William De Morgan and his wife

Front matter

* «7 '^ • vV f .C

WILLIAM

DE MORGAN

Preface

By an Old Friend

(The late Sir William Richmond, R.A.)

I AM not sure if it was in the autumn of 1859 or the spring of i860, when I was working in the schools of the Royal Academy, that a tall, rather gaunt young man arrived as a nouveau, who excited among us of a term's seniority some interest. He was an original, that was evident at starting. His capacious forehead denoted power, his grey eyes tenderness, his delicately formed nose refinement, and his jaw strength. But the commanding characteristic was unmistakably humour. He spoke with a curious accent, his voice, as if it had never quite settled to be soprano or bass, moved with flexibility up and down the scale, and every sentence was finished with a certain drawl. This was a trait caught by many of Rossetti's friends. This youth was William de Morgan, son of the celebrated mathematician and his wife, a distinguished lady, highly cultivated, intimate friend of Carlyle and other leaders of the thought of the times, and much loved by her friends.

He came into the schools at a brilliant moment. Fred Walker, that delicately organized genius, was his senior by one term. Albert Moore, perhaps the most classic painter of the time, was already drawing with great taste in the schools and making noble designs, some pre-Raphaelite, some classical. Andrew Donaldson promised much as a student. Henry Holiday was precocious ; but the greatest genius of our set was S. Solomon, that wonderful little Jew who might have risen to any height of distinction if he had chosen to encourage his great gifts. I was the youngest of the group which was composed of ardent young men furnished with ability and determination to labour hard to deserve distinction. It was in this coterie that William De Morgan found himself welcomed. From the day I first shook hands with him till the last, when he sat beside me in sickness, we were close and staunch friends.

As an Academic artist he did not count for much : his genius did not lie in a groove or grooves. His early work was as a designer for stained glass ; I have seen some very interesting

10 PREFACE

work from his hand in that difficult branch of the art into which incompetence too often strays and where genius is so rarely visible. De Morgan, as a son of a great man and a very popular and highly esteemed mother, was early thrown into the intellectual blue. Well grounded at King's College {sic) he was a fair classical scholar, but it was not in any portion of his character created by education that he was remarkable. Pre-eminently he was original, entirely uncommonplace. He had a quaint invention, he took a quaint view of everything. He was a master of the unexpected, a creator of paradox, a serious humorist. A very delicate constitution forbade athletics of all kinds. His body had to beware of excess, his mind could adroitly play with it. Public opinion he cared for not a jot ; he was his own critic in as much as he always strove for perfection. The progress of his mind was swift as well as persistent ; a bit of wire, a bit of wood provided hours of enjoyment for his creative mind, one moment dwelling on a vast scheme for fiying or under-water piracy, another in adding some dehcacy to the construction of his bicycle.

His extreme ingenuity may have been not altogether an advantage, it made him jump from one subject to another with too facile dexterity. He was not what is commonly called brilliant, it was natural rhetoric ; he never talked for effect. So simply and oddly was his very simple mind arranged that he could play with his ideas and command them to quaintness or paradox, as he wished, without ever rendering them ridiculous. In this respect De Morgan was Dickens's equal, the Dickens that he knew so well and so deeply admired, but with no plagiarism. As Dickens's characters are his and only his, so are De Morgan's. Nobody else has ever made quainter people to sa}^ quainter things, which, however, are never forced but just bubble out as the stream of a character moves on.

De Morgan's wTiting has been compared with Thackeray's, but surely on close investigation there is little if any similarity. De Morgan was in no sense a satirist : he was a humorist, he was no cynic, he was a playful, wayward optimist who saw kindly, conceived generously, and was much nearer comedy than tragedy. Pathos there was, but of a type quite his own ; not of the stage one bit, but entirely employed in a kind of unconscious manner out of the character he was manipulating with such quaint Unes and elaborate byplay.

Literature, or rather novel writing, is, on the whole, more universally estimated and valued than any other form of Art by the general public ; it is therefore likely that De Morgan will live in the future more by reason of his writings than his designs or superb pottery. He will live among his friends as a delightful companion, a queer unexpected talker, not exactly brilliant, but fantastic, if child-like, by reason of a certain siraphcity which took

PREFACE II

for granted he could never be a bore, and he never could be, for, clever as he was, ready tongued as he was, a freshness was always maintained which one knew to be quite spontaneous, unaffected and sincere.

