Story Category: Legacy

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Brighton & Hove City Council is running a crowdfunding campaign to help save the distinctive Madeira Terrace on Brighton seafront.

Madeira Road motor track, 1905

Constructed in 1890, the terrace runs from Brighton Aquarium (now the Sea Life Centre) to Duke’s Mound. As a result of corrosion and the cast iron coming to the end of its useful life, funding is required for urgent repairs. Without this funding, the structure could become damaged beyond repair.

Details of the crowdfunding campaign can be found at: https://www.spacehive.com/madeira-terrace. Below is a gallery of images from our collections showing the Madeira Terrace in its prime.

You can view and download more historic images of Brighton & Hove from our Digital Media Bank.

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Paula talks about the mysterious past of Preston Manor. Watch closely and you may see something unusual!  Facebook Live (pre-recorded) 1 April 2018

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In this month’s blog post from Preston Manor, Paula Wrightson tells a Christmas tale of a ghostly apparition, royal tragedies, and Edwardian class divisions, as seen through the eyes of two distinguished guests to the house.

Sir Stephen Gaselee, photograph by Bassano Ltd half-plate glass negative, 17 August 1939 (National Portrait Gallery)

Sir Stephen Gaselee was a first class Cambridge Classics scholar and a man of extraordinary intellect and achievement. His equally brilliant wife, Lady May ‘Mollie’ Gaselee, saw the famous Preston Manor ghost while the couple were staying as guests in the house. Stephen’s suggestion to exorcise the phantom was never acted upon as the Stanfords were proud of their ghostly White Lady.

High Society in late Edwardian Brighton

Sir Stephen and Lady Mollie’s names appear regularly from 1913 to 1929 in the Preston Manor visitors’ book. In 1907 Stephen visited the Thomas-Stanfords’ house in Madeira, as the visitor book from Quinta Stanford at Funchal attests.

It was customary for grand houses to keep a record of guests and two volumes of signatures exist at Preston Manor, providing us today with a peep into Brighton high society in the interwar years.

Signatures of Sir Stephen and Lady Mollie, Christmas 1920

As ghost stories are traditionally told on Christmas Eve it is to Christmas 1920 that I will turn first. That year Christmas Day fell on a Saturday so Stephen and Mollie were probably already established by Friday afternoon in the guest quarters in the newly built west wing. The sumptuous weekend house parties so beloved of the pre-war Edwardians were resumed though perhaps somewhat sobered by the recent devastation of the First World War.

‘We didn’t want to alarm you’

View from guest bedroom in winter

Stephen and Mollie would have been given the principal south-facing guest bedroom which overlooks the croquet lawn and Preston Park. One morning on her way to breakfast Mollie saw a figure on the staircase. Curious, she asked her hostess, ‘who is the lady I saw coming down the stairs? Are there more rooms above?’ Ellen replied, ‘we didn’t want to tell you because we didn’t want to alarm you – we have a ghost but she doesn’t do any harm.’

West wing staircase where Mollie saw the ghost

There are no rooms above the guest bedroom. The figure seen by Mollie descended from some other dimension. It is unlikely the Gaselees were daunted by the prospect of sharing their quarters with a ghost. In fact, such were their intellects they would have had theories of their own on matters paranormal and perhaps these were discussed over the Christmas dinner table.

A troubled royal wedding in Spain

Stephen Gaselee was born in 1882. After Eton he studied Classics at King’s College, Cambridge. In 1905, aged 23, he was appointed tutor to Prince Leopold of Battenberg, the 16 year old son of Ellen Thomas-Stanford’s dear friend, Princess Beatrice, daughter of Queen Victoria.

Princes Leopold and Maurice Battenberg (private collection with permission)

In May 1906 Stephen accompanied Leopold and his 15 year old brother, Maurice, to Madrid for the wedding of their 19 year old sister, Princess Victoria Eugenie, to King Alfonso XIII of Spain.

The journey by sea and rail was recorded by Stephen in his diary and by camera. A particularly poignant shot shows the Princess ‘looking out of the train at me’ in elaborate dress and hat. Victoria, carrying her grandmother’s name, had cause to look apprehensive for there was a 50% probability she was carrying Queen Victoria’s infamous gene for haemophilia that so blighted the royal bloodline. Feared and not fully understood, the blood disorder tainted Victoria’s marriageability. In Spain the match was not favoured by Alfonso’s family for religious as well as dynastic reasons.

Princess Victoria Eugenie, photo and note by Stephen Gaselee

Stephen’s care of Leopold and Maurice would have included concern for their health as the brothers suffered from haemophilia. This meant that the slightest knock or bump could cause painful life threatening internal bleeding.

Victoria and Alfonso’s marriage began with an inauspicious act of violence. An anarchist made an assassination attempt on the king and his new queen by throwing a bomb at the wedding procession. The bomb only narrowly missied Victoria, and succeeded in killing a horse. Stephen’s photograph album contains a postcard of the near-catastrophe and his note on the carnage: ‘the dead white horse.’

The dead white horse (private collection with permission)

Photograph of portrait of May Gaselee by Sir John Collier (private collection with permission)

Sadly the new Spanish queen proved to be a carrier of the haemophilia gene: her two sons also suffered from the condition, including the eldest and heir to the Spanish throne. This would go on to cause irreparable damage to the relationship between Victoria and her husband.

In spite of his haemophilia, Prince Maurice went on to take up a career in the military. He died on active duty at Ypres in 1914 during the First World War. Stephen’s brother, Alec Mansel Gaselee, was also killed in action in Flanders a year later, aged 21. Stephen took up a civilian role: by then a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, he worked in the Foreign Office. In happy respite from the demands of the war, on 26 July 1917 he married the beautiful May Evelyn Hulme.

Women motorcar enthusiasts

May married direct from Cambridge where she graduated with a first class degree in French. In the early 20^th century married women of the Gaslees’ social position were not expected to take on employment. Husband, children and home were the required priorities for a woman, even for one so intellectually gifted.

