From Lectures on Landscape, by John Ruskin
I discuss in this post, the house of Brantwood, in Coniston, which is, most famously, the home of John Ruskin, but also a house which appears in the texture of some of Cumbria’s queer stories.
John Ruskin, 1819-1900, bought Brantwood in 1871. The house itself is situated overlooking Coniston Water, Cumbria, and may be reached by boat, as well as by road. Ruskin retained a home in London, but spent long periods in Brantwood in the Lake District. John Ruskin was a significant art critic, patron of the arts, and social thinker, influential during his lifetime, and after. He had early an interest in geology, and advocated greater naturalism in art and in his own pictures. Ruskin was a patron of Turner, and became a notable figure in Pre-Raphaelite circles. His personal life was troubled, both with relationships, and later, with illness.
albumen print, 6 March 1875
NPG P50 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Ruskin’s ideas about craft, mechanisation, and education for work people, sometimes intersecting with those of Thomas Carlyle, influenced Canon Rawnsley, who went on to co-found the National Trust, and also the proponent of the arts and crafts movement, William Morris. John Ruskin lived an active life, publishing and giving lectures, as well as foreign travels to sites of artistic importance. He left behind him many published works on artistic and social subjects, as well as interesting personal correspondence and diaries. Today, Brantwood is owned by the Brantwood Trust, and the house and its gardens are open to the public.
When I was investigating people who might have relevance to Cumbria’s LGBTQ heritage, I came across mentions of Brantwood several times. The first was in connection with the Victorian author, Eliza Lynn Linton, who had a rather queer life, and who wrote suggestively queer novels. Eliza Lynn, who grew up in Cumberland and then moved to London, married in 1858, William Linton, an engraver, and a social and political reformer. William James Linton bought the house of Brantwood in 1852, and moved into it, with his children and second partner, Emily. In Brantwood, Linton set up a private printing press and was joined there in 1854 by three young men who helped him print pamphlets, and his monthly magazine, espousing Republican principles, the English Republic. According to one of these men,
“I was also one of the three young men who went to Brantwood in the spring of 1854, to help with the mechanical portion of the publication of the English Republic. Here we printed not only that work, but also a Tyneside magazine called the Northern Tribune; but the scheme in which we were engaged was not financially successful, hence the English Republic ceased, the establishment was broken up, and the little community we had constituted had dispersed.” (W.E. Adams in Somes Layard, p90)
“Only an enthusiast would have thought of setting up a printing office in a remote quarter of the Lake District, miles away from the nearest railway station. Paper and other materials had to be carted over the Fells from Windermere to Brantwood, and the printed magazines had to be carted over the Fells from Brantwood to Windermere back again. Nor did the circulation of the English Republic warrant this inevitable addition to the cost of production. As a matter of fact, it never did pay at all. Mr. Linton had therefore to finance the establishment out of his own earnings as an engraver.” ((W.E. Adams in Somes Layard, pp91-2)
It was during this period that William Linton, while living with Emily at Brantwood, first met Eliza Lynn. She already had a reputation as a writer, and being a native of Cumberland, happened to be in Keswick. Eliza Lynn visited Brantwood and made friends with William and Emily. Eliza Lynn’s first impression of Brantwood is of the unkempt garden, where nature was allowed to flourish, and, given the reforming ideas of the household, where the children of the house were playing in gender neutral clothing:
“Playing in the neglected, untrimmed garden, where never tree nor bush was lopped nor pruned, and where the long grass of the lawn was starred with dandelions and daisies as better flowers than those which man could cultivate, was a troop of little children…all dressed exactly alike – in long blouses of that coarse blue flannel with which housemaids scrub the floors; and all had precisely the same kind of hats – the girls distinguished from the boys only by a somewhat broader band of faded ribbon.” (Eliza Lynn Linton, Somes Layard, p94)
Not long after, Emily died, and Eliza married William Linton, and took on responsibility for the seven children. Eliza Lynn Linton’s book, The Lake Country, 1864, was illustrated with engravings by her husband. William. In fact, their marriage did not last, due to incompatible habits, and they stopped living at Brantwood. In 1866, William Linton left with his children for America, and Eliza Lynn Linton stayed in England. The house of Brantwood was let, and, in 1871, it was bought by John Ruskin.
In his correspondence of 1871, Ruskin mentions his newly acquired house:
“The view from the house was finer than I expected, the house itself dilapidated and rather dismal.” (To Mrs Arthur Severn, 12 Sept, 1871, Letters, Vol 2, pp34-5)
“I’ve bought a small place here, with five acres of rock and moor, a streamlet, and I think on the whole the finest view I know in Cumberland or Lancashire, with the sunset visible over the same.
The house – small, old, damp, and smoky-chimneyed – somebody must help me get to rights.” (To Charles Eliot Norton, 14 Sept, 1871, Letters, Vol 2, p35)
In addition to Eliza Lynn Linton’s links with Brantwood, I also came across the household of Miss Harriette Rigbye and Miss Frances Tolmie in connection with the house. I have discussed their arrangement in my talk on Partnerships and Relationships. I do not claim that this was a gay relationship; however, between 1874-1895, the women shared a household in an enduring arrangement, and Harriette Rigbye left Frances Tolmie a substantial bequest in her will. They were living at Thwaite Cottage, Coniston, where they met their neighbour, John Ruskin. As Ethel Bassin notes, the references to Harriette Rigbye are slight, but they make clear that Miss Rigbye, and probably by extension, Frances Tolmie was part of the Ruskin circle at Coniston.
