Sir Charles Fox 1810-1874

I just found a copy of “Sixty-three years of engineering, scientific and social work” by my great great great uncle Sir Francis Fox on Archive.org. His father Sir Charles Fox is my great great great grandfather. I’ve included the introduction as it gives a fascinating account of Sir Charles’ early career as an engineer culminating in his structural work on the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851, for which he was knighted. It’s also interesting because it’s a story told about an ancestor by his son. This history alone would be amazing, but the story includes being looked after by the Duke of Wellington, attending Faraday’s lectures, seeing the first submarine, and more. It’s also helped explain that Sir Charles Fox’s parents were Dr. Francis and Charlotte Fox, and that his siblings were Frank, Douglas, Archibald, Julia, Harriet, and Charlotte.

INTRODUCTION
Sixty-three years ago I began work with my father, the late Sir Charles Fox, and my brother, the late Sir Douglas Fox. Of my father I have written in River, Road, and Rail, but there are some further facts about him which may be recorded here. Soon after the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1851, a public dinner was given to him by the Mayor and Corporation of Derby on June 27, 1851. My uncle, Mr. Douglas Fox, who, for three years in succession, held the office of Chief Magistrate of Derby, occupied the Chair, and gave some details about his brother’s youth:

And now allow me to observe that the great and crowning delight of my life was the opportunity afforded of witnessing the well-merited honour done to my beloved brother for his exertions and skill. From his infancy he possessed intuitive mechanical powers, but it has been by his own ability and energy that he has arrived at his greatest measure of success. When he was a child eight years old, if he went into any of the manufactories in Derby, he would return and not only give a faithful description of a machine, but describe with accuracy its mechanical action.

It was the wish of his father that his mind should be devoted to the medical profession,
and he was a student under me until he arrived at the age of twenty; but so inveterately was his mind bent on mechanics that frequently at breakfast his appearance was more like that of a chimney sweep than any decent person ” (cheers and laughter) ” from his having been plying his favourite studies from early dawn. It was by his assistance that I was able to lay before friends the experiments by which my lectures at the Mechanics’ Institution in Derby were illustrated; and I saw that all my hope of my brother becoming a surgeon was gone, and I at once gave him his indentures, and he became a student and eventually an assistant under Mr. Robert Stephenson, under whose fostering care he received a great deal of valuable information.

It was about this date, June 1833, that Dr. Chalmers visited my grandfather’s home in Derby. In his diary, published by Dr. Hanna, his son-inlaw, he says: “I visited the talented and cultivated family of the Foxes, at the Wardwick in Derby, one of the best and most interesting families I ever knew.” This refers to Dr. Francis
Fox and Charlotte Fox, my grandfather and grandmother, and their children, Frank, Douglas, Archibald, and Charles, Julia, Harriet, and Charlotte.

In talking about his early life in Derby, my father used to describe the introduction of gas made from coal, the credit of which was due, among others, to Mr. George Low, who fixed the first light over the front door of my grandfather’s house in the Wardwick. It was regarded as so extraordinary that crowds of people, passing along the street, stopped to gaze at it with wonder and admiration.

When my father gave up the idea of becoming a surgeon, he left Derby for Liverpool, his entire fortune consisting of eight sovereigns. He obtained work under Ericsson (River, Road, and Rail, page 2) ; afterwards with Messrs. Preston & Fawcett, the celebrated makers of machinery, and for a time as engine-driver on the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, at £1 a week. He was present when Mr. Huskisson, a Director of that Company, was killed.

He was eventually articled to Mr. Robert Stephenson and became one of his assistants in the construction of the London and Birmingham Railway (now part of the main line of the L.M. & S.). Whilst thus employed on the London and Birmingham Railway, he received an offer from Captain W. S. Moorsom to act as his assistant on the Birmingham and Gloster Railway with a salary of £750, and was also invited by Mr. Robert Stephenson to go out to Italy to construct the Florence and Leghorn Railway, at a salary of £1,250 a year. Both of these offers he declined, from the conviction that to remain with Mr. Robert Stephenson at the London end of this, the most important line of railway, would not only give him a standing in his profession which he could not hope to attain in any other situation, but would bring him into contact with the many
foreign engineers who visited this great work.

