Because of the Lockwoods Part II

Mr. Lockwood grudgingly agrees to help Mrs. Hunter with practical and legal advice... but when he finds on looking into the family’s papers that Mr. Hunter had managed to buy a paddock, he is tempted to commit a fraudulent act...He gives way to the temptation. He had loaned Mr Hunter the £300 to buy a paddock for his children... but it was promptly repaid. He realizes that Mrs. Hunter is not aware of this – that the money was repaid... and he offers to take the paddock as part repayment for the legal work he is kindly doing. Mrs. Hunter, in shock and grief and embarrassed that her husband had been in debt, agrees to this. Lockwood salves his conscience by telling himself that he will be a good friend to Mrs Hunter and do a lot of work for her and her 3 children... but in practice he does little. They have to sell their house and move to a poorer part of the town and live on a small income. Mrs Hunter is shy and sensitive and never manages to fit in with her new neighbours, and she has lost touch with all her middle class friends except for Mrs Lockwood. The children have school friends but they also are friendly with the Lockwoods. However all 3 of them (Molly, Martin and Thea) are hurt by the patronising way that the Lockwood children treat them. Claire the youngest of the 3 girls is pleasant but the twin daughters, Bea and Muriel very much resemble their domineering father and like to lord it over the Hunters. Thea, the youngest Hunter child, is the cleverest. She does well at school, and is envious of the Lockwoods who are not that clever but have more books, go to a boarding school and have much more opportunities than she has. She is eager to have a good education and find a good job. Her older sister Molly becomes a nursery governess in her teens because the family need to add to their income – and Molly is not very clever and has no other job opportunities. Martin leaves school and goes into a bank, because he knows he has no hope of training at anything that will be a career…But Thea is more ambitious and more resentful of the Lockwoods.

Because of the Lockwoods By Dorothy Whipple, Part I

This is one of my favourite novels by the 20th century writer, Dorothy Whipple.She has been compared to Jane Austen because of her dry wit and sharp observance of society…Her books are usually set among the middle and upper classes of Northern England, who are gentleman farmers, businessmen or professional people…and she is in a quiet way a feminist.< Her novel “High Wages” is about a young woman who starts work as a shop girl in a dress shop, and ends up by owning her own small business. “Because of the Lockwoods” is one of her mature works and is also a feminist novel. The story starts in the 1920s, when a middle class widow, Mrs Hunter, finds herself left very badly off when her husband suddenly dies. Richard Hunter had not been able to work as an architect during World War One, and was not fit to serve as a soldier. He exhausted most of his capital, providing for his wife and 3 young children. They live in one of the cotton mill towns that used to be so prominent In the North of England, but by the 1920s, the trade was dying and people who had become rich through the mills were often selling up and moving out… Mrs Hunter is a ladylike shy woman who has never fitted in very well in the mill town. Her only real friend is Mrs. Effie Lockwood, wife of a local well to do solicitor….Mrs Lockwood also has 3 children all daughters (Beatrice Muriel and Clare) while there are three young Hunters, 2 daughters, Molly, and Thea, and a son Martin... Mrs Lockwood is a domineering rather unfeeling woman, who has a kindly impulse and offers help tot Mrs Hunter... and gets her husband to give the widow legal and financial advice.He is a ruthless man… End Part I