Catherine, one of Stephen and May’s granddaughters, has provided me with unique family insights allowing a glimpse into May ‘Mollie’ Gaselee’s vibrant personality. Regarding the Preston Manor ghost Catherine writes of her grandmother,

‘She was not one to go around seeing ghosts everywhere…she had a strong Church of England faith, high intelligence and a no-nonsense unsentimental approach to life.’

Catherine tells me that Mollie was ‘extremely intelligent and independent’. Unsurprisingly she took to motoring in the 1920s, a time when women drivers were a rare sight. By this time she’d given birth to two daughters, Ursula and Julitta (Judy). A third daughter, Stephana, was to follow. Stephana’s name suggests she wasn’t the son Stephen was probably hoping for.

The Snip (private collection with permission)

A desire for freedom took Mollie on a search for a car. Catherine writes:

‘So she went to a second-hand dealer and he showed her this car, a Palladium. “It’s a snip, Madam!” he said. Meaning it was a bargain. Ever after, Mollie called it the Snip.’

Early cars were notoriously unreliable as Catherine reveals of the Snip.

‘She used to drive Ursula and Judy around in it. My mother vividly recalled an occasion when they were driving down to Preston Manor but broke down. Apparently they sent their chauffeur to meet them and fix it, but he was not at all happy with his mission! I believe they got there safely in the end!’

Mollie’s grandson, Andrew, tells me that Mollie loved speed and thrilled on car journeys when top speed was reached. Known to her family as ‘Gigi’ she ‘had a few speeding tickets’ but he goes on to remark:

‘I always thought it was one way a woman of her age and class could break out of well-behaved norms.’

Two couples divided by class

Mr & Mrs Watson, Preston manor, c1929

The Preston Manor chauffeur in question was James Watson, whose grandson Graham has provided me with some fascinating insights into the lives of the people whose labours made the Thomas-Stanford’s hospitality possible. His grandmother, Ethel Hannah Watson, sounds as spirited as Mollie Gaselee:

‘…she was a tough old girl. She played football in Preston Park with us boys. She loved gardening and was bad at cooking.’

Graham showed me an extraordinary photograph of Ethel as a young woman in the late 1920s dressed audaciously in her husband’s livery posed against the Thomas-Stanford’s Rolls Royce car (surely on a day when their employers were away from home). Perhaps she too longed to be behind the wheel but Ethel did not have Mollie’s freedoms or finances, so daringly dressing in breeches, jacket and cap was as close to driving as she was going to get.

Mrs Watson in her husband’s livery c.1929 (private collection with permission)

I shared Graham’s anecdote with Catherine, who states;

‘This is a real Upstairs Downstairs Story. How interesting that the servants were so cheeky – as perceived then. But my mother was adamant that it was simply not done for one class to mix with the other so there was doubtless scope for envy that couldn’t be openly expressed.’

Indeed, Mrs Watson and Lady Gaselee would never have spoken even though they must have seen each other in passing at Preston Manor.

Mollie’s title came bestowed via her husband’s appointments, C.B.E (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) awarded in the 1918 New Year Honours for his services to the Foreign Office during the First World War and K.C.M.G, (Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George) 1935.

Lady May ‘Mollie’ and Sir Stephen Gaselee (private collection with permission)

Miss Ursula’s nanny

Ursula and Judy Gaselee (private collection with permission)

In keeping with the custom of the day Mollie and Stephen employed nannies to care for their children. Thereafter the girls attended boarding school. Children frequently became attached to their nannies, especially if their mothers travelled abroad. In the days before air travel much time would elapse before parents and children were reunited. Affection between nannies and their charges could cause emotional struggles as Catherine explains:

‘She (nanny) was dismissed for being too fond of Ursula who was aged about 4. Mum ran after her as the carriage left and Stephen told the footman to bring Miss Ursula back. She was heartbroken. Subsequent nannies were chosen for their strictness. Nanny Perrin was nanny about the time of staying at Preston.’

Unrestricted by day to day childcare the Gaselees had much freedom. Mollie’s diary speaks of a dazzling world unimaginable to ordinary working people like the Watsons.

‘They led an amazing life, travelling round the Med and further abroad, often in the company of other academics and society friends such as the Courthaulds. My grandfather helped Marie, Queen of Romania, with publishing her autobiography, and he knew TS Elliott and Housman.’

Even tales of childhood illness came linked to great personages:

‘Wonderful mix of high society and childhood diseases. My mother gave whooping cough to Lord Tennyson’s grandchild when she stayed with them at Shiplake.’

Catherine’s mother Ursula was born to Stephen and Mollie in April 1919 and died in 2015. It is through the reminiscences of her long life that we know private family details about the Gaselee’s visits to Preston Manor — including the ghost sighting.

Ursula remembered Nanny Perrin’s peeved reaction to the quarters given to guests and their staff whilst staying at Preston Manor. Perhaps Miss Perrin considered the 1905 wing uninterestingly modern compared to the stately antique bedrooms of the main house.

Seen and not heard

The Victorian principle of ‘seen and not heard’ was still applied to children in the 1920s, as Ursula recalled in a 2011 interview:

‘As small children we were expected to keep very quiet and not be any bother since the couple (Charles and Ellen Thomas-Stanford) were already quite elderly. We were instructed not to run. “If she calls you, just walk”…grown-ups had their world and my sister and I had ours and we were expected to keep to it!’

However the Preston Manor dogs proved perilously irresistible.

‘I have fond memories of their dog, Sturdy. He was just a puppy and he loved running around with us two girls. However, we were told off because we were “making him over-excited” and when he got very muddy in the flowerbeds the maids were not pleased to be told they had to bath him!’

Despite muddy frolics with Sturdy the dog, the girls’ best behaviour was amply rewarded: ‘…at Preston I had the best ice-cream I have ever tasted in my life, made with real fruit and cream. I’ve never forgotten it!’

By 25 August 1928 Ursula and Judy, now aged nine and seven, were deemed mature enough to sign the Preston Manor visitors’ book for the first time. Ursula signs with a flourish in imitation of her mother, clearly proud of her skills at joined-up writing. Judy’s signature betrays her tender years but her tremulous effort took some dexterity with a dip-and-ink pen.