He remained with Mr. Stephenson until the railway was completed and opened for traffic, and then, in order to gain a thorough knowledge not only of the construction and repair but also of the working of railways, he applied for and obtained the appointment of Resident Engineer to the London half of the line, at a salary of £300 a year. He had not been long in this position when he received a tempting offer of £1,500 a year to take over the management of a large establishment in London. But this offer, too, he refused for reasons similar to those I have already described.
He continued to fill the arduous post of Resident Engineer until the end of 1838, when he tendered his resignation and received an acknowledgment for his services in the form of a cheque for £500.

Before the opening of the Exhibition of 1851 I was taken to Paris by my father and mother. We were accompanied by Mr. Thomas Brassey, Mr. Joseph Paxton, and Mr. John Cochrane, who, with my father, had various important matters of business to which to attend. We went to Versailles to select a number of orange trees, growing in large boxes, for the decoration of the Exhibition, and afterwards of the Crystal Palace.
Some of them I believe are still at Sydenham.

Mr. Brassey, the contractor for the Paris and Rouen Railway, asked my father to accompany him to Rouen to inspect the scene of the accident which had just occurred to the great Viaduct on that railway. This was the latest of several unfortunate contretemps which gave rise to the remark that the name of the railway ought to be
changed to ” Perish and Ruin.” On their arrival on the scene they were received by the members of the staff, all of whom were in a state of consternation, as the Viaduct was lying flat on the ground, and they were expecting their dismissal.

Both my father and Mr. Brassey held the opinion that it was a mistake to blame any employe for an accident unless it had occurred through gross carelessness or neglect. If the accident were due to misfortune or to an error of judgment, they considered that the man had been educated at the expense of his employer, and was not likely to repeat the blunder ; in fact he would be the safest man to employ at that particular point.

Mr. Brassey looked at the ruins and then remarked, “It’s a bad job.” My father said, “Well, Brassey, you take it quietly enough. What are you going to do ?” “Do !” was the reply, “put it up again of course; it will only alter the figure at the foot of the column in the ledger.”

While we were in Paris we visited the studio of the famous photographer M. Daguerre, one of the earliest workers in what was then a new art, who gave his name to the once popular Daguerreotype. He was the maker of perhaps the earliest form of stereoscope, that ingenious contrivance which enables the object photographed to stand out so wonderfully in relief.

I have a considerable collection of these photographs prepared for the stereoscope, all printed on silver plates.

We stayed at the Hotel Bristol in the Place Vendome (looking on to the Rue de la Paix). My father had a suite of apartments in the hotel, as it was very central, and he had to be in close touch with the Emperor Napoleon III and the members of the French Government. Amongst the many important works which he assisted in carrying out, not only in France but elsewhere on the Continent, may be mentioned a portion of the Paris and Marseilles Railway, between Dijon and Tonnerre, with its great number of tunnels; the large bridge over the River Saone at Lyons; the railway from Geneva to Amberieu; the Berlin waterworks ; the harbours at Kiel and Korsoer ; the railway from Copenhagen to Korsoer; the drainage of Harlemmer-meer in Holland; and the great bridges over the River Danube at Budapest and over the River Dnieper at Kieff.

It was in 1850 that my father was first asked to interest himself in the building of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. The Commissioners had received 240 different designs, but to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Paxton belongs the credit of the scheme ultimately adopted—a palace of iron and glass with many novel details of design. In like manner it was due to the energy and skill of my father, afterwards Sir Charles Fox, that Paxton’s bold project, based upon the Chatsworth conservatory, was translated into accomplished fact.

It should be borne in mind that although the building was intended to last only for two or three years, it has stood on its present very elevated site at Sydenham exposed to all the vicissitudes of our climate for seventy years, and is still in such good condition that, with a continuance of the care bestowed upon it by Mr. Wright, the present engineer, it may confidently be relied upon to stand for another long term of years.

In my book, River, Road, and Rail (John Murray, 1904), were narrated some of the difficulties which arose in the erection of this unique structure. Some further interesting and amusing facts have come to light, which are worth recording.

The troubles and opposition that were encountered from the first were almost insuperable. One of the first difficulties was to obtain possession of the site in Hyde Park between the Serpentine and the Knightsbridge Barracks. This was effected only on July 30, 1850, ten months prior to the intended opening on May i, 1851.