His Wife and He

Although WiUiam De Morgan was complete as a personality in which each part bore relation to the whole, he was made even more highly finished by the remarkable woman he married and who outlived him but for a short time.

I knew her before her marriage, both in London and in Florence, where she lived so much with her uncle, Spencer- Stanhope, who no doubt was her guide, philosopher and friend in most things, and to whose influence was certainly due the direction that her great gifts as a draughtsman and painter took. It is seldom that a marriage is absolutely successful, where the road of life taken is so similar, where the temperaments are completely in accord, and where no commonplace rubs against life's sharp and tiresome edges ever occur. Evelyn and William De Morgan were absolutely one: one in sympathy, in intelligence and its direction, one in tastes, and in perfect companionship. They teased and chaffed one another as school-boys do, they were amused at each other's idiosyncrasies, and I verily believe amused also at their mental similarity. He believed in her Art and she in his. They were both artistic in the highest sense, and where the business capacity came in is a puzzle to every one. She had more than he. His capacity as a business man was probably nil, hers was only a little more than nil ; but her money was his, and, with what is often called generosity, she gave it up, as all his and her friends know, to save crashes and to make one more glorious pot.

It is not for me to relate her life, it is written in this book ; its splendid dedication to Art and to her husband, her constant going on fighting non-success, always making fresh efforts to achieve perfection of finish and technique as noble as it was strong, as consistent as constant. If her later work is sometimes overcharged with detail, a little over-weight, Evelyn De Morgan was a finished artist of no mean quality. In their respective spheres, he had the humour, the irresponsibility ; she supplied sometimes an almost austere integrity and a conscientiousness, carried sometimes so far as to mask slightly the spontaneity of her just conception. She drew beautifully ; indeed, the many volumes which remain containing drawings of the nude, and draperies, flowers, leaves — in short all things inanimate — are, perhaps, the most complete efforts of her genius. . . .

12 PREFACE

Thus far had Sir William Richmond written when death intervened, and this unfinished tribute to his friends remains the last thing ever traced by his pen.

He had, according to what he once mentioned to the author, intended to dwell at far greater length on the arresting personality of Evelyn De Morgan, on her achievement as an artist, especially on the marvel and the purity of her colouring, and on her rich inspiration. Yet the faithfulness of both incomplete portraits, drawn thus in a few facile words, will be apparent to all who knew those of whom he writes : while in this connexion, as certain of his observations may he found duplicated in the volume which follows, it should be mentioned that the preface was designedly written without its writer having seen the work of the biographer ; and vice versa.

Only in one particular, however, is a brief elucidation perhaps desirable. The austerity of which he speaks in connexion with Evely7i refers solely to her earnestness in regard to work. Both in art and literature, De Morgan's spontaneity and his happy-go-lucky methods — equally the outcome of a great sincerity — contrast with her profound and studied conscientiousness : but apart from work, the sense of humour shared by both was one of their 7nost marked characteristics. Evelyn had a quick wit, an irrepressible sense of the ludicrous, and a rare gift as a raconteuse. Even in her most serious mood, her sense of fun would not be suppressed, and a jest, known only to the initiated, peeps from the canvas of her gravest conceptions. To both of them, if life proved, in much, a sorry struggle owing to their disinterested pursuit of an Ideal, combined with their entire lack of worldly wisdom and self-advertisement, it was, in more, a merry adventure to be regarded with laughter in the present and a somewhat misty but enduring hopefulness for that Future which no man can fathom.

When, late in middle-age, success came to De Morgan, he rejoiced in it with the simplicity and the freshness of a child. To Evelyn all celebrity was hateful, and she valued appreciation only as it proved an incentive to greater effort. Work, to her, was the joy of existence, and she laboured — voluntarily, unceasingly — from the cradle to the grave. ' I knew them for twenty years,' relates one friend, ' and I never heard her mention her painting. ' She had an exquisite and a retiring mind,' her obituary stated when that life-work was done.