Signatures of Ursula and Judy Gaselee, 1928

Such Edwardian childhoods can sound idyllic and charmed but damaged emotional connectivity between mother and children was not always repaired. Mollie suffered the trauma of losing her own mother to tuberculosis when she was nine, perhaps setting the seed for her distant mothering style.

Catherine writes of Mollie’s ‘inability to mother Ursula and Judy.’

‘My mother and Judy were very close as sisters, comforting each other during a succession of strict nannies and a rather loveless childhood. Privileged in some ways but not all.’

Fathers of Stephen’s class and generation were not expected to enter the world of the nursery. ‘Ursula was very fond of her father but he certainly wasn’t the sort to get involved in childcare.’

Good wine and fine living

Charles Thomas-Stanford made his last will and testament on 29 January 1932, five weeks before his death. He appointed Stephen Gaselee, ‘Librarian of the Foreign Office’, his executor and trustee. In recompense for this task Charles gave the sum of £300 adding:

‘I give to the said Stephen Gaselee all the contents of my wine cellar and any wine of mine which may be in the care of wine merchants at the time of my death.’

The Preston Manor wine cellars are enormous, begging the question of how many bottles were stored within. We can never know because the contents have long gone. £300 was a fair sum of money — in 1932 the average house price was £540. However, the Gaselee residence 24 Ashburn Place near the Natural History and Science Museums in South Kensington was an imposing mansion far grander in scale than the average home.

Stephen undoubtedly enjoyed the contents of Charles’s cellar for he was a recognised bon viveur with impeccable tastes. His Foreign Office friend, Ronald Storrs (who was chief pallbearer at the funeral of T. E Lawrence in 1935), described his erudite friend thus whilst he was still a Cambridge undergraduate of twenty:

‘…(he) had a fire every day in the year because England has a cold climate; who founded the Deipnosophists’ dining club, where the members, robed in purple dinner-jackets lined with lilac silk and preluding dashingly on Vodka, would launch forth into an uncharted ocean of good food and even better talk; Gaselee, who read, wrote and spoke Ancient Coptic (which the Copts themselves had not done for 300 years); Gaselee, nightly puffing his long churchwarden* whilst he expatiated on Petronius, vestments, Shark’s Fin and cooking problems; a lay Prince of the Church, Ecclesiastic Militant and Gastronomer Royal.’

(* A churchwarden was a long-stemmed tobacco pipe popular with scholars as smoke was kept distant from the eyes which enabled uninterrupted reading.)

Sir Stephen Gaselee died aged 61 on 15 June 1943 in the middle of the Second World War. Mollie lived a long life, and passed away in 1990 at the age of 96.

I am indebted to Catherine, Sarah and Andrew who have provided me with material for this article and unique access to their grandparent’s photograph albums and diaries. Sir Stephen and Lady May ‘Mollie’ Gaselee were remarkable characters about whom much more could be written. The couple rank high as honoured guests of Charles and Ellen Thomas-Stanford and will always be remembered as important contributors to Preston Manor’s fascinating story.

West wing of Preston Manor

Parts of the west wing of Preston Manor, including the rooms inhabited by the Gaselees and the children’s nanny can be seen on special Behind the Scenes tours. Next programmed public tour is on Saturday 14 April 2018. Private tours can be made by arrangement.

Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer, Preston Manor

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For this year’s national Volunteers’ Week, Jennifer Milarski-Stermšek writes about how volunteering at Preston Manor inspired her to choose it as the venue for her Pagan wedding ceremony last year.

I have always found volunteering to be a rewarding and inspiring experience, but never so much as whilst volunteering at Preston Manor during the Doreen Valiente exhibition last year. The exhibition, using artifacts from the Doreen Valiente Foundation’s collection, gave a never before seen insight into the life of the ‘mother of modern witchcraft’ and Brighton’s most famous witch.

Carving of Janus by Doreen Valiente

I had the opportunity to invigilate the exhibition and also take part in the talks and even a public Pagan ritual in the walled kitchen garden. It was during the ritual that I had the idea to get married at Preston Manor. My then husband-to-be and I were still in the early process of thinking about where we wanted to get married but everything we had seen was just not very ‘us’. Seeing that Preston Manor was so open to the themes and beliefs addressed in the exhibition, and that they were given such a brilliant and public platform confirmed to us how open minded and welcoming Preston Manor is.

Due to the fact that we felt comfortable enough to express ourselves and our beliefs whilst also being in a gorgeous setting that we felt connected to and accepted in, we opted for a handfasting ceremony. Drawing on ancient Pagan traditions, a handfasting is a union between two individuals which involves the wrapping of cords around the couple’s hands in order to bind them to one another.

Courtesy James Pike photography

The ceremony took place outside in the walled garden on the Winter Solstice (21 December). As if by magic the rain held off whilst the ceremony took place and the otherworldly atmosphere of Preston Manor only added to this sense of wonder.

Courtesy James Pike photography

We even got to have our photo taken with Edwardian Father Christmas!

More information

If you would like to find out more about about volunteering please visit – http://brightonmuseums.org.uk/discover/get-involved/volunteering/ You never know how your experience will inspire you!

For more information on Doreen Valiente visit the Doreen Valiente Foundation website – http://www.doreenvaliente.com/

Wedding hire information can be found here – http://brightonmuseums.org.uk/prestonmanor/weddings-and-hire/weddings/

Jennifer Milarski-Stermšek, Volunteer

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Marcus Bagshaw talks about George IV’s designs for the Royal Pavilion. Facebook Live video stream from 19 April 2018

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Paula Wrightson talks about the Mysterious death of lily Macdonald’s first fiancé, William Frederick Forsyth Grant. Facebook Live video stream from 17 April 2018

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How an early image of the Royal Pavilion by a pioneering photographer helps our conservation work.

Royal Pavilion by WH Fox Talbot, 1846 (Schaaf no. 147). Courtesy of National Science and Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

Photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot recently put online by the Bodleian have revealed a remarkable insight into the exterior of the Royal Pavilion. The conservation team has been looking into the possibility of there being historic blinds and shutters on the exterior and interior of the Pavilion windows, specifically the east facing windows of the Saloon, Banqueting Room, and Music Room.

