Norman - Beatrix potter - her inner world

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes ,

By the deep sea and music in its roar

Lord Byron: Childe Harolds Pilgrimage C.IV, st. 178

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by
PEN & SWORD HISTORY
an imprint of
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Copyright Andrew Norman, 2014

ISBN 978-1-78159-191-8

eISBN 9781473831810

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A. K. Bell Library, Perth; Armitt Collection; Athenaeum; Birnam Institute; Blackpool Central Library; Blair Castle Archives; British Mycological Society; Chapter House Museum, Dunkeld, Perthshire; Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey (Archives); Childrens Youth & Womens Health Service; Dunkeld Tourist Information Centre; General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches; Geological Society, Burlington House, Picadilly, London; Harris Manchester College, Oxford; Hawkshead & District Royal British Legion; Kendal Library, Kendal, Cumbria; Kendal Record Office; Lancashire Record Office; Lincolns Inn Library; Linnean Society of London; Magdalen College Archives, Oxford; National Media Museum, Bradford, Yorkshire; National Trust; Oxford University Archives; Perth & Kinross Council Archive, AK Bell Library, Perth; Perth Museum & Art Gallery; Royal Academy Library; Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester; Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Royal College of Art; Royal Holloway, University of London; Royal Society Archives; Scottish Borders Council Archives; Scotsman Publications Ltd; St Mary Abbots Church Archives; Zoological Society of London.

Begona Aguirre-Hudson; David D. Arbuthnot; Gordon Baddeley; Roger Banks; Dr Judy Barbour; Frances Bellis; Geoff Brown; Julia Buckley; Gill Butterfill; Wendy Cawthorne; Sonya and Gavie Chelvanayagam; Sue Cole; Steve Connelly; Robert Cook; Robin Darwall-Smith; the Reverend John Dixon; Marjorie Donald; Stephen Farthing; Professor Sir Christopher Frayling; Jan Garden; Naomi Garnett; Howard Hague; Judith Hall; Dr Stuart Hannabuss; Graham Hardy; Joe Hodgson; Kate Holliday; Judy Taylor Hough; Marie Humphries; Bruce Jackson; Meirian Jump; Sara Kelly; Susan Killoran; Elizabeth King; Ruth Kitchin; Dr Linda Lear; Michele Losse; Liz Hunter MacFarlane; Margaret Mardell; Tracey Melvin; Craig Nelson; Zilla Oddy; Michael Palmer; Leonie Paterson; Norman Porrett; Jennie De Protani; Cliff Reed; Tony Sharkey; Ben Sherwood; Mark Simmons; the Reverend Dr Leonard Smith; Hannah Thomas; Fiona Treffry; Dr Cornelis de Wet; Irene Whalley.

Finally, I am deeply grateful to my beloved wife Rachel for all her help and encouragement.

E VEN PRIOR to her emergence as an infant from the crib (cot) of her nursery bedroom, Beatrix Potter was up against it for, with her prodigious memory, she could subsequently recall having been placed under the tyranny of a cross old nurse.

Many sadnesses were to follow. With no siblings of her own age, her brother Bertram, being almost six years younger, she was brought up virtually in isolation with regard to having playmates of her own age for reasons which will later be explained. Beatrix was afflicted by two most unpleasant illnesses one of which adversely affected her for the remainder of her life. She found herself often at odds with her mother with whom there was a clash of personalities, and hated living in London, much preferring to be in the countryside. A favourite poem of hers reads as follows:

As I walked by myself,

And talked to myself,

Myself said unto me,

Look to thyself,

Take care of thyself,

For nobody cares for thee.

I answered myself ,

And said to myself ,

In the self-same repartee ,

Look to thyself ,

Or not to thyself ,

The self-same thing will be .

This poem, which is full of poignancy and sadness, has several inner meanings. It suggests that Beatrix felt the need to be self-sufficient and self-reliant because nobody cared for her. Whether this was true or not will be discussed later. It also hints at the fact she was apt to retreat into a private world of her own.

Beatrix escaped from the pain and sorrow of the world, and from what Shakespeare referred to as the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, by creating for herself another world, one to which only she had access. The paradox was, however, that when she chose to reveal part of this private world of hers to the world at large, it resulted in her becoming, arguably, the best-known writer of illustrated childrens books in the real world.

B EATRIX Potter was born at the family home, No. 2 Bolton Gardens, Kensington, London on 28 July 1866, which was the twenty-ninth year of the sovereign, Queen Victorias, reign. This was a modern, commodious, semi-detached, terraced house of four storeys (including basement), with seven main bedrooms and four reception rooms, and into which the Potters had only recently moved. No. 2 Bolton Gardens was staffed by a butler, a cook, a housekeeper, two housemaids and a nurse; a groom and a coachman were also in attendance. From an upstairs window the South Kensington Museum (later, the Victoria & Albert Museum), which had been opened in 1857 by Queen Victoria and her husband, Albert, the Prince Consort, could clearly be seen, as a watercolour painting by Beatrix, dated 1882, testifies. Adjacent to that building was the newly-opened British Museum of Natural History (in the style German Romanesque, and the size of a medieval cathedral) which was to have important implications for Beatrix in the years to come.

The Potters were well to do, upper middle-class people. Beatrixs mother, Helen, was the daughter of John Leech (I), a Lancashire cotton magnate. Her father, Rupert, was the son of Edmund Potter, owner of the Dinting Vale calico-printing works in Derbyshire, the largest of its kind in the world. (Calico was a plain, woven fabric made from unbleached cotton out of which clothes, fabrics, and furnishings were made; coloured designs having been printed onto it.)