Fanny Cornforth

Fanny was an important woman in the life of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and one of his models. Women were very much a part of the lives of the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood, some of them as mistresses, others as muses. Georgiana Burne Jones and Elizabeth Siddall, both of them married to painters, had some artistic talent but found that domestic life and motherhood made it difficult for them to compete with the men..Most of the early members of the Brotherhood were rather shy and awkward with women so the ones that they met and formed relationships with became very important to them. Gabriel Rossetti was something of a womaniser and met Fanny, in 1856. She was born to a working class family in Sussex, and her birth name was Sarah Cox. She was a servant, and she became Rossetti’s mistress. He was then engaged to Elizabeth Siddall, but Lizzie was often living away from home because of her health. It was feared that she had TB and might be dying. < Fanny modelled for him. She was a beautiful curvaceous young woman with golden hair and regular features. She began to be called Fanny... and worked for Rossetti and kept him company while Elizabeth was not there. However after a time Lizzie had recovered her health and persuaded her long term fiancé to marry her. Fanny left him, and married a mechanic called Hughes. His stepfather’s surname was Cornforth and she adopted that name.. However her marriage did not last long and she and her husband separated. She had probably felt that she needed to marry for security, once Rossetti had left her and married his fiancee. She had no wealthy family or private fortune to support her… Gabriel’s marriage was also a short one as Elizabeth became depressed after the death of her first baby and died of a laudanum overdose. Fanny moved in with him, after he had lost his wife. She became his mistress and she kept house for him. She was not educated and many of his friends disliked her and thought her coarse and foolish... and they tried to persuade him to break off the affair. But Gabriel cared for her, although his life was becoming increasingly difficult he remained loyal to her... He had an ongoing relationship, possibly an emotional affair, with Janey Morris during that time but he kept Fanny and looked after her. During their on and off affair, she sat for approximately 60 paintings and he immortalised her beauty…in paintings like “Found”, Boccia Baciata”, and “the Fair Rosamund”… Some of the working class girls (Like Jane Burden) who married middle class painters educated themselves and “learned to fit in” with society. Fanny did not bother, she did not try to make herself into “a lady". But Gabriel clearly liked her as she was…. As he grew older, he became heavily dependent on chloral and alcohol and his health declined. He aged rapidly, became depressed and could not paint. His family intervened to have him looked after, during the 1870s, and dismissed Fanny. Gabriel was only in his late 40s but his drug addiction had made him seem much older. He wanted to provide for Fanny when she had to leave and gave her a gift of some of his paintings. Fanny’s first husband died and she married another man, a publican, called John Schott, after her dismissal from working for Rossetti...She and her new husband ran a pub... And she continued to keep in contact with her former lover…helping to look after him at times. However his drinking and addiction were destroying his sanity. After his death Fanny sold some of his paintings... and her second husband died…She was looked after by a stepson, but sadly degenerated into dementia...She died in 1909.

Snippet from A COURT LADY

“Von Lichtenberg, I wish that you will consider this offer. I want to see you married off. It is your duty, as a soldier, to found a family, before you go to fight. And there are several young ladies who might be acceptable. There is Mlle. De Belmaris. If you were to take her, I'd be very generous with your next command”

I have posted this work, my novel A COURT LADY on the pages section.  It is set in Napoleonic France at the Imperial Court.  The heroine Corisande is a girl who works as a reader to the Empress Josephine.  The hero is Sebastian Von Lichtenberg, a soldier from a small German state which is allied with Napoleon....  The couple are thrown together and expected to marry.....

Alexa Wilding model

Alexa Wilding is one of the young women who worked as an artist’s model for the Pre Raphaelite painters, mainly for Rossetti. She was born to a working class family but very little is known of her... She was a very beautiful girl with the red gold hair that many of the painters liked... She was born as Alice Wilding in Surrey around 1847 but little is known of her family. She lived in London with relatives in the 1860s and was working as a dressmaker when she met Rossetti. This was a job that was hard work and badly but it was a job with some perks. It was sedentary work and sometimes gave girls a chance to mix with upper and middle class people. Moralists however often disapproved.  They feared that these girls could be corrupted by these encounters with men who were better off than they were. Mrs Gaskell’s heroine Ruth was working in a dressmaker’s when she met the man who seduced her... Rossetti saw Alexa walking down the Strand and was struck by her beauty. Some models had sexual relationships with the painters they worked for – however it appears that Alexa, as she called herself, did not. Rossetti asked her to sit for him and she agreed but did not turn up, possibly because she was dubious about his motives for giving her a job. She did not want to become a mistress or prostitute. A few weeks later, Rossetti saw her again and hurried to speak to her, persuading her to come and sit for him and paying her a small weekly fee so that she would not be working for anyone else… He had another model Fanny Cornforth who was a more earthy voluptuous type of girl and who did become his mistress…But Alexa’s more “ladylike” ethereal beauty appealed to him and to some of his patrons..And he used her to re paint some pictures that he had started to work on with Fanny as model.. After this second meeting, she did start to work for him steadily.. She seems to have been a placid quiet girl who did not interact much with her artist. But he found her hard working. As time passed Rossetti’s health declined and he was unable to paint. His wife Elizabeth Siddall had died and he went back to his affair with Fanny Cornforth, keeping her in his house as his housekeeper and mistress. But when he became sicker, his relatives asked Fanny to leave. Alexa sat for many paintings including the Bower Meadow, Lady Lilith and Venus Verticordia. When he died in 1882, Alexa made an effort to visit his grave to place a wreath…. perhaps saddened by his long decline in health. In 1881 Alexa was known to be living in a house in Kensington, as a landlady. She also had two children, but nothing is known of whom their father was or if she was married… Rossetti seems to have helped her out financially to achieve a certain independence.. A few years after his death, she died of a tumour on the spleen at the age of 37. She does not appear to have worked for other artists and her life was a short one. However she did acquire a home and a certain degree of respectable independence… and the fame of being a beauty and model for a well-known and successful artist.