It is unusual to find two people, so gifted and so entirely in harmony in their art, who acted and re-acted on each other's genius. Their romance is one before which the pen falters : but which, nevertheless, was an abiding factor in all they have left to the world : and Sir Edward Poyntcr, P.R.A., looking after De Morgan and his wife one day, as they left his beautiful garden, epitomized the impression created by their presence. 'There,' he said, 'go two of the rarest spirits of the Age.'

AUTHOR'S NOTE

THE author wishes to express her sincere thanks to all who have aided her in procuring material for the following work.

In America her thanks are due to many unknown but valued friends ; particularly to Professor Lyon Phelps for his assistance and cordial sympathy ; to Mr. Louis Joseph Vance for the interesting letters he lent ; to Miss Olive Russell and others for their contributions of some charming correspondence.

In England the author's thanks are primarily due to Miss May Morris ; to Mr. Reginald Blunt, Mr. Halsey Ricardo and Mr. Shaw Sparrow for the correspondence and information they supplied respecting the manufacture of the pottery ; to Mr. Richard De Morgan and Mr. Walter Kelsall for assistance with the early history of the family ; to Mr. Amherst Tyssen for the extracts from his diary ; to Professor and Mrs. Mackail, and to Mr. Henry Holiday and his family for many delightful letters and anecdotes. Thanks are also due to Mary, Countess of Lovelace ; to Miss F. Seeley, Mrs. Spencer Pickering, and Mr. Herbert Russell-Cotes for permission to reproduce pictures in their possession ; to the authorities of the Victoria and Albert Museum for their leave to publish photographs of the De Morgan pottery in their charge ; and to Mrs. E. Smith {nee Ethel Glazebrook) for the fine photograph taken by her of William De Morgan.

The author also wishes to express her thanks to the editors of the Burlington Magazine, the Bookman, the Cornhill, the Manchester Guardian, Printer's Pie, The World's Work, and the New York Herald for their great courtesy in allowing her to quote from articles which have appeared in their publications : likewise to Mr. Pawling for having kindly placed at her disposal Mr. De Morgan's correspondence with the late Mr. Wilham Heinemann.

Her gratitude is also due to many others who have aided her materially by contributing correspondence or information, particularly to the following : Mrs. Alhngham, Mr. Stewart EUis, Deaconess Gilmore (the sister of William Morris), Mr. H. de T. Glazebrook, Lady Glenconner, the Rev. Augustus De Morgan Hensley, Mrs. Horatio Lucas, Mr. Walter De Morgan, Mr. Scott- Moncrieff, Mrs. Bram Stoker, Mrs. G. F. Watts, Mrs. HughWoolner,

14 AUTHOR'S NOTE

etc. ; and to Mrs. Edward Carpenter and Mr. Lionel Bradgate M.A., of Trinity College, Oxford, for kindly reading the proofs.' If, however, among the great number of those who have written to her from all parts of the world it has been impossible to mention categorically the names of aU to whom she is indebted or for lack of space to make use of some of the interesting material which they provided, she trusts they will understand that in writing this book (an endeavour to compress into one volume 'the story of two full and many-sided lives), she has suffered considerably from what William De Morgan termed ' the true writer's cramp.' and that they wiU forgive her sins of omission as weU as 01 commission.

LIST OF CONTENTS

Preface. By the late Sir William Richmond, R.A.

CHAP. WILLIAM DE MORGAN

I Ancestry and Parentage • • . .

II A Nursery Journal . . . . .

III The Old Man's Youth . . .

IV The Chelsea Period • . . .

V The JVIerton Period . , . .

VI The Story of the Pickerings .

V,I Pen-drift {to be omitted by the captious).

VIII The Thorny Way . . . .

