Thomas Gosse was an artist, his son Philip Henry Gosse a famous natural historian, his grandson Sir Edmund Gosse a noted literary figure, and nephew Thomas Bell a professor and President of the Linnean Society. Although we know much about these men, especially of Henry and Edmund, their stories may have been different, and perhaps less well-known, if it was not for Susan Bell and two other women: Emily Bowes and Nellie Epps.
Susan was the sister of Thomas Gosse and, according to him, “of a more refined and cultivated mind than the rest” of his family [1]. Being 15 years older, she had a strong influence on Thomas and he writes in his unpublished autobiography [2]:
I had always an inclination for
drawing.. ..I would often take a piece of chalk and draw the outlines of
various common and familiar objects on the wall or on the kitchen door. My
parents, witnessing my propensity as described, thought it would be useless to
bring me up to a common trade, and therefore were resolved at length to give it
encouragement. Accordingly, early in 1777 my school education was resigned for
the practice of drawing at home; and here my sister Susan, afterwards Mrs Bell,
became my tutoress. A drawing-book was bought for me, and another borrowed,
with other necessary items. Thus I went on learning by degrees the art of
drawing, in order that I might subsequently become a painter by profession.
From these beginnings, Thomas had instruction from various experts and became a student at the Royal Academy in Somerset House, attending classes and lectures, and he then became a pupil engraver. Armed with this training, Thomas became an itinerant painter “not on paper but on ivory” [1] - a painter specialising in miniatures. Thwaite [1] remarks: “He carried with him little more than his Bible, his Theocritus and the tools of his trade, but he was clothed with the armour of righteousness and stoicism.”
Henry Gosse, like his father, received instruction in
drawing from Susan and she also passed on to him her passion for natural history,
after he had moved, with his family, to Poole, where Susan lived (and seen
above in a near-contemporary view by Turner – her house is shown in [3]). She
had married Thomas Bell, a surgeon, and her son, also Thomas Bell, was born in
1792, so was 18 years older than Henry. Thomas went on to have a distinguished
career in both Zoology and Dentistry, being “responsible for innovations in the
use of various dental instruments and [he] was the first to treat teeth as
living structures by applying scientific surgery to dental disease” [4].
Thomas’ work in zoology focussed mainly on crustaceans, amphibians and reptiles,
and he was responsible for describing animals in the latter group that had been
collected on the voyage of HMS Beagle. In addition to his position as Professor
of Zoology at King’s College London, Thomas also served as President of the
Linnean Society and chaired the famous meeting on 1st July 1858, when papers by Charles
Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace on the origin of species were presented (neither author being present).
Although on friendly terms with Darwin, Thomas Bell “remained hostile to the theory of evolution throughout his life” [4], but further in the piece by Cleevely [4], we read that:
Darwin always regarded him as a delightful, kind-hearted man, and believed that a more good-natured person did not exist but that his overwhelming administrative roles and professional work prevented him from achieving very much.
He was certainly invaluable to Henry Gosse, as it was Thomas Bell who introduced Henry to the publisher John Van Voorst, who accepted Henry’s first book The Canadian Naturalist. He also recommended Henry to be the author of books on natural history, then being planned by SPCK (The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge), and the income from Henry’s publications allowed him to begin his career as a writer, illustrator and lecturer.
Clearly then, Aunt Bell was both an important direct, and also indirect, influence on Henry Gosse and his love of natural history. It should also be noted that both Henry and Thomas were uncomfortable with the idea of evolution by natural selection, and this became acute for Henry who went on to publish Omphalos, his “attempt to untie the geological knot.” The knot was the apparent conflict between the increasingly accepted view that the evolution of plants and animals occurred over long periods of time, and the description of Creation in the book of Genesis in The Holy Bible. As Henry’s belief in biblical accounts was absolute, he explained in Omphalos that rock strata and fossils, of which he had an excellent knowledge, were created along with living organisms within the six days of Creation. To him, they were “prochronic” and his theory was revelatory to him – he really thought he had resolved the conflict. Very few others agreed and the theory of prochronic existence met with derision in some quarters and neither the scientific, or the religious, establishment could accept Herny’s idea. This shook Henry, especially as he had ordered a long print run, as he expected the book to be a big seller.
Omphalos was published in 1857, the same year that Henry’s wife Emily had died, painfully, from breast cancer, leaving him with the care of their young son, Edmund. Henry and Edmund moved to Torquay just weeks before Omphalos appeared and, writing in 1890, two years after Henry’s death, Edmund suggested that [5]:
..it seems to me possible that if
my mother had lived, he might have been prevented from putting himself so
fatally and prominently into opposition to the new ideas. He might probably
have been content to have others to fight out the question on a philosophical
basis, and might himself have quietly continued observing facts, and noting his
observations with his early elegance and accuracy.
It is likely, therefore, that Emily could have persuaded Henry not to write Omphalos. What is certain is that Emily and Henry shared a profound Christian faith, while being different in personality. Edmund writes [5] that “her mind was a singularly gay and cheerful one” and he believes that she had a strong influence on Henry’s writing in books like A Naturalist’s Rambles on the Devonshire Coast and Tenby that were both informative and full of enthusiasm, leading his readers to explore natural history for themselves. So, we not only owe a debt to Henry, but also to Emily and, alongside Aunt Bell, she was a major influence on him.
As he grew up, Edmund became distanced from his father in many ways, but especially over religious beliefs and practice, and their relationship became difficult. Edmund married Nellie Epps, a painter who had studied with the pre-Raphaelites, and she played an important role in maintaining contact between the two men. Nellie was much liked by Henry and his second wife, Eliza, who was herself a warm supporter of all that Henry did. Eliza also had a cordial relationship with Edmund, something that was established when he was a boy.
Three outstanding, yet little known, women and I am pleased to be able to add some notes about Aunt Bell to the earlier pieces that I wrote on Emily [6] and Nellie [7], both of whom I admire very much [8]. We know a great deal about Henry and Edmund Gosse, and a little about Thomas Gosse and Thomas Bell, but all four were very lucky in having relations and/or partners who were such a positive influence on those around them. I would like these women to have their proper place in history.
[1] Ann Thwaite (2002) Glimpses of the Wonderful: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse 1810-1888. London, Faber and Faber
[2] Edmund Gosse (1915) Fragments of the Autobiography of Thomas Gosse. The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 27: 141-150
[4] R.J.Cleevely (2004) Bell, Thomas (1792-1880). The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/2029
[5] Edmund Gosse (1896) The Naturalist of the Sea-Shore: The Life of Philip Henry Gosse. London, William Heinemann.
[6] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2013/10/emily-gosse-notable-evangelical.html
[7] https://rwotton.blogspot.com/2017/08/nellie-epps-nineteenth-century-wonder.html
[8] Roger S Wotton (2020) Walking with Gosse: Natural
History, Creation and Religious Conflicts. e-book, available widely.
