P OW E R HOU S E M U S E U M ARCHIVES GU I D E T O T H E ARCHIVES OF THE CHINNERY FAMILY D E N I S E Y I M 2009 94/143/1 CONTENTS Provenance 3 Note re author Denise Yim 3 Biographical Notes William Bassett Chinnery 4 Margaret Chinnery 4 Caroline Chinnery 5 George Robert Chinnery 5 Walter Grenfell Chinnery 5 Matilda Margretta Chinnery 5 Giovanni Battista Viotti 6 William Robert Spencer 6 Series List 8 Series Descriptions and Item Lists 10 Publications of Denise Yim 112 Locations of Chinnery papers and archives 113 PROVENANCE NOTE The Chinnery family papers were donated to the Museum on 22 June 1973 by E.A. and V. Crome, who were frequent donors of material on aviation, philately and music (particularly violins). It is not known how the Cromes acquired the papers. In a memo from the staff member who collected the donation to the Museum’s Director, 2 August 1973, (file 80?M55/2522), it is stated that the papers “were sent by M[r?] Crome from London to his Sydney address some years ago”. In a letter to the Director, 22 April 1974 (file 80/M55/2522), Mr Crome forwarded some notes on the papers which he had come across, but these cannot now (1994) be located. No information on the provenance of the papers appears in Mr Crome’s own papers on violins held by the Museum at 88/1167. NOTE RE AUTHOR This guide was first prepared by Denise Yim in 1994 and has been twice emended by her as a result of research carried out for her doctoral thesis and for various postdoctoral publications. (See back of Guide.) Further Chinnery papers were discovered by Denise Yim in London in September 1996, which are now in Rare Books and Special Collections, Fisher Library, University of Sydney. A list of the locations of all the Chinnery papers and archives which have been found to date are to be found at the back of the Guide. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE William Bassett Chinnery (1766-1827) William Bassett Chinnery was born in London, son of a family of writing masters. He was the eldest surviving son of William Chinnery Jnr, writing master, of St Bride’s parish and Elizabeth his wife (née Stacy). His youngest brother was George Chinnery, the nineteenth-century portrait and landscape artist. Thanks to influential patronage William became a chief clerk (1799) in the British Treasury and also agent for the Bahamas, for New South Wales and other colonies. On 21 October 1790 he married Margaret Tresilian at St Luke’s Chelsea, and they had three children. After his marriage he indulged his passion for collecting antiquities. In 1812 he was found guilty of defrauding the Government of over £80,000 and dismissed from his post. The sale of his collection attracted some of the most prominent connoisseurs in the kingdom. He fled to Sweden and later to France where he remained for the rest of his life. In France he eventually settled in Le Havre where he went into a wine, coffee and tea business (Cary & Co.) which ultimately failed in 1823. He owned various properties, including Gillwell Park in Essex, which had been settled on his wife Margaret by her father at the time of their marriage. Gillwell Park was sold in 1813 to help repay his debt to the Government. William Chinnery died in Paris on 3 March 1827 and was buried by his wife in a vault in the Père Lachaise cemetery. When the vault was threatened with destruction in 2000 his remains, along with those of his wife and a grand-niece, were repatriated to England and the ashes scattered at Gilwell Park in August 2002. (Today Gilwell is owned by the Scout Association and is spelt with three ‘l’s.) Margaret Chinnery (1766?-1840) Margaret Chinnery (née Tresilian) was born on 16 October and baptised at All Saints, Fulham on 13 November 1766. She was the eldest of the three daughters of Leonard Tresilian, mercer, of Covent Garden and Margaret his wife (née Holland). Her grandfather had also been a mercer in the same parish, and her uncle was the famous architect Henry Holland. Six years after her marriage she moved her family out of London to Gillwell, and three years later the Italian violinist G.B. Viotti joined the household, remaining with the family for the rest of his life. Margaret was a highly accomplished musician, fluent in French and Italian, who educated her children at Gillwell using the rigorous method of the French educationist Mme de Genlis. Prior to her husband’s dismissal from Treasury she entertained lavishly at Gillwell, receiving mostly musicians and poets at weekend music parties. Among her closest friends were the Duke of Cambridge (George III’s