Light levels are closely monitored at the Pavilion, as they are in many historic buildings. Many of the original pigments used in the building are very light sensitive. Carmine lake and copper resinate have both been identified on many of the decorative surfaces, with the Music Room having been painted in large expanses of carmine glazes. We preserve these delicate tints, highlights and glazes through the use of UV filters and blinds, and control of interior light levels is a priority.

In our archives we have found an 1804 reference to ‘blinds’, that could also refer to what we might more commonly call ‘shutters’ today. Frederick Crace & Son, interior decorators to George IV, mention in our inventory that the building had exterior blinds, ‘To washing & c the blinds to outside, painting cills to windows green and white painting and making good putties to squares’.

Detail of Schaaf no.147, courtesy of National Science and Media Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

The Talbot photo shows that in 1846 slatted shutters were still in place on the exterior of the Banqueting Room. Whether light levels were a concern back in the day is hard to tell, but fading is unlikely to have been a practical problem: the building was still formally a royal residence at this point, although Queen Victoria had made her last stay in the building in 1845 and would never return. As such, the building was shut up, and it’s likely that the shutters were probably more for security reasons than conservation.

However by 1862, during the Pavilion’s ‘Municipal Era’, awareness of light damage was noted by the then surveyor Philip Lockwood:

‘7 July 1862: Surveyor reports that the windows on the west side of the Museum Rooms are at present without sun blinds which is a source of great inconvenience and also tends to damage the paint and woodwork and I therefore beg to submit to you an estimate … to put eight new spring roller blinds to the windows at a cost of £7.10.0.’

Stig Evans, Conservator

More information

• William Henry Fox Talbot Catalogue Raisonne
• Learn more about the history of the Royal Pavilion

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Paula Wrightson explores the Edwardian lavatory history of Preston Manor. Facebook Live video stream from 1 May 2018

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Paula Wrightson finds one of Preston Manor’s much loved dogs and reverses the sad story of Tatters using newly found evidence. 

One of the tombstones in Preston Manor’s pet cemetery has the following touching inscription:

‘Here lies Tatters not that it much Matters’

Poor unmourned Tatters died in 1884 going to his grave apparently not mattering very much to anyone.

Tatters’ tombstone

Of the 16 known dogs buried in the cemetery, Tatters’ gravestone is the best remembered, and a favourite with successive generations of visitors. The popular stone was even once available in postcard form in the Preston Manor gift shop.

Postcard showing Tatters’ tombstone

Tracing the origin of this dog is much more difficult than finding a pedigree animal like the Pekingese dogs, Kylin and Chu-Ki whose oil-on- canvas portraits can be seen in the house.

Over the years, Tatters’ place in history has been considered by researchers, though the trail always runs to a cold stop at his grave.

An article in the Royal Pavilion Review, July 2005 entitled, Man’s Best Friend? – The Dogs of Preston Manor, Jessica Campbell writes,

‘One of the Stanford family dogs, however, received little attention. No portrait of “Tatters” hangs on the staircase or anywhere else in the Manor. His only memorial is his tombstone, inscribed, “Here Lies Tatters, Not that it Much Matters 1884”. These unconsciously poignant words suggest that this particular dog was not such a valued member of the Stanford family circle. One wonders what “Tatters” had done to deserve such a dismissive epitaph.’

Others have come to similar conclusions. Margery Roberts, daughter of Preston Manor’s first curator, Henry Roberts was interviewed for an article in the Sussex Daily News. Dated 26 March 1935 and entitled The Companionship of Dogs, Margery walks through the cemetery commenting on the stones:

‘The words on the following grave-stone nearly always draw a comment of some sort from passers-by. As nothing can be remembered about him except that he was a mongrel, the rhyme must have been very apt.’

She then quotes Tatters’ epitaph.

Ursula and Judy Gaselee (private collection with permission)

Ursula Coventry (née Gaselee) looked back to her 1920s childhood in an article for Brighton’s community newsletter, The Post Magazine in May 2012,

‘Ellen and Charles Thomas-Stanford loved dogs and liked to take rescue animals; most were much loved and buried with fond inscriptions in the pet cemetery, but one dog, Tatters, never really settled with them nor won their affection. I can still remember the inscription.’

Ursula came as a child guest to the Thomas-Stanfords with her mother Lady May ‘Mollie’ Gaselee and met the family dogs. But was she mistaken in remembering Tatters as a dog belonging to Ellen and Charles? Tatters was buried in 1884 yet the Thomas-Stanfords did not come to live at Preston Manor until 1905. The year of Tatters’ death, Ellen was living at her first husband’s family residence, Pythouse at Tisbury in Wiltshire.

Margery Roberts, like Ursula Gaselee, knew Preston Manor in the 1920s. Both were children of the Edwardian age. It is further into the past that we must travel to find Tatters for he and his owners were Victorian – and these people can be easily identified.

Diana and Christiana (Lily) Macdonald 1887

Preston Manor in 1884 was the home of Ellen’s twin half-sisters, Diana and Lily Macdonald then 18-years old and confirmed dog-lovers.

Tatters belonged to Diana and Lily who likely obtained their scruffy little pet from the Sussex Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs in Robertson Road a few minutes’ walk from Preston Manor. The home at numbers 2-4 was founded in 1884 by sisters, Juliana and Maria Gregory in memory of their sister Caroline, three of five sisters who lived locally at Withdeane Lodge.

The Hove Year Book 1907

An advertisement in the 1907 edition of The Hove Year Book notes the home is ‘supported principally by voluntary contributions’ and that pets will be ‘restored to their owners on application’. Sadly, then as now, dogs became abandoned for all manner of social and economic reasons, and the home was open to visitors on weekdays 10am to 4pm. These visitors would be people like Diana and Lily looking to re-home an unclaimed dog.