Jane Morris nee Burden Part I

Jane Morris is famous for being the wife and muse of the artist and socialist thinker William Morris.. She modelled for him and other Pre Raphaelite artists and she herself was a notable embroiderer. Jane was born in 1839 in Oxford and her parents were very poor.Her father was a stableman and her mother had been a domestic servant. She and her sister had little education but she was an intelligent girl probably with aspirations to get more education and to "marry up." In 1857, she attended a theatre performance with her sister Bessie, and she attracted the attention of Morris and his friends...She was very beautiful but unusual looking, with a long face and beautiful heavy dark hair...Morris asked her to model for him. Jane usually called Janey, was 18 and was likely to become a servant or shop assistant... but Morris fell in love with her. The Artists were painting murals of Arthurian themes and Rossetti used Janey as a model for his Guinevere. Morris asked her to pose for him for a painting called La Belle Iseult... and during that time he proposed to her. Janey was not in love with Morris but she accepted his offer. She liked and respected him and she was eager to educate herself. Morris, who came from a well to do family, had her tutored so that she could fit in with middle class artistic society. Janey was happy to do this. She learned French and Italian and music, and was quite a good pianist, so she was able to fit in quite well with her new husband's friends.. They got married in 1859 and then moved out of Oxford. Morris was setting up a design firm which would produce beautiful things, for homes and artistic decorations. Morris like the other Pre Rahaelites was in violent reaction to what they saw as the commercialised ugliness produced by British industrialised. Although he was interested in socialism, however Morris had to compromise in order to make a living and his firm was patronised mostly by the middle and upper classes who wanted prettier houses and furnishings. The young couple moved to Kent at first and then to London. They had 2 daughters, Jane Alice (Jenny) and Mary (May) who shared their parents' interest in the Arts and Crafts movement. However Janey’s marriage while superficially happy was far from perfect. After a few years, the Morrises bought a house, called Kelmscott Manor, in Oxfordshire and they moved there. But William Morris went away to Iceland in 1871, leaving his wife behind and during that time, she fell in love with Gabriel Rossetti. Rossetti was more of a lady’s man then the shy serious Morris had ever been... And Janey found him more congenial as a friend and lover. It is not certain when their relationship became a love affair but it lasted as a close and loving relationship for many years..

John William Waterhouse 1849-1917

Unlike many of the other Pre-Raphaelites, Waterhouse came from an artistic background.  He was born in Rome and both his parents were painters. Many of his works were set in Ancient Rome, and he was knowledgeable about Roman Mythology. In 1854, the family returned to England, setting up home in Kensington. They were based near the new Victoria and Albert Museum and Waterhouse was encouraged in his artistic leanings. He studied sculpture at the Royal Academy but then moved on to art and began to paint in the classical style…He was a successful artist and began to exhibit regularly at the Academy. In 1883, he married Esther Kenworthy, She was a professional artist as well, specialising in flower paintings. Waterhouse’s marriage seems to have been uneventful and happy but his paintings were mainly of beautiful and sweet faced women. Many of the earlier works were of classical themes such as Circe, or paintings of the courts of Roman emperors, also one of Cleopatra and “Ulysses and the Sirens. Later, he moved on to Pre Raphaelite themes, painting subjects that other Pre Raphaelite artists had covered. He painted a particularly beautiful Ophelia, with her flowers and a blue gown. Like most PRB artists he turned to Shakespeare and English poets for themes, such as “The Lady of Shallott” (Elaine of the Arthurian Legends). He painted “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” which was based on the Keats Poem… There is a study of Miranda in the Tempest viewing the storm that drives the ship onto their island. Another “British legend” painting is a one of Tristan and Isolde on a ship.  Many of the paintings are of beautiful women outdoors, gathering flowers… such as “Windflowers”, or “Gather Ye Rosebuds”. There were a few semi nudes, including one of a mermaid..) He returned to Ophelia as a subject in later life but became ill with cancer in 1915 and died in 1917.