The Solicitor to the Treasury gave it as his opinion, that until a Royal Charter was obtained the Commissioners could not legally proceed, and were, therefore, not in a position to give an order to anyone. My father’s firm, however, faced the risk of preparing the drawings and making arrangements for the erection of the building without waiting for the grant of the Charter. At the same time they requested the Commissioners to appoint Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Cubitt, the President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, as their representative with whom to consult. It was not until October 31, 1850, that the Charter was obtained, and by this time my father’s firm had expended £50,000 without any security from the Commissioners. Lord Granville stated publicly that ” but for the courage thus evinced by them, the Exhibition of Industry of all nations would never have taken place.”

One of the greatest difficulties was to find a sufficient number of firms of iron founders to supply the girders and columns, and to ensure that these would fit together exactly when deposited on the site. Standardisation was, therefore, adopted, so that everything should be a multiple of eight, and the bolts and bolt holes should all correspond.

Perhaps one of the most hazardous and certainly the most interesting part of the work was the raising of the sixteen ribs of the transept to their places. A month was the shortest time allowed for this operation, but they were all fixed in eight working days, the last one being put in place in the presence of H.R.H. the Prince Consort. The question of preserving the large elm trees on the site had to be dealt with, and this was solved in most cases by the introduction of the fine centre transept, referred to later on, instead of the flat roof proposed in Mr. Paxton’s original sketch. An immense improvement was thus effected in the appearance of the building. One or two of the trees, however, were in the exact line of the fagade of the structure, and their removal was essential. Application was accordingly made to the Office of Woods and Forests for permission to remove them, and the following peremptory reply was received from Lord Seymour (afterwards Duke of Somerset) : “I thought that my former letter had been distinct enough to satisfy you by an explicit answer: I object to any tree being cut.”

But an equally high official, Lord Grey, wrote to Lord Granville:

The Prince is very anxious that the trees which are to come down for the building should be cut at once, before any ill-natured person can move anything about them in the House of Commons. Once down, they will puzzle even Lord Brougham to put them up again. If they could be cut down in the morning and the carcases at once removed, I am sure from experience in such matters they could never be missed. Would it be impossible to get them down to-morrow?

A meeting was therefore arranged on the spot, when all who were interested attended, but the leading official ordered that “the trees must not be touched.” My father turned to his foreman and said, “John, you hear what this gentleman says : on no account must this tree be removed.” “All right, sir.” That night the Gordian knot was cut ; the tree was felled, and, as Lord Grey had said,when once down it could not be reinstated.

Two thousand three hundred men were employed on the work, besides many thousands of others in the blast furnaces, foundries, and work’ shops of every kind throughout the kingdom. The entire building, covering an area of 18 acres, was erected in twenty weeks. The glazing, which ran into many more acres, was executed with great rapidity by means of a large number of tents travelling on wheels which ran in the gutters of the roof. The workmen were thus enabled to fix the glass and putty in the stormiest weather. It is an interesting fact that many of the original sash bars, made of ordinary timber, lasted over sixty years, and were only removed from the building quite recently (1918-20).

The extraordinary speed with which the building was erected went some way to justify the statement of a well-known and competent authority of the day that ” England possesses mechanical appliances and physical energies far exceeding those which gave form and being to the most celebrated monuments of antiquity.”

At the dinner mentioned on page 1 the guest of the evening gave an amusing list of objections raised by scientific bodies, and men of high position, intending to prove the impossibility of erecting and maintaining such a fabric.

” As the building progressed,” said Sir Charles Fox, ” I was assailed on all sides, not only by unprofessional persons, but by men of high scientific attainments who doubted the possibility that it could possess, as a whole, that strength which was necessary to make it safe against the many trying influences to which it must be subjected. This opinion was held, notwithstanding the careful calculations which had been made, and the satisfactory proofs to which all the important parts were individually subjected, as soon as these parts were put together, thus producing a structure of unparalleled lightness. One gentleman, after complimenting me on the beautiful appearance of the building, stated his belief that it would never come down unless it tumbled down, hinting that the first gust of wind would blow it down like a pack of cards. Another, holding a high scientific appointment under Government, after a long investigation of the various parts of the building, expressed at the Institution of Civil Engineers a belief in the entire absence of safety in its construction; and after explaining the mode of connecting the girders with the columns by means of projections technically called ‘ snugs,’ went on to indulge in an airy prophecy* that a wind exerting a force equal to 10 lb. per superficial foot would bring such a strain upon these snugs as to break them all off, and cause them to fall down in showers.[* This refers to Punch's amusing remark that the Astronomer Royal, Professor Airy, should have been Professor Windy.]‘ I may just remark that since the expression of this opinion the wind gauges around London have registered in the late storms upwards of 20 lb. per foot : and I have pleasure in informing you that the encouraging predictions of this gentleman as well as those of many others have not yet been fulfilled.”