If you go to Robertson Road you can see the original house, now number 4 and little changed externally since 1907. Here you can see a plaque on the west wall commemorating the memory of Caroline Louisa Gregory. The Gregory sisters’ work with stray dogs has not been lost to history. The Sussex Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs became the Canine Defence Animal Hospital and Dogs’ Home and is now a busy PDSA Pet Hospital.

Plaque on Robertson Road remembering Caroline Louisa Gregory

PDSA pet hospital, 2018

I found Tatters by lucky chance whilst visiting the Prints & Drawings archive at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.

I’d gone to look at a small collection of watercolours showing interiors at Preston Manor in 1896 and ‘97. Along with the interiors, thought to be painted by an amateur watercolourist named Captain Jackson, a family friend and one-time fiancé of Lily Macdonald, were watercolours painted by Lily herself.

The Church from the Lawns, Lily MacDonald, 1884

One painting shows a garden scene at Preston Manor. A woman in a red short-sleeved jacket, dark-blue dress and summer straw-hat decorated with red flowers sits on a chair looking towards the house across a low tennis net. St Peter’s Church is visible behind leafy trees, shrubs and a bed of red and white flowers. At the woman’s feet sits a small black dog, his ears pricked to attention heeding his mistress. The dog sits at a crouch not fully relaxed. He looks ready to spring up at the slightest word. Lily has included the lengthening shadows of the trees at her back and these shadows reach almost to the slope at the lawn’s eastern edge. The hour of day is late afternoon in high summer and on turning to the reverse we have the exact date: June 25^th 1884.

Lily has signed her work in pencil and added a title, ‘The Church from the Lawns.’ My first impression is that the woman and the dog are there to make visual interest secondary to the church, a splash of colour against the otherwise uniform green tones of an English garden in summer.

However, to my delight, Lily has added a note alongside her title: ‘Di & Tatters’ she writes identifying the woman as her sister, Diana (who was known as Di) and the dog as Tatters. He, or possibly she, was a small rough-haired black dog with upright jaunty ears, a pointed muzzle, and a long tail in the curled shape of a question mark.

Tatters clearly does matter because in December 1884 Lily makes a copy of her summer painting, also now in the Prints & Drawings archive. ‘Copied from the original’ she notes in pencil on the reverse adding ‘for Nellie Benett-Stanford.’

December 1884 copy of The Church from the Lawns

The watercolour was made as a gift to her 36-year old half-sister, Ellen affectionately known as Nellie. The December copy shows the exact June scene yet with small subtle differences. Tatters is now standing but gone the suppressed ready-to-leap dog of June. He faces his mistress as before but this time his ears are the flat ears of a defeated dog. His curled tail hangs limply and his aspect is greyer and sadder.

We know from his tombstone that Tatters died and was buried in 1884. By Lily’s first watercolour we know he died sometime after he was portrayed on 25^th June making Lily’s December version posthumous. Tatters shown at the year’s end is Tatters remembered as a little grey ghost of a dog standing four-square attentive in the last of his days. He exists under the doting gaze of Diana, lovingly recreated by Lily and given as a gift at Christmastime to Ellen.

I believe this is not a dog of no matter, and so his epitaph must be re-examined.

Tatters will always be with us, the sisters agree as they mourn their beloved pet. His body is gone but the essence of the dog we love remains forever. Where he lies in death does not matter because he will always be alive in our hearts.

Tatters’ tombstone can be seen on Thursday 13 September 2018 when Paula Wrightson will be taking a tour of the pet cemetery as part of the national Heritage Open Days festival. Meet at Preston Manor front entrance 11.00a.m. The tour is free of charge and lasts 1 hour.

Paula Wrightson, Preston Manor

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Paula Wrightson celebrates the 2018 Chinese Year of the Dog by investigating the story of Kylin, Ellen Thomas-Stanford’s Pekingese through the breed’s origins in Imperial China, to links with the Opium Wars and the sinking of Titanic.

There are two oil painting portraits of Pekingese dogs on display at Preston Manor: Chu-Ki and Ellen’s beloved Kylin. The breed is native to China and until the 1860s found only in the closed confines of the Imperial palaces of the Chinese Emperors where the breed was celebrated as the Lion Dog. By 1900 the Pekingese was still relatively new to Europe so how did Kylin, born in 1909 come to be resident at Preston Manor?

Kylin: Faithful and Fearless (1909-1924)

Kylin. Oil painting by Arthur John Elsley, 1917

Kylin and kitchen cats

Kylin arrived at Preston Manor as a puppy and in respect of her aristocratic origins she immediately acquired the position of top dog. If Ellen Thomas-Stanford was the Lady of the House, then Kylin was surely her equal in animal form. Ellen was a keen photographer and Kylin became her frequent subject cropping up in the most unexpected images including a playful scene in the kitchen garden. Kylin stares at the camera aside two startled tabby cats, one clinging to the bare branches of a small tree. Here we can judge Kylin’s size, which is about that of an ordinary domestic cat.  In Imperial China the smallest Pekingese were prized and termed ‘sleeve dogs’ by the British when seen carried in the sleeve of a Chinese robe.

Along with the oil painting we are left with a charming pen-portrait of Kylin written by Marjory Roberts, daughter of Preston Manor’s first curator, Henry Roberts. In an article for the Sussex Daily News dated 26 March 1935 The Companionship of Dogs Marjory recalls the animal she knew:

‘Kylin was Lady Thomas-Stanford’s Pekingese and her favourite…she was a delightful pet and full of endearing ways. The picture shows Kylin in a characteristic pose, guarding a dog biscuit. This sometimes took the part of a game, played for preference in the hall with its polished oak floor. Suddenly she would throw the biscuit up in the air, watch it go the length of the hall, then tear after it, put one paw on it, and skid along the slippery floor. When she came to a standstill she would guard it again and so start the game afresh.’

Marjory ends in an anthropomorphic vein,

‘She would make few human friends but loved the companionship of other dogs. Jock and she were often together and one day a photograph was taken of them sitting on top of the mounting block in front of the house. This is an excellent likeness of them both, particularly showing the essential kindliness of Jock’s face and the pride on Kylin’s. The photograph was used many times on the cover of menu cards for Preston Manor.’