William Holman Hunt Part I

William Holman Hunt was born in 1827 and was one of the major Pre Raphaelite artists. He was a Londoner, and his parents were not well off. He had to go to work at the age of 12, as a clerk. He was a very serious man, with a preoccupation with sin and religion which showed in his paintings. He was criticised at times for clumsiness in his work but he was a talented painter. One of his most famous works shows the interest in morality and religion that was a large part of his life Called the Awakening Conscience, it is about a young “kept woman”, who remembers her childhood morality while in the arms of her seducer. Hunt tried very hard to make his paintings accurate like most of the pre Raphaelites and he worked very hard and was rarely satisfied with his efforts. < In the 1850s he travelled to the Holy Land because he wanted to paint religious works about the life of Christ and frorm the Bible. He was willing to make the long journey because he was so was anxious to ensure that his work was correct. He painted the works known as The Scapegoat, The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, and The Shadow of Death, along with many landscapes of the region. In 1865 Hunt married. He had had a long running on and off relationship with one of his models - a working class girl called Annie Miller. She was from a poor background and had had no education, but Hunt (like many Victorian men with a young bride or one from a different class) tried to educate and fit her to become his wife. However Annie was a spirited flirtatious young woman, who enjoyed the company of other men (including the notorious rake Lord Ranelagh) and she broke off their engagement. She did not want to be pushed into a mould that did not suit her and she married someone else. Hunt then married Fanny Waugh, who was from an artistic and intellectual middle class family... (They were related to the novelist Evelyn Waugh)…Their marriage was sadly short lived. She gave birth to a son while they were travelling abroad and then died of fever in Florence, a few years after their marriage. In 1875 after a period of grieving -Hunt scandalised society by marrying Fanny’s younger sister Edith. Such a marriage was illegal under British Law, and the couple had to go to Switzerland to marry. For many years, the British parliament had tried to legalise “Marriage with a deceased wife’s sister” but the Bishops in the House of Lords had regularly thrown out the bill and such marriages were considered wrong by many religious people. Edith’s marriage was not accepted very well by many of her own family...She herself suffered a certain stress because she was living in a union which was considered wrong by so many people.

Evelyn De Morgan 1855-1919

Evelyn de Morgan was one of the women painters who painted in Pre Raphaelite style….She was younger than the original members of the Brotherhood- she was born in London in 1855. Her parents were middle class, and her birth name was Evelyn Pickering. She received a good education for a woman..similar to that of her brother. She studied the classics and she was independent minded, supporting women’s suffrage and in later life, she was a pacifist. In 1883 she met William De Morgan, who was a ceramics artist. They married in 1887. For many years they spent part of their time in Florence, and part of it in London.Evelyn was a talented painter and she also contributed financially to her husband’s ceramics business and helped him with designs for the pottery… As a girl, she did not want to take part in social rituals which she considered time wasting and hated the socialising that was expected of middle and upper class women. She was passionate about her arts and managed to get herself sent to the Slade School of Art in the early 1870s. She was one of the first women students. She studied under the artist George Watts and developed friendships with the Pre Raphaelite artists like Holman Hunt. She developed her own style, and her themes tended to be feminine and delicate…She represented beautiful women of mythology and history, in classical brightly coloured robes. Many of her works were of women figures from classical history and literature. Another famous one was of Queen Eleanor confronting her husband’s mistress, the Fair Rosamond.

Carl Perkins Rockabilly artist Part I

Carl is most famous probably for being the man who wrote the Elvis hit Blue Suede Shoes… He was one of the song writers who got their start In Sun Records with Sam Philips… He was born in Tennessee, in 1932, so he was close in age to Johnny Cash... His parents were poor sharecroppers and like Cash he grew up in the cotton fields, working hard and singing gospel music…For these poor families one of their few amusement was listening to the Grand Old Opry, on the Radio...Carl loved the music, and persuaded his father to spare a little money to buy him a guitar…He was taught to play it by an old African American man, called John Westbrook…But in 1947 the family moved closer to Memphis and with his brother Jay, Carl began to play in a tavern, for tips. He worked at day jobs in factories and sang at nights... In 1953, he got married. His wife Valda, also worked, but she believed in his talent and encouraged him He met up with a drummer -WS “Fluke” Holland who was later to work with him and Johnny Cash…In 1954, he went to Memphis to audition for Sun Records..>He then started to work with Johnny Cash and Fluke Holland as “Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two” and they played rockabilly, which was a mixture of country and the up and coming rock music. Then in 1955, he wrote “Blue Suede Shoes”..Different stories are told about the inspiration for the song... Johnny Cash said it was because of a young man whom he knew in the Air Force in Germany, who was fussy about his appearance and who used this phrase when he was dressed up to go out on

Arthur Hughes, Artist

Arthur Hughes was not a member of the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood, but he was in sympathy with their aims and painted in that style. He was born in London in 1832 and studied at the Royal Academy…One of his early paintings was “Ophelia”, a subject also painted by Millais…He became friends with John Millais. His Ophelia is a beautiful work, of Ophelia with her flowers... it does not have the intense and careful details that Millais put into his work where she is shown drowned…