IX The Fulham Period X Joseph Vance XI The Man and the Method XII ' Alice ' and ' Sally ' Kill The ' Real Janey ' XIV ' Blind Jim ' and ' Lucinda XV Several ' Unlikely Stories XVI ' The Young Man's Old Age ' XVII The 'Long Diminuendo'

Index . • . • • and ' Ghosts'

PAGB 9

199 230

261 276 308 313 336

377 391

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FULL PAGE William De Morgan, aetat. 76 (in Photogravure)

Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

. . 56

. 72

. . 84

The Sons of Professor De Morgan . . . . „ Sketch in imitation of Caravaggio, by E. Burne-Jones The Alchemist's Daughter, picture by William De Morgan . Tile, by William De Morgan, in the possession of Mr. Ilalsey

Ricardo 88

Lustre bottle, by William De Morgan ..... 96 Letter written by William De Morgan to his cousin. Miss Fanny

Lustre bowl, by William De Morgan ...... 120

A Peacock, a dish ......... 126

Boreas and the Dying Leaves, picture by Evelyn De Morgan • 136

A Panel of Six Tiles 150

The Daughters of the Mist, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . • 160

The Storm-Spirits, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . , • 166

The Mater Dolorosa, sculpture by Evelyn De Morgan . .,• 176

Medusa in bronze, sculpture by Evelyn De Morgan . . . 186

Aurora Triumphans, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . . • 192

Love's Passing, picture by Evelyn De Morgan .... 200

Vase in gold and silver lustre, by William De Morgan . . 216

The god Pan, in pottery, by William De Morgan , . . 224

The pottery marks, and a panel in relief, by William De Morgan 228 Saint Christina giving her father's jewels to the poor, picture by

The Little Sea-maid, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . . . 240

The Five Mermaids, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . . .. 248

The Valley of Shadows, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . . 260

William De Morgan, from a photograph ...... 264

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamund, picture by Evelyn De Morgan 296 The Sleeping Earth and Wakening Moon, picture by Evelyn De

Morgan 308

The Garden of Opportunity, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . . 310

The Poor Man who saved the City, picture by Evelyn De Morgan 312

Portrait of William De Morgan, by Evelyn De Morgan . . 316

No. I, The Vale, Chelsea, from a photograph ..... 320

Helen of Troy, picture by Evelyn De Morgan .... 344

The Worship of Mammon, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . . 358

The Moonbeams dipping into the Sea, picture by Evelyn De Morgan 368 Headstone for the grave of William De Morgan, designed by

Evelyn De Jvlorgan .....,,.,. 376

In Memoriam, picture by Evelyn De Morgan . ,. . ., 386

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

PAGE

Composite monogram for himself and his wife, designed by William De Morgan ..... Below dedication

Sketch by William De Morgan of Eagle and Rabbit ... 14 " An Earl riding on a Caterpillar," sketch by William De Morgan 50 Mrs. Bale, pen-sketch by William De Morgan, setat. 16 . -55 Sketches by E. Burne-Jones for the game of " Cartoons "

Sketch in pencil by William De Morgan, " At the Stores " . . loi

Sketch by William De Morgan entitled " The Present Shape of

the Wellington Statue" . . . . . . .119

Sketches by William De Morgan in a letter to Margaret Burne- Jones .......... 123, 124

Sketch by William De Morgan in a letter to E. Burne-Jones,

Pencil sketch in a note-book by William De Morgan, " Une De-

mande en Mariage" ........ 131

" Hanging Day," a sketch in pencil by William De Morgan . . 152

"James Lee's Wife," sketch in a note-book by William De Morgan after reading Robert Browning ..... 307

Two-legged dragon tail-piece, by William De Morgan . . . 335

Chapter I 1710-1839

THE immediate ancestors of William De Morgan are described as Anglo-Indians, although they were of French descent. Unfortunately Colonel De Morgan, his grandfather, sent all the family documents on board a ship bound for England, called the Pondicherry, which went to the bottom ; and among the papers which then perished were some of great interest dating prior to the period when the Edict of Nantes forced the Huguenot De Morgans to fly from their native country. The publication of Mrs. Penny's history of Fort St. George recalled to William De Morgan a fact which he had then forgotten, namely that his great-great-grandfather, John De Morgan, was a native-bom Frenchman who married a French wife, and that this man's son Augustus, by birth a Frenchman, married a Dane ! ' However,' was William's comment, ' we are English enough now ! '