“It may be amusing and not uninteresting to enumerate briefly some of the difficulties and dangers which were foretold:

“1. We should never get through our work in time.

“2. The foundations were defective, and would surely give way,

“3. The building was more like scaffolding than anything else, and was so light that it must tumble down.

“4. The weight of the goods and people in the galleries would be sure to bring down the building; and if the mere weight did not produce the effect, the vibration caused by people walking, or more especially running, would be sure to do so.

“5. The girders, expanding by the heat of the sun, would push the columns out of their places, and in so doing would break them, and let down the building.

“6. That if it should happen that the weight and vibration did not produce the effects expected, the equinoctial gales would at all events finish the business.

” 7. That if the building was not blown down, the sashes or windows were so feeble that they would assuredly be blown in or out, but it was difficult to say which.

“8. That the glass was so weak that it could not resist a gale of wind, but would inevitably be blown to pieces.

” 9. That if the wind did not act as was expected, firing cannon in Hyde Park on the opposite side of the Serpentine could not fail to demolish the windows.

“10. That the first hailstorm would leave the whole roof without glass.

“11. That by the vibration of the moving machinery the building would be gradually shaken loose in all its connections, and must consequently fall down.

“12. Such were the fears entertained for the safety of the galleries containing the large organ and choirs, that a request was made to Dr. Henry Wylde by some members of the Jury for musical instruments that he would, previous to the inauguration, urge upon my mind the necessity for an investigation into the results likely to ensue from the effect of the vibration whichwould be brought into action during the performance of the National Anthem.

“13. That the vibration caused by the diapason pipes of the large organ would shake out the glass, which would fall in showers upon the spectators; and our Chairman was accordingly instructed by the Commissioners to make experiments with the view of ascertaining what the result would be—and these experiments were officially made on the day previous to the opening.

“Many of these misgivings appeared in the newspapers and one foretold that we were on the eve of a frightful catastrophe, but wisely abstained from pointing out the nature of the danger we were running. In fact, statements of this kind were so frequent and pointed, that we were often seriously advised to reply to them, but feeling confident we were right, and that we should succeed in all that we have undertaken, and consequently that the more people spoke against us, the more complete would be the reaction in our favour, we abstained from taking any notice of what was said, leaving the public to amuse themselves in the matter in any way they thought proper.”

I was only seven years old when the Exhibition was opened, but I used to visit the building with my brother Douglas during its erection nearly every day, and on several occasions with the old Duke of Wellington. He was almost the only man who thought the work would be completed in time, and he used to pat my father on the shoulder, saying, ” You’ll do it yet.” On one of these occasions my father was called away, and he requested the Duke ” to look after my boys that they do not get into danger from the machinery.” His Grace took my brother Henry and myself both by the hand, and we found it impossible to release ourselves from his iron grip. We felt, in later years, that we understood how he won the battle of Waterloo, and earned the
title of ” The Iron Duke.”

A pleasing incident occurred on the opening day. The Duke was an early arrival, and he
walked up to my father and, grasping his hand in both of his, said, ” Didn’t I say you would have it ready in time ? ” As a marvel of rapid work it has never been equalled either before or since.

The following letter was written by Queen Victoria to her uncle the King of the Belgians two days after the opening of the Exhibition:

Buckingham Palace,
3rd May 1851.

My dearest Uncle,
I wish you could have witnessed the 1st May 1851, the greatest day in our history,
the most beautiful, and imposing and touching spectacle ever seen, and the triumph of my beloved Albert. Truly it was astonishing, a fairy scene. Many cried, and all felt touched and impressed with devotional feelings. It was the happiest, proudest day in my life and I can think of nothing else. . . . The triumph is immense, for up to the
last hour, the difficulties, the opposition, and the ill-natured attempts to annoy and frighten, of a certain set of fashionables and Protectionists, were immense: but Albert’s patience, firmness, and energy surmounted all, and the feeling is universal. You will be astounded at this great work, when you see it !—the beauty of the building, and the vastness of it all. I can never thank God enough. I feel so happy, so proud. Our dear guests were much pleased and impressed. . . . Now good-bye, dearest Uncle, Ever your devoted Niece,
Victoria R.

