The best-known book about members of the
Gosse family is Edmund's Father and Son
[1 and see above], published in 1907. Edmund wrote it anonymously because he
knew its subject matter would cause a stir, describing as it does the conflict
between profound, and unyielding, religious belief and a less inhibited view of
life. Readers get the impression that Philip Henry Gosse was a repressive and
hectoring father in trying to maintain Edmund within his version of the
Christian fold and Edmund uses the book to express resentments about his upbringing.
To be fair, there is also much in the book that is positive about the relationship
between father and son and there is no question that Henry was a loving father,
despite the religious straitjacket he also expected his son to wear.
Edmund always felt warmly towards
his stepmother Eliza (Henry's first wife Emily having died of breast cancer
when Edmund was a small boy) and relations between Henry and Edmund were
enhanced when Edmund married Ellen (Nellie) Epps [2] who was a wonderful
mediator. In contrast to his upbringing as an only child in a loving, but
restricting, home, Edmund's children had a different experience. We know something
of their life from the recollections of Kathleen Fisher (see below) and they
went on to follow both the interests of their parents and their grandfather,
whom they loved and who loved them. They were also strong defenders of Edmund's
reputation; something that was attacked for the lack of accuracy to which Edmund
was prone.
The three children of Edmund and Nellie
Gosse were Emily Teresa (Tessa) (1877-1951), Philip Henry George (1879-1959)
and Laura Sylvia (1881-1968). I presume that Tessa's first name came from
Edmund's mother; Philip's first two names were those of Edmund's father; and
Sylvia's first name was in honour of Nellie's sister.
Like her father, Tessa had a gift
for languages. She was proud of having studied Classics at Newnham College
Cambridge and retained an affinity with other graduates of the College. This
"club membership" was important to her and it is possible that, like Edmund,
she had a tendency to snobbishness. In part, this may have been because she was
over-sensitive and "suffered greatly from rebuffs" [3]. She was an
animal lover and a woman of principle, being a supporter of the Suffragettes,
with whom she intended to march of 10 Downing Street, and she was a frequent
letter writer to The Times. Tessa sounds
to have been a difficult character.
Philip was more easygoing, with a
reputation for being lazy [3]. From boyhood, he was fascinated by Natural History
and his visits to his grandfather must have enhanced his passion for the
subject. Henry Gosse was quite the opposite of lazy and would have leapt at the
opportunities that Philip enjoyed as a child, including an education at
Haileybury and the chance of going on to Cambridge. Under pressure from his
father, he ended up studying medicine at St Bartholomew's Medical School and,
after a short spell as a houseman, became a General Practitioner in Hampshire
[4]. Like both his father and his grandfather, Philip was also a writer and became
an expert on pirates. Readers of Father
and Son will be familiar with the fascination that Edmund developed with
nautical adventures after reading Tom
Cringle's Log, a book that was passed to him by his father, much to
Edmund's surprise, as Henry, and especially Emily, had been very restrictive in
what they felt was suitable reading for the boy. Tom Cringle's Log was written by Michael Scott, a planter on
Jamaica [5], and it is likely that Henry kept the book as a reminder of his
time there, when he collected specimens and studied the Natural History of the
island. It came as a revelation to Edmund and the stories of adventure
stimulated his imagination. This is what he wrote in Father and Son [1]:
It was like giving
a glass of brandy neat to some one who had never been weaned from a milk diet.
I have not read Tom Cringle's Log
from that day to this, and I think that I should be unwilling now to break the
charm of memory, which may be largely illusion.. ..There were certain scenes
and images in Tom Cringle's Log which
made not merely a lasting impression upon my mind, but tinged my outlook upon
life. The long adventures, fightings and escapes, sudden storms without, and
mutinies within, drawn forth as they were, surely with great skill, upon the
fiery blue of the boundless tropical ocean, produced on my inner mind a sort of
glimmering hope, very vaguely felt at first, slowly developing, long stationary
and faint, but always tending towards a belief that I should escape at last
from the narrowness of the life we led at home, from this bondage to the Law
and the Prophets.