youngest son), and William Robert Spencer, as well as other prominent members of society. She had several prominent French friends, too, among whom Mme de Genlis, Mme Vigée-Lebrun, Mme de Boigne and the composer Luigi Cherubini and his wife. After William's disgrace and her daughter’s death in 1812 she withdrew from society for a short while, then resumed entertaining in her London home for the sake of her son George’s connections. Viotti resided with her. From 1814 she and Viotti paid summer visits to her husband in France, and in 1819 she purchased a property at Châtillon in the countryside near Paris. She managed the Chinnery family affairs from the time of William's departure from England, and those of Viotti after his death. She died in Paris on 5 November 1840, and was buried with her husband in the Père Lachaise cemetery. In 2002 her remains were repatriated to England with William’s and with those of young grand-niece Hodgson (1824- 1834), whom Margaret was educating in France when the child died. Caroline Chinnery (1791-1812) Born on 3 September and baptised on 15 December 1791, Caroline Chinnery was the daughter of William and Margaret Chinnery, twin sister of George Robert and older sister of Walter. Taught by her mother and by G.B. Viotti, she was an accomplished pianist, harpist and singer, often performing in private society concerts, sometimes for royalty. Viotti was like a father to her. She also had a very close relationship with William Robert Spencer, who referred to her as his niece, and who exchanged verses with her. She died on 3 April 1812 at the age of 20, after a long struggle with whooping cough, although her death was from miliary tuberculosis. It was probably hastened by a series of late nights at the Prince Regent’s Pavilion at Brighton at the end of 1811. Caroline was buried in a vault in Waltham Abbey Church, where her younger brother Walter had been laid to rest ten years earlier. A memorial monument to both children still stands in the north aisle. George Robert Chinnery (1791-1825) Born on 3 September and baptised on 15 December 1791, George Robert Chinnery was the son of William and Margaret Chinnery, twin brother of Caroline and older brother of Walter. He was educated firstly at home by his mother and tutors, then from the age of 16 at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with first class honours in mathematics and third class honours in classics. In 1810 he won the Newdigate Prize for Poetry, and read his poem and his encænia verses in the Sheldonian Theatre at the Installation of the new University Chancellor the same year. An accomplished linguist, he knew six modern languages, as well as the usual Greek and Latin. He took a lifelong interest in the arts and letters. He held a post in the British Treasury from 1812 to 1823. In 1814 he became the protégé of ex-Foreign Secretary George Canning, whom he joined in Portugal in 1815, and accompanied on tours of the Continent in 1819 and 1820. In 1824, when Canning was again Foreign Secretary, George was sent to Spain as Resident Commissioner in Madrid for the Liquidation of British Claims on the Spanish Government. He died in Madrid in October 1825. Walter Grenfell Chinnery (1793-1802) Born on 23 April and baptised on 19 June 1793, Walter Chinnery was the youngest child of William and Margaret Chinnery. He was educated at Gillwell with his siblings, and is mentioned in Margaret Chinnery's Journal. He died at the age of nine on 19 November 1802, shortly after returning from a visit to Paris with his family. There was a virulent epidemic of influenza in Paris that winter, and it was the probable cause of his death. He was buried in Waltham Abbey Church in the same vault as his sister Caroline. A memorial monument to him stands in the north aisle. Matilda Margretta Chinnery (1797-1877) Matilda Margretta Chinnery was the daughter of John Chinnery (William Bassett's brother) and Mary his wife (née Payton). She was the eldest of their four children. Born in Madras, India, she arrived in London in 1800, and was taken into the care of William and Margaret Chinnery. Educated at Gillwell by Margaret Chinnery, she was an accomplished pianist. After the sale of Gillwell she continued to reside with Margaret and Viotti until leaving England in 1821 to marry Captain (later Lieutenant Colonel) Samuel Irton Hodgson (1784-1836) in Madras in 1822. The young couple then moved to Bangalore where Capt Hodgson had command of the 49th Regiment of Native Infantry. They had four children, not counting one who died in infancy.