Before describing the circumstances which led to my own entry upon engineering work in 1861, I may perhaps be allowed a few varied recollections mainly concerned with London, of a time now long past.

One of the greatest attractions in London in those days was the entertainment by Albert Smith depicting the ascent of Mont Blanc, with his inimitable description of Switzerland and of the Swiss, who, at that date, were but little known to the public.

The Diorama or Panorama in Regent’s Park, on the site of which the Baptist Church of the Rev. W. Landels was built at a later date, was also very interesting. We were ushered into a dimly lighted passage, draped with heavy darkred velvet curtains, leading into what was apparently a small chamber equally sombre, and called ” the ascending room “—the first attempt, it is believed, at achieving the modern lift, or elevator. The doors were closed ; we were conscious of the working of some machinery, and also of some kind of mysterious movement ; and when this ceased and the doors opened, we found ourselves on a circular gallery at a considerable altitude. In front of us was a life-like representation of the ” great earthquake of Lisbon ” with the accompanying noise and crash of falling buildings.

On other occasions was shown ” London by day,” followed by ” London by night “—spectacles which lived long in the memories of those who saw them.

” The Polytechnic ” in Regent Street, since remodelled by Mr. Hogg, was a most excellent and instructive institution, under the control of the well-known scientist Professor Pepper, of ” Pepper’s Ghost ” fame, assisted by Mr. King, who lived at Merton.

One of the great features of the Polytechnic was a daily lecture by Mr. King, illustrated by lantern slides, on any event that had just occurred, sometimes only the day before, in distant countries. In after years Mr. King told me of the immense amount of research (undertaken in the shortest space of time) that these demonstrations demanded, adding that ” although there was on the Throne our beloved Queen Victoria, there was only one King,” The old diving-bell and diver, announced by the loud gong of unusual power ; the glass blowing ; and many other highly instructive demonstrations filled every moment of one’s time on these visits.

Professor Faraday’s Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution were great events in our lives as children. His simple experiments and explanations were a never-failing source of pleasure ; and if an experiment did not always succeed, we were intensely delighted with his investigation into the cause of the failure, and appreciated his kind and sympathetic treatment of the assistant, who was never blamed for carelessness in the arrangement of the apparatus.

Professor Faraday after his lectures sometimes came to our house in Portland Place. When the meal was over he would play “hide and seek” behind the furniture of the three drawing-rooms,and often pursue us children on his hands and feet in the role of a bear.

During the Crimean War, about 1855, Lord Dundonald proposed a method for capturing, at a cost of a million sterling, the great fortress of Kronstadt, protecting St. Petersburg—or Petrograd as it is now known. By an arrangement with the Admiralty, he had to divulge his scheme to my father, under an oath of secrecy. I have a copy of my father’s report, in which he stated his opinion, without giving any details, that the project would be successful.

But although the declaration of peace rendered its application unnecessary, my father would never give us the slightest idea of what had been proposed. All we did know, and that was a matter of common knowledge, was that a mysterious vessel had been built by Scott Russell in his shipyard at Millwall for travelling under water. I remember seeing this, the first of submarines, lying on the banks of the Thames, resembling a Thames barge turned upside down. Alongside of her the Great Eastern steamship was then being slowly launched sideways from the same yard. This submarine had been sent into the English Channel and was there cruising about, when one day, coming up to ” breathe,” she bumped against the keel of a sailing collier, and dented some of her own plates. She was compelled to return to Millwall for repairs, and there we frequently saw her, lying on the muddy banks.

About the year 1861, as a young man of seventeen, I accompanied Lord Clyde to Shoeburyness to witness the testing, for the first time, of the Warrior target. This vessel, H.M. iron-plated steam frigate of 6,170 tons, was at that date the largest vessel afloat, with the exception of the Great Eastern, and was coated with armour 4 and half inches thick. The experiments were not only to test the resisting power of this armour, but also the penetrating effect of a flat-ended shell having neither percussion cap nor fuse, and depending entirely on the heat generated by the impact against the iron plate to explode the charge, which was contained in a flannel bag in the shell. The great object was to have a missile which would deliver the blow as a solid shot, and would not explode until after the perforation of the plate. This would then blow to pieces the heavy oak backing, which was several feet in thickness.