There are many Celtic names still to be found with the French prefix in Brittany and Normandy ; but the practice of inscribing the ' De ' with a capital letter has become distinctive of this particular branch of the De Morgan family. An apparently apocryphal story runs that William's father, the celebrated mathematician, Professor De Morgan, declared emphatically that he was an Englishman, and that if there was, unluckily, a foreign prefix attached to his name, it should be treated as part of the surname. On one occasion Sir John Herschel, writing to him, apologized for enclosing a letter in which the correspondent referred to him as ' the well-known de Morgorgon,' to which the Professor replied : —

' As to the little dees, and Morgorgon, it is not the first time ! — My old friend Parish (the Professor's son) could not call me anything else ! — It went against his conscience to the day of his death. " But why is the gentleman not called de Morgorgon ? " — I am constantly tempted to make a mistake in one Greek name because in the second-hand book hsts it always comes after mine. Look in any book-list of a miscellaneous character, and you will see the following : —

De Moivre

De Morgan

De Mosthenes.' 21

The record of the paternal forefathers of William De Morgan, however, as far as this can now be traced, shows them to have been possessed of war-like propensities rather than any inclination towards literature or art. John De Morgan, previously referred to, presumably impoverished by the misfortunes of his family, is supposed to have followed a practice much resorted to at that date by men of birth and education, great numbers of whom entered the service of the East India Company as private soldiers in order to secure what was otherwise almost impossible of attainment — a passage out in the Company's ships; their subsequent objective being to gain a Commission by passing through the ranks. John is said to have dropped the De, which his son afterwards revived, and landing in India July ii, 1710, from on board the Bouverie, he became Sergeant in the garrison of Fort St. George. In 1715 he was made Ensign for his bravery in action, and later he became Governor of Forts St. David and Ajengo, occasionally acting in the same capacity at Fort St. George. When he retired in 1748, he was the first military man to be granted a pension for long and distinguished service ; and he died, a fine old veteran, in 1760, his burial taking place in Publicat, where his tomb, with its Latin epitaph, may be seen in the quaint Dutch cemetery.

While still an Ensign, John De Morgan had married twice, both wives being French women, but only by the second, Mrs. Turbevdlle,^ did he have issue, a family of five daughters and four sons.

The former were perhaps remarkable for the fact that they all married, the eldest three times, and three out of the remaining four twice ; so that innumerable descendants soon existed of the veteran, John De Morgan, many of whom likewise gave their services to promote the w^elfare of the British Empire in India. Of his sons, however, only one survived him, Augustus, bom in 1739, who became an officer in the Artillery and married Christina, the Danish lady before mentioned, a daughter of the Rev. Conrade Huttemann.

This young pair were foredoomed to tragedy. Christina died in 1774, and, three months after, her infant son was buried in the same grave in a lonely fort at Ganjam. Four years later, her husband, then aged thirty-nine, with two other officers, was blo\vn up in a battery at the taking of Pondicherry, a name which seemed of ill-omen to his family.

' The name, according to the laxity in spelling of those days, is entered variously as Turville and Tivill in the records. John Tivill was ' Chief ' of Masulipatam, our first settlement on tlie coast of India ; but property belonging to the Tubervilles, was left in the charge of St. Mary's Vestry, and Mrs. John De Morgan's grandson claimed this property as heir at law, and made good his claim.

A curious story has been told in connexion with Captain De Morgan's death. It is said that, on the morning of the fatal day, he distinctly foretold that he and his two companions would perish in the engagement which was about to take place. Further, so convinced was he of the truth of his prediction, that he made his will which, in confirmation of the tale, bears the date of his decease. This story has been cited as a remarkable instance of the fulfilment of a presentiment, but a little investigation robs it of its uncanny element. The fact was that Captain De Morgan, a clever and observant officer, had noted that the battery which he was to command was unduly exposed owing to its faulty construction. He represented this to the engineer officers and to the Commander-in-Chief without avail ; the engineers denied the truth of his statement and the Commander sided with them. So Captain De Morgan went bravely to his death, aware that the engagement must end fatally for himself and his two companions who were posted with him, and in the disaster which occurred his head was severed from his body by a cannon which bore the euphonious name of ' Sweet-lips. ' But it was left to his grandson, many years later, to remark what was actually the curious aspect of the story — that a gallant soldier constantly exposed to death, did not consider any danger save a flaw in engineering to be a sufficient reason for making his will !

