ruskin Honor of Van Akin Burd; or, consider and Charles Darwin. Searching through that, during the celebration of his my files for notes and quotations that hundredth birthday in Cortland in would help me with it, I came across the 2014, Shoji Sato, long a friend of offprint of an article on William Van’s arrived from Tokyo to present Buckland who had taught and befriended Van and all who had assembled to Ruskin at Christ Church, Oxford, commemorate his accomplishments “Ruskin and his Good Master, William with newly bound copies of a Buckland.”’ [Buckland, an eminent volume, Short Essays by Dr. Van Akin geologist, was one of the last in that Burd in Honor of his Centenary Birthday, Mayor Tobin reading his proclamation—with Van, his daughter, discipline who believed in the basic truth the contents of which he had recently Joyce Hicks, and his great-grandson, Thomas Cain to the right; of the Biblical account of creation.] ‘The finished translating into Japanese; or, on the occasion of Van’s 100th birthday. article,’ Wilmer continued, ‘had been consider that, during that gathering, published the year before in an academic his long-time friend and colleague in the experience and although, during the journal. Last year, when I was writing a Department of Comparative Literature at landing and after, Van came out paper on Ruskin and female sexuality, I SUNY, Professor Emeritus Robert Rhodes, unscathed, many of his compatriots did riffled through my offprints and read a Proclamation forwarded by the New not. When the fearful fighting was over photocopies again, and up came another York State Assembly making Van a and the island was secured, some article that had been published in 2007 ‘Distinguished Citizen of the State of New American forces were assigned to stay on in an academic journal. It was called York’; or, lastly, consider that, at that same to help rebuild the island’s shattered “Ruskin: On his Sexuality, a Lost assembly, the Mayor of the City of villages. Van, a lieutenant, was one so Source.” Both these articles were works Cortland, the Honourable Brian Tobin, assigned. With his fellow Navy officers by the same scholar, Van Akin Burd, and issued a second proclamation, this one and regular seamen, he spent some he wrote them at the ages of 93 and 94 making the day of his birth (April 19th) ‘Van months at the task, becoming in the respectively.’ Akin Burd Day.’ process a revered figure among Okinawa’s Here’s another measure, a memory All that I’ve said so far concerns the inhabitants. Here is how his long-time shared by the English Ruskin scholar, creation of one kind of ‘book’—the one friend, Bob Rhodes, put it during his Ray Haslam. It serves as a testimony appearing on printed pages. But there is a eulogy at Van’s funeral service a few days both to Van’s eminence and character (a second sort of ‘book’ worthy of note: the after Van’s death: ‘When he was leaving, character to which we shall return). He book of a life and, as Ray Haslam the townspeople gathered to say farewell wrote: ‘The Lancaster University Ruskin mentioned, of the example that life sets. and the mayor spoke some words that Van Programme Bulletin Number 12 (January, A short time ago, I used the word kept and, later, shared with me: “The 1997) contained a short article by myself ‘character’ and said I would come back to town of Kochiya is on the way to re- entitled, “Ruskin, The Reverend John it. establishment and this has been Eagles, and The Sketcher.” To my Perhaps the event which might have accomplished primarily by Lt. Burd and amazement, the following month signalled to a curious observer how his staff’s sincere efforts. [The process] is a letter arrived from Professor Van Akin remarkable a character Van Burd was to not finished yet, but it has been greatly Burd in America containing some become occurred in 1937 when he was just shaped by these efforts. You will never be encouraging comments and also a 23. Already a literary soul and much under able to find anyone who does not respect related article of his own, “Ruskin’s the influence of Eugene O’Neill’s sea plays and love him in this town.”’ Another Defense of Turner,” the subject of his and Melville’s novels of the South measure of this admiration was in the way Ph.D thesis. I was dumbfounded that he Seas, Typee and Omoo, Van determined in the people of Kochiya addressed him. should take the trouble to write and 1937 that he would voyage, alone, to the Having a collective difficulty pronouncing show such interest in what I was doing Pacific to see for himself where the great his name, our English sounds very foreign … We all know Van Akin Burd as a novelist had gotten his inspiration. As it in their ears, he was always called, ‘Ben great scholar and author of some of the happened, he spent a considerable amount Bardo San,’ the Honourable Van Burd. finest works in the field of Ruskin of time on the island of Fiji, being hosted Character. studies. He has been for me an and toasted by the local tribes–and meeting Here’s another indicator. I was inspiration: the master researcher and there, he told me in one of our many chats, privileged to know Van for twenty years editor who has set for us all the highest an Englishwoman on her travels: ‘She was a and, during all that time and all our of standards.’ real Lady,’ he said. ‘But,’ he added, ‘she conversations, I never heard from him (if I As ‘final’ proof of the importance of didn’t act like a Lady! I very quickly learned can alter a line from an old cowboy song) Van’s scholarly work (his ‘books’ as to keep my distance. I could see that she a disparaging word–about anyone. The Ruskin defined them), consider that would be trouble and saw as well that she closest I ever knew him to approach the when he retired from the State was determined to cause it!’ negative, and the instance barely touches University of New York at Cortland, the A second story illuminating his character the outer orbit of the word’s meaning, institution where he had taught for more is more poignant. It was 1944 and Van, then was a comment he made about a younger than three and a half decades, Van was in the Navy, was in the South Seas again but Ruskin scholar whom he thought should the first in the university’s history to be this time it was for a much deadlier reason. have been a bit more careful in how he accorded the status His unit had been among those chosen for transcribed and interpreted a previously of Distinguished Professor Emeritus; or, the invasion of the island of Okinawa as the unpublished Ruskin letter. That was it. consider that, shortly after that American forces made their embattled way Here is Bob Rhodes’ praise of his friend: retirement, a volume of essays written north toward Japan. It was a harrowing ‘For 63 years, Van was my teacher,
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mentor, colleague and friend, and in all were all profoundly those years and in all those roles, he worded treasures— never failed me, even once.’ like David Janik’s, Some years ago when we were talking expressing enduring about that inevitably approaching gratitude for having moment, Van asked me if, ‘when the had the chance to time comes’ (always his phrase), I would know him and telling make sure that his books and papers of great reverence for would go to places where future Ruskin the gifts his life had scholars could use them. I, of course, bestowed on them. In accepted. And so, in partial fulfilment of my view, one sums this charge, I travelled to 22 Forrest up them all. It was Avenue in Cortland about two weeks written by Howard after his death to collect these vital Hull, Chairman of materials. As I was placing some of his the Ruskin papers into a box to take home, a card Foundation and fell to the floor. Picking it up, I found Director of that it had been sent by a much younger Brantwood. Thinking friend, David Janik, to commemorate of Van’s departure, Van’s 100th birthday. David had grown Howard wrote: up knowing Van well, his father, Del, It was a day set being one of Van’s colleagues at SUNY in the stars; but Cortland. On the card’s cover was a who among us single line from Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses.’ It could have read: ‘I am a part of all that I have met.’ guessed that Opening the card, one finds this Van’s candle heartfelt message: ‘I am lucky to know could burn so you!’ Inside as well are written the wonderfully long following lines: and bright? I Dear Van, rejoice in the I could not find a card with a beauty of the Ruskin quote, so Tennyson will man. The beauty have to do! It is true! [Here an of his spirit, his arrow draws the reader’s eyes to kindliness, his One of Van’s favourite photos of Jim and him together. They are pic- the quote opposite.] You are one integrity, the tured at Michelle Lovric’s palazzo on the Grand Canal, Venice. of the most remarkable people I clarity of his know. I have been blessed to mind, and the wisdom of his small table, would be his most recent Times have you as a friend, neighbor, judgements. Pamela and I were Literary Supplement and his current Ruskin teacher, grandfather figure, and privileged to encounter Van in reading. During his last months, among the storyteller. You have had a rich the best of moments: working at latter were Robert Hewison’s Ruskin on and beautiful life full of a Ruskin letter on his typewriter Venice (the definitive account of Ruskin’s time spectacular adventures. I on a packing case deep in the in and love for that incredible city on the continue to enjoy these stories woods of Michigan; at home Adriatic), Robert Brownell’s Marriage of each time I see you. with us at Brantwood; on the Inconvenience (a recent interpretation based on I have appreciated all of your balcony at Jim’s house new and convincing evidence concerning the advice and encouragement. I so overlooking lovely Seneca Lake catastrophe of Ruskin’s marriage to Effie much appreciate that you listen in Geneva. Van was an Gray, suggesting, in the main, that Effie, to my views and stories in impeccable scholar—really, the rather than Ruskin—who, for decades, has return. Visiting with you is very definition of all that a gotten the bulk of the blame—was primarily something I look forward to scholar should be—guided responsible for the calamity), Sara Atwood’s every time I come to Cortland. always not only by the empirical lecture, ‘The earth veil’: Ruskin and Environment I am so pleased to have been evidence but by his humanity. (‘She’s a fine new, young Ruskin scholar,’ with you on your 100th He recognised the responsibility Van said repeatedly) and Jim birthday. So let’s celebrate! that he assumed in studying so Dearden’s Rambling Reminiscences: A Ruskinian’s You have been lucky to have closely another man’s life. It Recollections (Jim being, by Van’s description, had such a long, healthy life, a seems to me that with great ‘My great Ruskin friend of almost six life filled with love, intellectual generosity of spirit he marvelled decades!’) pursuit, and friendship. and he cared. On one of my last visits, as I walked toward Love, David. A reminiscence of my own. For many him, he proclaimed: ‘Jim, there are two new It is only character which years, at approximately three-week books on Ruskin we must get and talk about. spontaneously generates such intervals, I travelled to Cortland from One about hundreds of his daguerreotypes, all sensibilities. Geneva, New York to visit Van. As I of which have been lost for nearly a century In the days following Van’s entered his home, almost always he and a half (Ken and Jenny Jacobson’s Carrying passing, many comments and tributes to would welcome me from his living- Off the Palaces: John Ruskin’s Lost Daguerreotypes him came my way, all telling of how room couch where he had been resting reviewed elsewhere) and another by Sarah special, how wonderful he was. They or reading. Next to the couch, on a Quill, a revision of her book, Ruskin’s Venice:
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The Stones Revisited. Do you remember how man. We shall not look upon his like we took her first edition with us when we again.’ Van’s life, like his printed books, went to Venice in 2004 and, using her map, was a ‘Book’ in Ruskin’s sense, a book spent at least two days hunting down the that God would have been delighted to most interesting of the palazzos Ruskin read (and who, almost surely, already wrote about? The most interesting ones has). were those hidden down the by-streets? I was first, in a very real sense, a And do you remember how we spent hours student under Van’s remarkable studying the figures on the capitals of the mentorship. After a short while, we Ducal Palace in St. Mark’s Square? What a became colleagues. Then, finally, dear wonderful time that was! How I wish we friends. But he was cherished by a could go once more and take this new multitude. By his beloved family, his edition with us!’ And all this from a 101 devoted friends in Cortland, his equally year old man who was perfectly well aware devoted friends in the Ruskin world, and that he would never leave Cortland again. by the wonderful caretakers who did just It was a wonderful trip! The highlight of that–took ‘care’ of him during his last the many we took together. years. We all loved him. About a week after Van died, I said, in an The angels have sung him to his rest email to Howard Hull: ‘As the days pass, and I presume (a little enviously, but I his loss is ever more keenly felt. It is hard will gladly wait my appointed turn) that to realize that there will be no more trips to by now he has already had some fine Cortland. No more soup, egg salad chats with Mr Ruskin about the meaning sandwiches, and coffee for lunch. No more of it all. Not being privy to that, I talk about recent Ruskin publications. No thought I would end with one of my more Ruskin gossip! (Not that there ever favourite imaginings concerning ‘the was much!) Even to the last, when we were meaning of it all,’ the last stanzas of both aware that that end was nearly upon Yeats’ ‘Lapis Lazuli,’ a poem ‘about’ a us, we never acted as if it would arrive. large green stone with some quite unique (Above) The can- Our last lunch together, about a week carvings. Yeats composed it in 1933, just dle lit for Van by before he left us, was as sweet as the dozens a few years before a young, adventurous Michelle Lovric which had preceded it.’ Van Akin Burd sailed for Fiji. in the Church of I saw him last two days before the end. San Giovanni Crisotomo in Ven- He was, by then, bedridden. Though his Two Chinamen, behind them a third, ice, a few days Are carved in lapis lazuli. ability to communicate was impaired, we after his death. Over them flies a long-legged bird, had a lovely visit, recollecting our many A symbol of longevity; travels in the service of the great Victorian (Right and below) The third, doubtless a serving-man, to whom he had dedicated his life’s work. The images of some Carries a musical instrument. of Van’s finest At his request, I read him the passages from books—his Jim Dearden’s Reminiscences where Jim Every discoloration of the stone, enduring legacy. recalls his first and subsequent meetings Every accidental crack or dent, with Van. Van was delighted. Seems a water-course or an avalanche, It is hard to know how to say goodbye to Or lofty slope where it still snows; such an incredible life and friend. Van was unique among the people I have known. He Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch was not only a great intellect, he was Sweetens the little half-way house possessed, like the genius he taught us so Those Chinamen climb towards. And I Delight to imagine them seated there; much about, of the greatest of hearts. He There, on the mountain and the sky, was unfailingly kind, generous, and loving. On all the tragic scene they stare. It is a rare thing to have such traits so One asks for mournful melodies; pronounced in one soul. At the same time, Accomplished fingers begin to play. he was remarkably down to earth, in some Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes, essential way just a regular person living a Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay. normal life—unpretentious, never disingenuous, never envious of others. Two years ago, I conducted an interview My thanks to Stuart with him about his ‘life of Ruskin’ for The Eagles for the image of Companion. At the end, I asked if, after Van used at the nearly seventy years of working on Ruskin, beginning of this tribute, he had any regrets. Van said: ‘Well, there and to the Guild for the are things I’d like to have done and things use of quotes from Clive I’d still like to do but, to tell the truth, I’ve Wilmer and Ray no regrets. I’ve lived a magic life.’ We are Haslam. Thanks are also so very lucky to have known him. As due to the ever-patient, another great writer once had one of his ever-keen-eyed Jenn characters remark of another great Morris for her editorial character: ‘Take him for all in all, he was a suggestions.
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