SENHORA SMALL FRY (EXTRAS & UPDATES)
| Topic | Notes | ||
| "Robert Southey: Entire Man of Letters" | W.A. Speck's new biography "Robert Southey: Entire Man of Letters" (Yale University Press, 2006; hardback ISBN 0-300-11681-0) contains much new material about Mary Barker, but a few surprising omissions about Southey. For example, although Prof. Speck is very interested in Southey's friendships with women other than his wife, he gets round the problem of the mystery woman who did so much good for Southey on his 1796 visit to Portugal by relegating her to a footnote- the Gonne family and their long friendship with the Southeys are never mentioned at all. As far as Miss Barker is concerned, the best thing about Prof. Speck's book is his use of an unpublished 1967 Harvard University thesis by Robert G. Kirkpatrick- a scholarly edition, from the originals, of the letters by Robert Southey to Mary Barker, as supplied to the Warters for their 1855 selection of Southey's correspondence. The Warters omitted many interesting letters, and censored others, so the new book presents a much more rounded picture of the relationship. There are more innuendoes in the unpublished letters- but also more moments where Southey shares his deep feelings. For me, the impression give by the quotations in the book is not so much that Southey was sexually attracted to Mary as that he felt able to treat her as gender-neutral: somebody who could take the innuendoes like a man and the emotions like a woman. Further notes relating to Prof. Speck's book appear below. | ||
| What brought Miss Barker to Teddesley? (see page 3) | In June 2006 I was contacted by Robert Maddocks, author of the books "The Good Old Grit- A History of the People of Penkridge 1270-1939" (1994) and "Penkridge: 1930 to 1970- The Day Before Yesterday" (2002). In his research for an intended new book, about the Littleton family and their influence on the area, he has found various references I missed, perhaps the most interesting of which are in the journals of Sir Edward Littleton's heir: In January 1855, Edward Walhouse Littleton (known since 1835 as Lord Hatherton, following a long Parliamentary career) found some letters written in 1812 by his father, Moreton Walhouse of Hatherton (son of Moreton Walhouse snr. and his second wife Frances, sister of Sir Edward Littleton). Lord Hatherton's journal entry for 21 Jan 1855 muses on these letters, and on the tangled relationship between his father, and Sir Edward, and "a small circle of low bred, dishonest and designing people"- notable among whom were Miss Mary Barker and her brother-in-law William Brewe, Sir Edward's estate steward. At least, that was Walhouse's perception of them, with which Lord Hatherton tended to agree- but the problems began before he was born, and he had probably been fed his parents' version of events from the start. In an earlier journal entry, 21 Aug 1849, Lord Hatherton had indicated that Sir Edward had been angered by Walhouse's marriage to Anne Portal, who, though her father Abraham was a much-admired goldsmith (also a poet and playwright- but eventually a bankrupt), was "not strictly within his own sphere of life".