Of the three sons of that ill-starred couple — the Frenchman Augustus and his Danish wife — two lived to man's estate. Both entered the army ; George Augustus, the elder, who was in the Madras Cavalry, took part in an action against Tippoo's troops in 1792, and disappeared. His body was never found, but nothing was ever heard of him subsequently. The other surviving son, John, born in 1772, became an officer in the 22nd Madras Infantry.

This later John, afterwards Colonel De Morgan, while stiU a lieutenant, married in 1798, in Colombo, Elizabeth Dodson, one of the eleven children and nine daughters of John Dodson of the Custom House, London, and granddaughter of James Dodson, F.R.S., a noted mathematician of his day, author of the Anti- Logarithm's Canon.

The untoward fate, however, which at this date dogged the footsteps of the De Morgans, pursued John and Elizabeth. Of their seven children the two eldest when quite young were dispatched to England, in June, 1804, on board the Prince of Wales, an East Indiaman. The ship was caught in a storm and wrecked off the Cape, and the two boys presumably perished ; but no conclusive proof of their death was ever obtained, any more than had been the case with their uncle, George Augustus ; and the uncertainty of their fate always preyed on the mind of their unhappy mother and of the father, who was so soon to foUow them.

It was two years after this tragic event, on June 27, 1806, that Augustus, the fifth child of this couple, and the future celebrated mathematician, was born at Madura, in the l^Iadras Presidency. His father had held Staff appointments at several stations in India, and at the time when his wife was expecting the birth of this son, he chose Madura in preference to Vellore on account of its superior quietness. This choice proved fortunate for himself, as the native troops of the battalion of his regiment, which was at Vellore, mutinied, and in the terrible outbreak which followed. Colonel Fanshawe, who commanded it in his place, was murdered with several other English officers.

Even in the comparative peace of Madura, night after night Colonel De Morgan would creep stealthily out of bed to listen to the conversation of the Sepoys in order to learn if a like fate threatened himself and his helpless wife and children. In consequence of the continued unrest in India, when Augustus was seven months old, his father determined no longer to risk the danger of a residence there for those he loved, and returned to England with his wiie, two small daughters, and his infant son. On this decision primarily hinged the fact that the long military record of his family was broken, and that Augustus, and in due course the latter's son, William De Morgan, did not follow the profession to which all their predecessors and most of their contemporary relations belonged, but became instead peaceful civilians.

After settling his family in England — first at Worcester, later in Devonshire, and finally at Taunton, Somersetshire — Colonel De Morgan twice re- visited India. On the last occasion he went to take command of a battalion at Quinton, but tv/o years afterwards, in 1816, he was ordered home on account of ill-health, and a brief record notes that 'he died at sea on board the Company's ship Larking two days af+er passing the Cape ' — not far from the locality where, twelve years previously, his two eldest sons had presumably perished. A rigid Evangelical in tenets and practice — a heritage, doubtless, from his Huguenot ancestry — Colonel De Morgan was known to his fellow officers by the nickname of ' Bible John,' and in a review which appeared shortly after his death he was described as the ' friend of Christianity in India.' In connexion with this phrase, a curious incident occurred forty years afterwards, to which we shall refer later.

Elizabeth De Morgan, left with a young family of four surviving children, appears to have brought them up strictl}^ but well. To Augustus, her eldest living son, she was devoted, and describes him as a quiet, thoughtful boy, never so well pleased as when he could get her to listen to his reading and explanations, ' always speculating on things that nobody else thought of, and asking her questions far beyond her power to answer ' — characteristics which were inherited, in turn, by his own children.

The boy, however, suffered under one great affliction. At birth he had lost the sight of his right eye, owing to the complaint known as ' sore eye ' in India, and this proving a handicap to his taking part in active games, doubtless enhanced his natural love of study. He likewise exhibited great musical talent ; even as a small child so sensitive was his ear, that a discordant note sounded upon the piano would make him start and shiver as ii in pain ; and he early learnt to play upon the flute most exquisitely. But, for a time, none seem to have suspected the existence of that other inheritance which was to make him celebrated, neither, apparently, might it have been looked upon with unqualified approval by his relations. His wife relates : —