Ruskin was friendly with the Miss Beevers of Thwaite, and the little distance from Brantwood allowed easy visiting. The Miss Beevers were friends of Miss Harriette Rigbye, and Ruskin includes his love to Harriette Rigbye in a letter to Miss Susan Beever and her sister, Mary. Ruskin’s diary mentions him taking a walk “through Miss Rigbye’s wood in quite lovely spring day”. (Diaries, p1103) Ruskin also writes to Miss Rigbye herself, and including a drawing of leaves. thanking her for a tree-peony. Interestingly, Ruskin does not appear to refer to Frances Tolmie anything like as much, if at all. Perhaps this is a question of status; Frances Tolmie was considered Harriette Rigbye’s companion, rather than the other way around. This circle of friends at Coniston, with the exception of John Ruskin himself, was quite feminine; it is likely that they saw each other very frequently, and they did correspond when they were out of the country.John Ruskin continued at Brantwood until the end of his life in 1900, as indeed, did Frances Tolmie and Harriette Rigbye at Thwaite Cottage, until 1894-5.
When researching for this project, I also came across the singer and musician, Mary Wakefield, 1853-1910, through the work of Sophie Fuller and Catherine Maxwell. Mary Wakefield, born in Kendal, was a very active amateur musician, who greatly encouraged local choirs. Maxwell and Fuller have written on the possibility of Mary Wakefield having same sex relationships. There is a link with Brantwood here too. Mary Wakefield and John Ruskin were introduced at a luncheon party in London in 1876 (Newmarch, Chp. V, p.55) Gradually during the later 1870s and in the 1880s, they became much better acquainted with each other, and developed a friendship of significance to them both.
Mary Wakefield and John Ruskin exchanged ideas on art, music, and nature. Wakefield would drive the thirty miles to Brantwood from her Westmorland home of Sedgwick, and Ruskin had paid a visit to Sedgwick, where he heard Mary Wakefield and her sister, Agnes singing. Wakefield referred to Ruskin’s views on music in her publications, and she also wrote an affectionate account of the house and gardens of Brantwood,”Brantwood, Coniston: John Ruskin’s Home”, for Murray’s Magazine, November, 1890. Ruskin had built a turret room at Brantwood, with a magnificent view of the scenery; Wakefield might well have felt at home there, as she herself occupied rooms in the tower in her family home of Sedgwick. (Newmarch Chapter V, p.58 and passim).
In this 1890 article, Wakefield describes in particular, her long-remembered first visit to Brantwood, the approach to the house, the courtesy of the host, the aesthetics of the interior, and the detail of the garden and surrounding countryside:
“you come quite suddenly upon a singularly peaceful-looking little nook, from whence opens out the short carriage-drive, under tall larches on one side, and a lovely mossy wall, covered with a profusion of ferns, on the other, bringing us to the door, and hearty welcome, which at Brantwood is always bestowed at the threshold” (quoted from Wakefield’s article in Newmarch, Chp. 5, p.62)
Interestingly, both William James Linton and John Ruskin favoured self-publishing. William Linton had a physical printing press in the establishment of Brantwood, where he printed his political pamphlets. Ruskin found Linton’s press in an outhouse, when he gained ownership of the house, and Ruskin’s biographer, Timothy Hilton, states that this spurred Ruskin towards self-publishing his own works (pp. 499-501) Self-publishing works of interest and importance to oneself was a feature of certain nineteenth century circles, and in this context, we may note William Morris, and the Kelmscott Press.
Here are pictures of William Linton and of John Ruskin, in their old age.
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Brantwood, house and grounds, has formed a thread through the records of some of the people of interest to Cumbria’s LGBTQ past. This may be a meaningless coincidence. It does, however, give another way to consider a narrative of the property. In my view, it also reflects the likelihood that people who either lived in, or were on visiting terms with, this well-situated and substantial house, were those middle or upper middle class people who would leave records behind them. These records come in the form of letters, diaries, publications, photographs. This means in turn, that it is easier to identify queer elements in their lives.
Acknowledgements:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry on William James Linton
https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/16745
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry on John Ruskin
https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/24291
These biographical entries can be viewed via the number on a Cumbria public library card.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brantwood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Linton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin
George Somes Layard. Mrs Lynn Linton. Methuen: London, 1901
Eliza Lynn Linton. The Lake Country. London, 1864
https://archive.org/details/lakecountry00lintiala
This is in the public libraries of Barrow-in-Furness, Carlisle, Kendal, Keswick, and Whitehaven.
Ethel Bassin. The Old Songs of Skye: Frances Tolmie and her circle. London: Routledge, 1977, Chp. 8
http://corsair.themorgan.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=191180
Record of a letter from John Ruskin to Harriette Rigbye
Timothy Hilton. John Ruskin. Yale University Press, 2002
Eds Joan Evans, John Howard Whitehouse. The Diaries of John Ruskin: 1874-1889. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959 I have been unable to consult this book properly, but the reference to Ruskin’s walk is on p.1103
Rosa Newmarch. Mary Wakefield, a memoir. Kendal: Atkinson & Pollitt, 1912. This is a memoir of Mary Wakefield, by her friend, the musicologist, Rosa Newmarch, is the key source for Wakefield’s life. You can download a pdf of this publication on The Mary Wakefield Westmorland Festival website. There is a reference copy in the Fred Barnes Collection in Barrow-in-Furness public library; in the Jackson library, in Carlisle public library; and in the reference collection in Kendal public library. See especially Chapter V Friendship with Ruskin.
There are many books on John Ruskin and Brantwood in Cumbria public libraries. For example,
Ed Helen Viljoen. The Brantwood diary of John Ruskin: together with selected related letters and sketches of persons mentioned. Yale University Press, 1971
in the Jackson library, in Carlisle public library 1 F RUS
Windermere public library L820 RUS
LGBT+ Language and Archives 