The waters are muddied somewhat by other snippets of information Robert Maddocks has supplied about Moreton Walhouse. It seems that Walhouse's own father may not have been over-fond of him, as he arranged in his will for his widow to retain control of the young man's inheritance at Hatherton; Lord Hatherton's reflection on this many years later was that "I imagine he was not strongly attached to my father". Also, when Lord Hatherton (or rather, then just Edward Walhouse) was a pupil at Rugby School in the early years of the 19th century, Sir Edward Littleton's solicitor paid him a visit to warn him that his father should modify his behaviour to avoid irritating Sir Edward. Finally, there's the very curious story of Louisa Hamilton [to be seen in a bundle of papers at Staffordshire Record Office, ref. D260/M/F/5/34]. She was the daughter of Cyrus Hamilton, a black servant employed by Sir Edward, and awarded an annuity (much much smaller than Mary Barker's) in his will. Cyrus had died relatively young, in 1825, thus ending the annuity and throwing his family into poverty. After Lord Hatherton died in 1863, Louisa sent begging letters claiming that her father had actually been Sir Edward's adopted son, and that "if it was not for my father the late lord H. would not have the Teddesley estate. I know more than anyone would think". Legally, the latter claim was unlikely as the estate automatically passed by "entail" to the heirs of Frances Littleton unless Sir Edward had children, but Louisa insisted, "The entail could be broken and would have been but for my father". Also, more relevantly for this website, she claimed that when she was a child, she had once passed on to Lord Hatherton the sum of £300, which she had been given by Miss Barker after accepting an invitation to visit her at her home in the north (she was accompanied on the long trip by a Mr Shaw, apparently Relieving Officer for Penkridge parish). Set against that last claim must be a statement from one of Lord Hatherton's early journals, 10 Dec 1818: "Received a picture from Miss Barker with her annual begging letter for money". That was just four months before she left for France; the wording suggests that she had been writing similar letters for at least a couple of years before, and that the money she wanted was over and above her generous annuity. At best it seems that she had run into financial trouble within months of starting the Borrowdale house, though perhaps between 1812 and 1815 she had had sufficient spare cash to give away £300. PS: Louisa's tales were not believed, but in a spirit of charity she was given a pension of £9/2/- a year. So what does all the above tell us? One of the most curious things, as Robert pointed out to me, is the similarity between Mary Barker- the daughter of an ironmaster, but inclined to the literary life, and Anne Walhouse, daughter of a metal craftsman with literary ambitions. It is very clear that Sir Edward Littleton had problems with his theoretical heir, Moreton Walhouse (even without the 1855 journal entries, there's the matter of Sir Edward's will obeying the entail by bequeathing the estate to young Edward W. instead of his father). Given the evidence for Walhouse's behaviour as a young adult, it seems that Sir Edward, particularly following his heir's marriage, to a woman who seems, from Lord Hatherton's account, to have had rather more dynamic personality than her husband, needed some way to limit the potential damage to the family inheritance. Was Mary Barker the way he chose? There's something very odd about an old man inviting a teenage girl to share his house, but is it creepy-odd, or subtle-odd? Sir Edward's late wife had years of ill-health, so there was no good reason to suppose that he was incapable of belatedly fathering a direct heir if, one night, Mary Barker had chosen to take their relationship to a more physical level- and she and he were both free to marry. If Sir Edward understood this, and Mary understood this, and Moreton and Anne Walhouse understood this, nothing needed to happen- so long as the Walhouses didn't irritate Sir Edward too much. So, we now have a hypothesis that Sir Edward invited his metalworker's daughter to move in, as both a threat and an example, not many years after Walhouse married his metalworker's daughter. Mary Barker played her part to the end, and, crucially, never took the step which would have made her Sir Edward's wife, wealthy widow, and mother of an heir with not a drop of Walhouse blood. Sir Edward thus maintained some control over the Walhouses, resulting in serious resentment, but a much-improved next generation- yet he never quite sacrificed his dignity by embarking on a sexual relationship with Mary. For her restraint, the Walhouses owed Mary Barker a great deal- doubling her annuity was the least they could do after they got the result they wanted. | ||