Jock and Kylin

“One she couldn’t sell”

In 2008 a Pekingese expert, Sarah Cheang, visited Preston Manor and, examining the Elsley portrait, gave her verdict on Kylin as an example of the breed,

‘Looking at the picture I would say Kylin was not the sort of Peke that wins prizes – in other words Kylin was not very true to form and would not have scored many points when judged against the standard…’

Ms Cheang comments on Kylin’s ‘very spanielly appearance’ stating that many early Pekes imported into Britain were probably Tibetan spaniels, a breed not recognised by the Kennel Club until 1902.

Accepted for Kennel Club registration in 1910, the Pekingese became the fashionable toy-dog breed of the Edwardian period. By 1912 it had replaced the Pomeranian in popularity. Kylin was bred within a socially exclusive circle of Pekingese enthusiasts whose ranks included Ellen’s daughter-in-law, Evelyn Benett-Stanford, wife to her son John. Kylin came to Preston Manor as a gift from Evelyn – but Kylin’s lack of pedigree appearance mark her as the reject of the litter.

Evelyn Benett-Stanford, 1911

One wonders what might have happened to the unwanted pup if Ellen hadn’t taken her in. Evelyn was a no-nonsense strong-minded and unconventional individual pictured here looking ill at ease in a white gown and black hat and with her customary monocle. A fearless woman, Evelyn took part in the early motorcar rallies on Brighton seafront, when she wasn’t shooting big game in Africa.

‘Probably Mrs Benett-Stanford gave Ellen one she couldn’t sell!’ writes Ms Cheang of the puppy although she adds, ‘Kylin is certain to be one of those early Pekes,’ and this fact is rather exciting when considering Kylin’s Chinese origins.

A chance find in a charity shop

In researching Preston Manor’s human occupants, I often look at family trees, so when browsing in a charity shop and finding a copy of the Pekingese Scrapbook (1954) by Elsa and Ellic Howe I was thrilled to see a family tree titled, ‘Important Early Pekingese.’ This invaluable document, though not showing Kylin, helps unpick her ancestry via a character already known to Preston Manor: Thomas Douglas Murra,y who was Evelyn’s uncle by marriage. He appears on the tree as an early importer along with names acclaimed in the exclusive world of late Victorian Pekingese breeding: Loftus Allen and Gordon-Lennox.

The Pekingese Scrapbook & Important Early Pekingese family tree

The Curse of the Mummy and the sinking of Titanic

Murray (1841-1911) is described in the book as ‘a man of means and widely travelled’. He was a fascinating character, a member of the famous Ghost Club who attended séances at Preston Manor in the 1890s conducted by his associate, the renowned medium Ada Goodrich Freer. In his youth, after graduating from Oxford, Murray explored Egypt and had the misfortune to buy the sarcophagus of the priestess Amen-Ra, an object reputed to be cursed.

Indeed, in Egypt he lost an arm to gangrene after a shooting accident – and further bad luck followed within his travelling circle. In 1912 the so-called ‘cursed mummy’ of Amen-Ra was rumoured to be on its way to New York in the hold of RMS Titanic, the curse causing the ship to sink in the early hours of 15 April. The story was in fact fake news, as Murray’s Egyptian souvenir was (and remains) at the British Museum. Of the twelve known dogs travelling on Titanic three survived by being small enough to smuggle off the sinking ship under winter clothing; one lucky dog was a Pekingese called Sun Yat-Sen, named after the first president and founding father of the Republic of China, which was formed on 1 January 1912. The Peke escaped Titanic on Lifeboat 3 with its owners, Mr Henry and Mrs Myra Harper, First Class passengers who also survived after being picked up by the rescue ship, Carpathia.

Travelling with the Harpers was 27 year old Mr Hammand Hassab, a tour guide the couple employed in Cairo and retained as Mrs Harper’s servant. Much unpleasant gossip surrounded the handsome Egyptian whose presence on board perhaps helped fuel the Amen-Ra legend. He too survived via Lifeboat 3 and Carpathia.

Another Peke enthusiast with a connection to the Titanic was millionaire railroad tycoon, John Pierpoint Morgan, whose Pierpoint-Morgan Cup was awarded annually at the exclusive Pekingese Club of America. Although he was not onboard the ship, he owned the White Star line under which company the Titanic sailed.

By coincidence, the most famous British man to lose his life on the Titanic, William Thomas Stead, had a connection to Thomas Douglas Murray through Ada Goodrich Steer. Stead, a journalist and newspaper magnate, was fascinated by the paranormal, and had employed Freer as a subeditor on a spiritualiist magazine he published.

Finding Kylin’s ancestors

As Kylin was given to Ellen by her daughter-in-law, Evelyn, it is probable the dog came via Uncle Murray. Being an adventurer and merchant Murray had business interests in China. The British had long been trading with China importing highly prized goods such as silk, tea, jade and porcelain. Naturally therefore Murray became interested in the profitable potential of the exotic Chinese Lion Dog.

In a chapter ‘The Ancient Palace Dogs of China’ published in The Pekingese Dog by Lillian Smythe (1909) Murray described how he and his equally enthusiastic wife, Anne obtained their first Pekingese:

‘The late Sir Chaloner Alabaster, our Consul-General in Canton told me that it was a great rarity and that during his thirty years’ residence in China he’d never before seen one in Canton, and rarely one of the breed except in Peking itself. In 1896, after five years’ endeavour, we succeeded in getting a pair of Pekingese from the Palace.’

The breeding pair described as ‘well known’ were Ah-Cum and Mimosa weighing 5 and 3lbs respectively and about a year old. Back home in Britain, after a sea voyage of four months, they founded a dynasty. Ah-Cum is famed, even today, as a patriarch of the breed in England. When he died on 2 January 1905 the Murrays presented his body to the South Kensington Museum (now the Natural History Museum) to be conserved as an important animal specimen.

This was an exciting discovery and I wondered if the preserved body of Kylin’s ancestor was still in existence. I soon had my answer through a swift response from the Natural History Museum branch at Tring in Hertfordshire. Yes, Ah-Cum was in their collection and an image was sent.

