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Keble College Chapel, choir and sanctuary, facing east (interior). Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Today, 23 November, is Mary Gladstone's birthday.  How better to honor the day than to share a delightful birthday that she had in 1875. Daughter of Liberal Prime Minister Gladstone, Mary was an exemplary Victorian and Edwardian lady, as was to be expected. But she also knew how to revel in pleasure -- and that's a little less expected.

We often associate men and women who lived in Victorian Britain with seriousness. We see it in the sober attire and grave expressions of nineteenth-century photography.  In school we study Oscar Wilde's waspish characterization of the age in his play, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People. And our cultural legacy passes down to us stories of upright behavior and self-discipline. However, such rationality and gravitas is only half the story. Many of those same plain-spoken Victorians also thrilled to the sumptuous beauty expressed in visual, literary and musical art.

William Ewart Gladstone's family is a case in point. The statesman and his family were undoubtedly exemplars of philanthropic zeal, and they were also deeply touched by beauty. When she celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday, for instance, Mary began with early chapel at Magdalen College, Oxford. She heard, 'by my request Handel O.[rgan] Concerto in F. (1st movement Perfectly Gorgeous, overwhelming row) + Bach G minor. never has my birthday been so distinguished - excited to desperation.' (Diary, British Library). Gorgeous means: 'Adorned with rich or brilliant colours; sumptuously gay or splendid; showy, magnificent' (OED). Mary Gladstone uses this term of color and show to describe organist Walter Parratt's reverberating rendition of her favorite pieces by Handel and Bach. Just imagine hearing this dazzling sound within a stunning gothic space: the fifteenth-century Magdalen College chapel. Magadelen College Chapel, Oxford. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

When I visited Keble College, Oxford earlier this month, simply stepping into the chapel and seeing Holman Hunt's The Light of the World was awe inspiring. The comparison is apt, for Mary was staying at Keble with her cousins, Edward and Lavinia Talbot (the first Warden and his wife). I can only imagine how soul-energizing it would be to add a lush sonority to the visual splendor there or at Magadalen. But 'excited to desperation'  -- that's a surprising formulation, especially given how we usually imagine a decorous Victorian lady.

No wonder Mary felt glum upon leaving Oxford later the same day. '[B]ut cheer up,' she wrote in her diary.  '[I] am to come for the opening of the beautiful [Keble College] Chapel [...] wh. by the way has now got all its windows but 2 in, most of the mosaics finished, and a great deal of the marbles in, the immense height has a wonderful effect on one.' The promised return to the 'gorgeous new chapel' (there's that word again), designed in high Victorian gothic by William Butterfield, sees her through (14 to 17 May 1876, Diary, BL). When she did return, Mary was 'enormously impressed. richness + height are what strike you most. A good deal of echo, but it makes rather a grand confusion in the music.' (13 to 17 May 1876, BL). The musical offerings, Lavinia tells us in her diary, were Gregorgian chants and harmonized hymns sung to candlelight (705:104 BA15492/229/5 and 230/5, Lyttelton Collection, Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service). How atmospheric!

Mary felt it to be a return to a more prosaic existence, but her next stop would undoubtly fill most of us today with a continued sense of the exotic. Gladstone's daughter finished her birthday at the 3rd Earl Brownlow and Lady Adelaide's home, Ashridge in Hertfordshire, where Mary found 'all the world + his wife.' (Diary, BL). The Gothic Revival house built by James Wyatt  was famous at the time for its house parties. Mary's diary recalls dinners followed by her progressive performances of Brahms and the overture to Wagner's Lohengrin at the keyboard; entertainments of reciting Dante, Matthew Arnold (poems), and Tennyson; and tableaux. The latter, and Adelaide's dress style, were anything were anything but staid: 'Adelaide + Pembroke did tableaux + looked ideal but laughed hopelessly. Roman peasants', wrote Mary in her diary. 'She was glorious last night in deep red velvet - at tea time today in white embroidered with gold[,] regular toga sort of thing.' (23-25 Nov).

How did Mary finish her birthday celebrations? She '[w]rote to the whole family' the next day (Diary).  Apropos of the opulent beauty that she loved, Mary's thank you letter to her father again reveals an unexpected sensuality: Mary Gladstone to W.E. Gladstone, 24 November 1875. The Flintshire Record Office, GG 603. All images used with permission. See the end of the post for the transcription. The Aeneids of Virgil was published in 1874-5 by Pre-Raphaelites William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Charles F. Murray. To my way of thinking, the gorgeous book, with its rich illustrations and illuminations, is a sort of visual equivalent to hearing Bach and Handel in Gothic or Gothic revival chapels. We know that Mr. Gladstone responded with pleasure to the new Keble College chapel, and he probably also enjoyed Mary's book recommendation, for father and daughter frequently read the same literature. It's a rather different representation of the Grand Old Man of British politics than we usually assume. We also see that Gladstone had written a letter, probably along the lines of the birthday letters found in this blog's other posts (filled with earnest good wishes and prayers). Mary's response, mentioning the magnificent Aeneids alongside the more formulaic birthday letter, gestures to the yeasty mix of serious belief, great classics of the past, and the adornments of modern interpretation.