He likely passed on the stories
to Philip and maybe this is how the latter's interest in piracy developed,
resulting in several books, including his History
of Piracy.
From reading Natural History books,
Philip became interested in Charles Waterton and his travels in South America
[6]. Waterton, a "larger than life" character, wrote of these
adventures in several books and Philip became one of his biographers,
publishing The Squire of Walton Hall,
the book being named after Waterton's title and the large house in which he
lived in Yorkshire. Although Henry Gosse and Charles Waterton were both observers
of animals and plants, they were very different in their beliefs and their approaches. Waterton was born 18 years before Henry and was educated at
Stonyhurst; the Jesuit college cementing his strong adherence to
Catholicism. This alone would have made Henry, a member of the Brethren, fill
with disdain, but so would Waterton's casual descriptions of animals using common
names. However, he was a populariser of Natural History and it is interesting
to speculate on why Philip chose him as a subject. Was it because Waterton was something
of a hero figure to him and was he following his father's lead in making a
veiled attack on Henry's position?
Sylvia followed her mother and
aunt in being passionate about painting and she dedicated her life to it.
Interestingly, there were painters on both sides of the family. In addition to
the Epps sisters [2], Henry Gosse was recognised for his beautiful illustrations
[7] and he, in turn, received training from his father, Thomas Gosse, who was
primarily a painter of miniatures. Sylvia, however, painted on a larger scale
and she became a close friend of Walter Sickert, from whom she also developed an
interest in etching. Apart from her work as a painter and etcher, Sylvia made a
lifelong study of birds (echoes of her grandfather?) and she loved good food
and wine, something that quite possibly developed during time spent in France
when she was young [3].
In her reflections, Kathleen
Fisher has this to say about Henry's grandchildren's religious upbringing and,
more specifically, Sylvia's beliefs [3]:
I do not know what
religious upbringing Edmund Gosse's children had, if any. They did, however,
say morning and evening prayers in the nursery because their governess told
them to do so. When I became friendly with Sylvia she would often take me to
visit churches and she would always make sure that I was in time for Mass and would
have breakfast awaiting me on my return. But we never discussed religion. Once
she declared herself to be a heathen, which of course she was not, and another
time she joked, 'You think you are the only one who goes to church but you
might be surprised to know that I attend regularly – once a year, at
Christmas!'
How different to the
all-encompassing seriousness of Henry Gosse's approach to religion that so
influenced Sylvia's father and it was a blessing that Henry could not be
present when Sylvia died, as a Requiem Mass was said for her. Whatever his love
for his grandchildren, that would have been one step too far.
It is not surprising that Henry's
rigid Christian beliefs were not passed down through the family, yet his love
of Natural History, of writing and of painting do find expression in his
grandchildren. Certainly, Edmund and Nellie encouraged these interests and
their circle of friends included many artists and writers who also provided
influence. This is yet another contrast to the solitary world in which Edmund
grew up and the relationship of Gosse the father and Gosse the son must have
encouraged Edmund and Nellie to a much freer approach to parenting; something that
was aided by Edmund's immersion in the "wide world" of the Arts and of human society.
Most would agree that all families are fascinating, but
the three generations of Gosses seem especially so.
[1] Edmund Gosse (1907) Father and Son: A Study Of Two Temperaments.
London, William Heinemann.
[3] Kathleen Fisher (1975) Conversations with Sylvia: Sylvia Gosse. Painter
1881-1968. London, Charles Skilton Ltd.
[4] Raymond Lister (2004-2016) Gosse, Philip Henry George (1879-1959),
general practitioner and writer on natural history. Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
[5] J. R. MacDonald rev. Lucy
Kelly Hayden (2004-2016) Scott, Michael
(1789-1835), planter in Jamaica and writer. Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
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