‘Ah-Cum Pekingese dog’: by permission of the Trustees of the Natural History Museum at Tring

In life Ah-Cum was ‘red with a black mask’ but as is common in aged taxidermy specimens his colour is much faded so he appears a soft gold. He was described as eight inches high at the shoulder, light-boned with straight fore legs, beautiful in colour and carriage and with a tail more like a tuft than a plume.

High-ranking canine residents of the Forbidden City

The Pekingese dog, in all its colours and variety, was bred within the confines of the Forbidden City Palace in Peking, now Beijing in the People’s Republic of China. Current theories hold that the dog was originally developed by Tibetan monks and traded with China’s royalty.

A favoured resident throughout the Palace’s 500 year history, the dog held high status. Only persons of royal blood could own a Pekingese (the penalty for stealing or harming one was death) and all ranks had to bow to the Pekingese, as a heavenly symbol of the Emperor’s power.

Pekingese Hierarchy cartoon by C. J Allport

The lofty position of the Pekingese is illustrated in a cartoon in the Pekingese Scrapbook showing the divine Buddha at the top of a pagoda. In descending hierarchy level-by-level comes the Pekingese dog, the Imperial family, then courtiers followed by tradesmen and cats. The dark and hellish bottom levels contain fish, insects and ordinary people and finally ghosts, fleas, demons and what looks like a postman but is surely a tax-collector.

In her book Two Years in the Forbidden City, (1912) American travel-writer Miss Katherine Carl gave a glimpse of a rare scene:

‘The dogs at the Palace are kept in a beautiful pavilion with marble floors. They have silken cushions to sleep on and special eunuchs to attend them…around the neck of each was a rich collar with gold bells, tassels and other ornaments in most fanciful arrangement…’

The high status of the Pekingese dog in Imperial China translated to the West once it arrived and remained long after, for the Pekingese in the 20^th century became the pampered lapdog of its wealthy and usually female owner. The rescued Peke on Titanic was not travelling steerage.

Ellen Thomas-Stanford was described by her son John as ‘a terrific snob’ so ownership of this splendid little dog of the great Chinese Emperors would have chimed with her ideals.

Dogs, drugs and Queen Victoria

By owning a Pekingese Ellen was following in British royal footsteps as well as Chinese, as Queen Victoria had owned one of the first five Pekingese dogs to arrive in Britain. These Pekes came via ignoble means: the sacking and looting of the Summer Palace in Peking by British and French forces during the Second Opium War of 1860. Amongst the palace ruins the five orphaned puppies were found by Captain John Hart Dunne of the 99th Regiment and all ended up in hands of the British aristocracy. When the Captain returned to England he presented a Pekingese to Queen Victoria for the Royal Collection of dogs and she was duly named Looty. Looty was described as, ‘the smallest and by far the most beautiful little animal that has appeared in this country’. So small was the dog that she made her voyage in Captain Dunne’s forage cap.

Looty (1861) Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2018

Looty’s portrait was painted by Friedrich Wilhelm Keyl (1821-1871). The artist was told he ‘must put something to shew its size; it is remarkably small’. Accordingly, Looty is shown aside a poesy containing a pansy and a nasturtium flower; small blooms which if held to Looty’s muzzle would mask her face entirely. The richly-coloured setting includes an Oriental vase and a blue velvet dog collar onto which are sewn two little brass bells. The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1862. Looty lived at the kennels in Windsor Castle until her death in 1872.

The British at this time were not only buying goods from China but importing into the country – and the chief commodity unloaded from British ships was opium, grown and processed in British ruled India and sold in increasingly vast quantities to the Chinese. Some opium was required as a valuable pain killing component in Chinese medicine, but the drug was leeching out into a population that was becoming dangerously addicted to the narcotic effect – to the horror of Chinese officials. The Opium Wars were fought over trading rights, access to Chinese ports and the over-supply of the drug.

Ellen Thomas-Stanford’s ‘looted’ Kylins

The name Kylin is a generic term coined by Victorian antique dealers to describe any kind of fantastic Chinese beast. The word derives from the Chinese qilin, a mythical animal with the head of a dragon and the body of a deer. In 1909 on the puppy’s arrival at Preston Manor Ellen had already started her collection of ceramic Kylins; Chinese temple lions crafted in blanc de Chine porcelain and imported to Britain from China as objets d’art. To Europeans these lions look rather like the Pekingese dog with their bulbous eyes and flattened snouts. One can imagine Ellen holding her new Pekingese puppy against her ceramic collection, and then smiling at the similarity and coining her pet’s name.

Preston Manor Kylin collection photographed in 1914

Ellen was not an antiquarian and so her collection is idiosyncratic. She obtained her ceramic Kylins at random, mostly from antique dealers in Brighton and London. Ellen seems not to have cared for perfection, as some of the lions were cracked in the firing process and so bought already damaged. Fortunately for us today, she kept the receipts rolled into the hollow bases of the figurines. These have since been removed for preservation and make fascinating reading. Ellen paid on average £5 per piece (in a period when the average working wage was around £1 per week).

The largest and costliest pair were bought on 4 April 1913 from Bluett & Son, specialists in Chinese porcelain, of 377 Oxford Street, London. Costing £16 they came with a letter of provenance dated March 13 1902. The author, the previous owner living in Tunbridge Wells, declares,

‘They are in cream glaze and were part of the Summer Palace loot, China March 1860, and I also know who bought them home.’

This last point is important because a great many Chinese objects of bogus origin were sold as genuine Forbidden City wares, the Imperial association adding prestige and inflating the price.

In 1933, the year after Ellen’s death and a month before Preston Manor opened to the public as a museum, curator Henry Roberts consulted the Department of Ceramics and Ethnography at the British Museum regarding the blanc de chine lions. Ellen believed her Kylin collection to be rare 15^th century Ming Dynasty and Henry wanted to get facts correct for his new guidebook. To be fair to Ellen, receipts show she was sold some Kylins identified (probably in good faith) as Ming.