I think that John Everett Millais captured something of Gladstone's complexity in the famous portrait of 1879, especially if it is viewed with the context in mind that I have just traced. It seems to me that Gladstone's eyes and expression reveal particular humanity and sensitivity: William Ewart Gladstone by Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Bt. Oil on canvas, 1879. 49 1/2 in. x 36 in. (1257 mm x 914 mm). Transferred from Tate Gallery: London: UK, 1957. NPG 3637. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

As one of the original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Millais helped to revolutionize how past and present could be perceived, as seen in jewel-toned paintings like Ophelia (1851-2). He was a pioneer in the world that I have been describing, even though he used a darker palette for his portrait of Gladstone. Still, '[i]t is as good as ever it can be, + a startling likeness', Mary responded to first seeing the painting in Millais's house (7 April 1879, Diary, BL). Her enthusiasm increased at the Royal Academy's private viewing:  'The Millais is more + more splendid, + was the one topic + subject of universal admiration.' (2 May 1879, Diary). When Mary eavesdropped at the public showing, she discovered more diverse opinions: '"He looks a hard man - yes, but what an intelligent face - fine head." Another "He don't care a blow what anybody says" "Splendid"' (30 and 31 May 1879, Diary). The range of subjective response implies the complexity of Gladstone's personality,  the period, and the role of the arts: intense,  intelligent and ... splendid.

Happy Birthday, Mary Gladstone!



Weliver, Phyllis. “A Victorian Birthday Celebration: Turning 28 in Musical Oxford.” Gladstone's Daughter: Living Liberalism. 23 November 2015. Web blog post. Date accessed (http://www.phyllisweliver.com/new-blog-1/2015/11/16/bfjujzjekq7vsh8byk5cpyfo93g48v).

Weliver, P. (2015, Nov 23) A Victorian Birthday Celebration: Turning 28 in Musical Oxford. Web log post. Retrieved from http://www.phyllisweliver.com/new-blog-1/2015/11/16/bfjujzjekq7vsh8byk5cpyfo93g48v

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ke...
 
What?! “Ladies don't applaud”? I found this statement while looking through composer C. Hubert H. Parry's unpublished diaries. He was writing about the fortnightly musical salons held at the London home of his teacher, Edward Dannreuther. Tucked away in the middle of the entry about this concert, ...
 What to Call a Political Salon in Victorian London

When guests accepted the invitation to a “Thursday Breakfast” at 10 Downing Street, clearly they thought of it as the prime minister’s salon.  Wouldn’t you, if you were one of the lucky nine invited to Downing Street?
 Gladstone, Liberalism and Music: Political Leadership and Popular Legacy

Arthur Balfour’s baiting of W.E. Gladstone in the House of Commons may be what we most remember about how these two British Prime Ministers interacted. Gladstone, almost forty years older than Balfour, was the epitome of the passionately earnest Victorian statesman, while Balfour was among the first of a new type of modern British politician: suave and publicly reserved. How surprising that they frequently met socially, coming together in rollicking fun and music-making.
 The Tennysons at Home: Farringford

The wind is whipping around me as I write this at Farringford, the home of Alfred Lord Tennyson on the Isle of Wight.  Being here brings Tennyson's poetry alive for me in a new way. It had a similar impact on Mary Gladstone, the thirty-one-year-old daughter of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. She visited the poet and his family in 1879, and walked the downs with Tennyson while he recited his poetry. Despite being used to socializing with celebrated men and women of her day, Mary still felt nervous exhilaration at staying with Britain’s Poet Laureate. She wrote in detail about this noteworthy event, including the layout of Farringford and its garden. Such descriptions inform us about the lives of Mary Gladstone and the Tennysons, situate Tennyson's poetry in the landscape that he loved, and contextualize Farringford itself, which will open to the public as a museum in 2017.
 A Victorian Birthday Celebration: Turning 28 in Musical Oxford

Although we often associate Victorians with seriousness, such gravitas is only half the story. This post traces what happened on the 28th birthday of Prime Minister Gladstone's daughter, showing how she thrilled to the gorgeousness of music by request played at Magdalen College, Oxford; her reaction to the new Keble College Chapel; the house party that she attended at Ashridge; and the birthday thank you letter that she wrote to her father. At the end, it briefly considers Gladstone's connections to Pre-Raphaelite art.
 A 25th Musical Birthday in Oxford

"My 25th birthday, how beastly to be a quarter of a century," Mary Gladstone wrote in her diary. And yet what an exciting time it was to have a birthday in Oxford. Mary's diary and twenty-fifth birthday letter reveals her participation in musical life at Oxford, and her close association with educational pioneers in the earliest days of Keble College and Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford, and Newnham and Selwyn Colleges, Cambridge. Women may not have been able to take degrees at Oxbridge, but their positions as sisters, wives and cousins allowed them frequent access to college parlors where they wielded influence as bright conversationalists and enthusiastic music-makers.




Mary Gladstone's extensive manuscript writings show a living liberalism through the intimate details of Victorian family life. Born in 1847, this daughter of British Prime Minister Gladstone was the only woman among his private secretariat. The blog posts transcriptions and annotations of Mary Gladstone's unpublished life writing along with relevant images. Comments remain open for a fortnight.

All manuscript images are copyright material. They may not be reproduced without the permission of the Gladstone family, c/o Gladstone's Library. Quoting or paraphrasing the intellectual content on this blog must acknowledge Phyllis Weliver as the author.