| 1805 visit to Keswick (see pages 10-11) | One of the more curious revelations in W.A. Speck's biography of Southey (p112-3) combines information from the letters with other sources: when Mary came up to Keswick for her long visit, beginning on 24 Sep 1805, Southey left Greta Hall after she'd been there just ten days, for a fortnight's visit to Scotland, during which he came to a decision about a plan he had to spend a year in Portugal- he wrote to his wife Edith that as she was unhappy with the idea, he could not go without her (it wasn't quite a final decision, but even after further deliberation he stuck with it). Just a few weeks earlier, he had been writing to Mary about a completely different proposal for a foreign trip, to Amsterdam, again with the family, but inviting Mary along, both as illustrator for the book he proposed to write and as a companion for himself and Edith. | ||
| Coming to live in Keswick (see page 20-22) | Another splendid find from Prof. Speck's research in America (home of a huge quantity of Southey documents) for his biography of Southey is a letter from Mary (see p150), written just after Sir Edward's death in May 1812, making arrangements for her move to Keswick- even containing a blunt suggestion that the Coleridges should give up "their" part of Greta Hall, for which by this time Southey was paying. We know, of course, that Mary ended up in Greta Lodge instead, and Prof. Speck offers an interesting speculation about her first few months in residence (p160-1). Early in 1813, Southey was working on the poem "Roderick the Last of the Goths", which contains some remarkable passages written from the viewpoint of a woman who fails to realise, until too late, that she is seducing a married man whom she loves- could Mary have provided direct inspiration for this? | ||
| The almighty row in 1814 (see page 26) | A further letter transcribed by Kirkpatrick and quoted in W.A. Speck's biography of Southey (p157), from May 1814, throws a little light- just enough to cause further confusion- on the row between Mary and the Fricker sisters which had begun earlier that year. Like Dorothy Wordsworth, Southey had been hoping that "a chance meeting" would lead to a reconciliation, but of course the reason he had to write a letter was because Dorothy had temporarily taken Mary away from Keswick to Rydale Mount. Southey refers to a note Mary had written, the last four lines of which contained "all that should have been said"- but the earlier lines he considers "improper"; annoyingly, he does not make it clear whether any of the Fricker sisters had read the note. Prof. Speck suggests that the problem must have been solved when Mary returned from Rydale, as the preface to "The Doctor" was written on 4 June- the reference he gives is to the published version, not a manuscript of this date, but the point remains, I think, essentially valid. | ||
| Pople the printer (see page 30) | Letters in the John Murray collection within the Leigh Hunt archive at the University of Iowa Libraries (ref. MsL M9826c) listed as item nos. 136 &137 on the online catalogue indicate that Mr Pople's first name was William. | ||
| Another poem by Mary, 1816 | Detailed cataloguing work by the Wordsworth Trust at Grasmere reveals a poem by Mary Barker on leaves 12r-13r of Dorothy Wordsworth's commonplace book, held in their collection (ref. DCMS 120). Titled 'On the Birth of the Littleton's eldest child - a son' it was copied by Dorothy on 6 Jan 1816. First line: 'Of all thy ancient House, first born'. Gordon Graham Wordsworth notes that 'The child appears to have been Edward Richard, 2nd Baron Hatherton b. Dec 31 1815'. | ||
| Miss Fletcher (see pp41-2) |
A postscript to the story of Miss Fletcher's school appears in Morley, Edith J. (Ed.) "The Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson with the Wordsworth Circle" Vol 1. (Oxford, 1927); letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to H.C.R., 3 Mar 1822: asks H.C.R. whether "if you have opportunity you would tell Mrs Montagu that I never recommended Miss Fletcher as a Governess. She has very good dispositions & I believe a good temper. She was thought by many (but of this we are no judges) to be able to give instruction in Music, and I have reason to think she has a sufficient knowledge of French; but she was very deaf when resident in this country; and though I am told this infirmity did not hinder her from detecting false notes & perceiving gradations of sound in music, I am afraid she would be utterly unfit to give accurate instructions in other matters .. not to speak of the ill effects that might be produced on the manners and habits of Children by being under the government of a deaf person. I was quite shocked to hear of 'exertions made by me'- The Fact is that poor Miss Fletcher wrote to Mrs W. & me requesting