The British Museum expert, Mr Hobson replied with disappointing news:

‘The ‘Kylins’ aren’t older than the 17^th century. Probably most of them are the 18^th.’

However, he adds, ‘incidentally the term Kylin is commonly applied to the Pekingese-dog-like creatures which are intended to be lions. “Buddhist Lion” is a more correct name to use.’

Poor Ellen; the Ming collection of which she was so proud was no such thing and her Pekingese puppy was the reject of the litter!

Kylin’s arrival at Preston Manor

We know from the inscription on Kylin’s tombstone that she lived from 1909 to 1924 so we have the year she arrived in the house.

Tombstone: Kylin Faithful & Fearless

Looking through the Preston Manor visitor book for the year 1909 I came across a page full of clues as to the exact day. On Friday October 28^th, 1909 I found the signatures of John & Evelyn Bennet-Stanford along with the name of fellow Peke aficionados, the Gordon-Lennoxs. This name is one of the most important in the Pekingese-breeding set of the Edwardian period. Of the five puppies looted from the Summer Palace in 1860 two were given to the Duke and Duchess of Richmond and Gordon. These were used as a breeding pair by the Duke and Duchess’s son, Lord Algernon Gordon-Lennox, who with his wife established the famous Goodwood line of Pekes and founded the Pekingese Club in 1904.

Almost certainly Kylin was given to Ellen Thomas-Stanford by her daughter-in-law as an early 61^st birthday present, for Ellen’s birthday fell two weeks later, on 9 November.

Preston Manor visitor book 28 October 1909

A superior specimen

Portrait of Chu-Ki, 1927

The other Pekingese portrait to be seen at Preston Manor is that of Chu-Ki who belonged to Ellen Thomas-Stanford’s half-sister, Diana Magniac. Diana died in 1956, bequeathing the painting to Preston Manor. A label on the frame helpfully gives Chu-Ki’s lineage and through this he can be identified as a dog of superior merit to Kylin. Chu-Ki (kennel name, Chuang-Tu of Alderbourne) was son of Chu-Erh of Alderbourne, another Pekingese dog that made history. His pedigree includes not only Ah-Cum but the renowned Pekin Peter, Pekin Prince, Pekin Princess and the first bitch Champion, Gia-Gia.

Famous Edwardian Pekingese dogs

Chu-Erh was bought by breeder Mrs Ashton-Cross as a new-born in 1905 for the astronomical sum of £150. To put this into perspective, £150 in 1905 is equivalent in purchasing power to £17,686 in 2018. Chu-Erh was one of the most successful stud dogs of the pre-1914 era, siring at least nine champions. Mrs Ashton-Cross instigated the famous Alderbourne Kennel in the late 1890s. Her four daughters were famed for wearing white gloves in the show ring to avoid transferring the slightest mark of grease onto their Peke’s precious coats.

Chu-Ki’s portrait by Arthur John Elsley is dated to 1927. It owes much to Looty’s portrait in the Royal Collection in that his diminutive stature is shown by his being posed on a small occasional table aside what looks like an Oriental ashtray. He stands on a length of emerald-green silk, his glossy coat reflected in the mahogany polish of the table. Chu-Ki displays a prized Peke-marking, the white flash on his forehead, known as the mark of the Buddha.

A poem, The Pearls, attributed to the Dowager Empress Tz’u-hsi or Cixi (1861-1908), but believed to be a hoax-piece by early British breeders, describes the perfect Pekingese dog. A section reads:

‘Let the Lion Dog be small, let it wear the swelling cape of dignity around his neck, let it display the billowing standard of pomp above its back.

Let its face be black, let its forefront be shaggy, let its forehead be straight and low.

Let its eyes be large and luminous, let its ears be set like the sails of a war junk, let its nose be like that of the monkey god of the Hindus.

Let its forelegs be bent so that it shall not desire to wander far or leave the Imperial precincts. Let its body be shaped like that of a hunting lion spying for its prey.’

Pekingese Pride and Prejudice

Portrait of Peter, early Twentieth Century

I have given many guided tours that include the Preston Manor dog portraits and without fail it is the portraits of the non-pedigree dogs that are favoured by visitors. Peter and Pickle are especially admired: Peter, with his disgruntled stare and greying muzzle; and untidy scamp Pickle, sat without ceremony on a tattered rug and flagstone floor. Both dogs speak of the familiar: they are dogs we might own with homely names we might have given.

However, Kylin and Chu-Ki read as alien creatures with their outlandish Mikado names and unfathomable histories. These animals come weighted with a bias towards their being ‘the posh lady’s dog’, for who can forget the cossetted Pekingese, Tricki-Woo, in All Creatures Great and Small, the often repeated 1970s’ BBC television drama about pre-war Yorkshire veterinary surgeons.

Dowager Queen Alexandra with a Pekingese dog

This sense of the Peke being ‘not one of us’ ordinary folk originated in the late Victorian and Edwardian era when certain possessions (including pets) were signifiers of high-class, good taste and, if possible, a connection to the Royal Family. The Thomas-Stanfords owned a Rolls Royce motorcar and entertained royalty at Preston Manor, so naturally they were proud to own a Pekingese dog.

Little Jim

Discovering the Pekingese’s ancient Tibetan and Chinese origin, and reading the story of those five tiny puppies, refugees from war travelling on ship as precious cargo in 1860 to start their new life as canine immigrants to Britain, makes me look afresh at the Pekingese dog as a breed and at the individual characters of Chu-Ki and Kylin: Preston Manor’s ‘Faithful and Fearless’ Lion Dogs who, though exalted by Chinese Emperors, the wealthy Edwardian British upper class and American millionaires, deserve their position as one-of-us equals to Peter and Pickle and little Jim the Yorkshire terrier immortalised in stone and enduringly popular with visitors to the house.

Preston Manor re-opens for the summer season on Sunday 1^st April. The dog portraits can be seen on the ground floor at the foot of the staircase. Kylin’s tombstone is in the pet cemetery in the walled flower garden.

Paula Wrightson, Venue Officer, Preston Manor