us to recommend her. This letter I replied to telling her that neither Mrs W. nor I were judges of her qualifications in many points, & that we could not know in what degree her unfortunate deafness might disable her from giving instructions; adding that those Ladies who had employed her would be the judges of this. I suspect that Miss F has copied those parts of my letter in which I spoke of our favorable opinion- omitting all that was said of our incompetence to judge, & of our apprehensions concerning her deafness. Otherwise Miss Benson could not have supposed that I would recommend her as a Governess. Miss Fletcher is a good kind-hearted creature, & I wish it were in my power to serve her; but should never think, whatever were my means, of attempting to do it in that way. Do excuse this long story, which, if you were not the kindest creature in the world, I should not have oppressed you with (and this is what you get by your kindness)." ... | ||
| PS: Miss Barker in 1818 (see page 42) | Robert Maddocks has recently (summer 2006) discovered correspondence in the Staffordshire Record Office between Mary Barker and Sir Edward's successor, Edward Walhouse Littleton. On 28 Feb 1818, writing from "Rosthwaite House", following a severe illness (which she wryly noted would have benefited him financially if it had killed her) she was trying to help him prove that he was the heir to the Holme Lacey estate, following a rumour she had heard from some lawyers staying with Sir Jere Homfray. She also mentioned that "I am in the very midst of transcribing a comedy which I have just written and which I hope and firmly believe you will see acted in London very soon"- yet another great unknown Barker artistic endeavour! | ||
| Robert & Mary post-1816 (see pages 42-47) | Although W.A. Speck's biography of Southey rather fudges the separation between Robert and Mary after young Herbert's death, the letters do reveal a tiny bit more about the purgatory years that followed. Southey rather retreated into his library after Mary left for Borrowdale, but they were in contact from time to time. In 1818 (p174) she helped him out with an inquiry about an order of nuns, and (p180) in reply to a note she sent from France in 1820, he blamed pressure of work for his failure to write to her in "a very long while". | ||
| Page 48: "Sotheby's" | This, at the end of the first full paragraph on the page, should of course read "Southey's", and stands as an Awful Warning to all those who rely too much on their spell-checkers. | ||
| Page 48 footnote | Aaaaaaaargh... | ||
| The Satanic School (see page 50) | Prof. Speck's biography of Southey considers (p180) the origin of the phrase "Satanic school", pointing out that Southey had used it before the preface to "A Vision of Judgement", in an article for the Quarterly Review in 1818. On that earlier occasion, however, he had been referring to the political philosophy of Napoleon and his ilk. That certainly muddies the waters, but it still does not rule out the possibility that Mary coined the phrase as a direct response to Byron's 1814 crack about poets and ponds. | ||
| Post-nuptial visit to Cumberland (see page 51) | Prof. Speck has found (pp213-4) that a letter from Southey to Miss Fletcher, 31 Jan 1831 (among an assortment of Southey correspondence in the Rare Books & Special Collections department at Rochester University, USA, ref. A.S 727) refers to the new Mrs Slade Smith's visit to her old friends in England- which Robert had missed because he was away, but Speck notes he "does not appear to have been distressed". | ||
| Page 53- worrying news | Robert Maddocks has discovered another interesting, and frankly disturbing, entry in Lord Hatherton's journal: "Monday 13th April, 1835 I received a letter from a solicitor in the City written on behalf of S----- and Ch----- S------, bankers of Boulogne, cautioning me not to pay the annuity left by Sir Edward Littleton to Miss Barker as she has assigned it to them - as well as my voluntary annuity to her." Does that mean that she has, in the first few years of her marriage, been losing money even faster? | ||
| Page 53- the end | Feb 2007: Robert Maddocks' study of Lord Hatherton's journal has now reached 1853, and the following useful but sad entry: "22nd October, 1853 I received today intelligence of Mrs Slade's death- formerly Miss Barker and more than half mistress of this house. She died at the Chateau de la Motte in the Dept. of Calais and is to be buried at Boulogne." So despite all the financial worries, the Smiths maintained their stately home lifestyle to the end- though this entry does raise a puzzle about the "Pavillion du Paon" referred to on page 52. "This house" in the above extract is of course the Littleton seat of Teddesley, which as discussed above could probably have been Mary's if she had been selfish enough. |