When all was ready the visitors were ordered into shelter, but with the enterprise and curiosity of youth I looked round the corner to observe the result, and was rewarded by seeing the enormously high flame generated by the impact. Investigation showed that a clean hole had been punched through the plate, and the strong oak backing blown into matchwood. The effect of such a missile striking a ship of that period can be better imagined than described.

On our return to London, Lord Clyde was very silent and depressed. He told me he was wondering whether the wars of the future would not bring developments against which man would be unable to stand.

Further recollections bring to my mind the construction of the Victoria Embankment between Westminster and Blackfriars which replaced the mud banks of the Thames. In the old days a large number of penny, and even halfpenny steamers plied up and down the river, and these had to be reached by floating gangways across the mud at low water. Mud banks also extended all along the river in front of the Houses of Parliament. The available waterway was much improved by the removal of the old masonry bridge now replaced by the modern (and none too strong) Westminster Bridge.

Early in the ” sixties,” when, of course, all vehicles on the public roads were drawn by horses, one’s sympathy was often aroused on behalf of these poor animals. They suffered grievously when descending the declivities so often encountered in London thoroughfares ; such, for instance, as the incline from the Strand to Whitehall, which exists to-day, and the steep gradients of Holborn and Newgate Street before Holborn Viaduct was built.

Brakes were seldom provided, and the wretched animals in their efforts to retard the heavily laden vehicles, would slide down the hill on their haunches. On the up journey their sufferings were painful to witness. In 1870 I wrote to the Omnibus Company suggesting the provision of brakes, but getting no satisfactory reply, I purchased the necessary shares to enable me to attend the Company’s annual meeting, and speak publicly on the subject. It was not only the treatment of the horses, but also the hard lot ofthe drivers and conductors to which I wished to draw attention, in those days now happily past. Year in, and year out, these men were kept at work for sixteen hours a day and more—Sundays included, for they never had a Sunday’s rest unless they paid for a substitute. If a man applied too frequently for a Sunday off, he was dismissed. Men with families scarcely ever saw their children, except when they were abed and asleep.

I attended a meeting and spoke on both subjects, but met with much opposition. The manager objected that the cost of brakes would be prohibitive. As for the men, if they were dissatisfied they could leave. For every vacancy, he said, there would be at least 800 applications.

I declined to accept these statements. I pointed out that if brakes were adopted, the harness could be greatly simplified and reduced in weight, the breeching, the saddle, and the crupper could be dispensed with, and only the bridle, collar, and traces need be retained. I had taken the precaution of getting a design for the brakes, together with a definite offer from a well-known omnibus builder, to supply and attach a suitable brake for £5 a vehicle. I showed that the saving in horseflesh and harness would soon defray the entire expense. As regarded the men, I appealed to the chairman and directors to deal humanely with them, with kindness and consideration.

The chairman replied that my proposals were absurd, and as the manager was determined not to adopt my suggestion, I, being a young man and not anxious for notoriety, left the room in disgust, sold my shares, and severed my connection with the Company.

My protest, however, had not been in vain, for, within a few months, brakes began to be fitted, the harness was simplified, and in a comparatively short time there was not a brakeless bus in London. The men too had their hours of work materially reduced, and in other ways they were better treated.

It had been my father’s intention to send Douglas and myself to Cambridge, and my name was actually entered at Trinity College, when an unfortunate and very serious accident befell my father, upsetting all his plans for our future, and changing the whole course of our careers. It happened at one of our seaside watering-places, where the tide, one night, washed away part of the esplanade, leaving a yawning crevasse in the footway which was invisible in the darkness. Approaching the spot during the evening, my father stepped unconsciously into the gap and fell a considerable depth on to the fractured masses of masonry and concrete. Being a powerful swimmer, he would probably have escaped unhurt, had it been high tide ; but the water was low and he was very badly injured and rendered unconscious by the fall. He recovered consciousness to find himself lying on a table at the police-station, a passing constable having heard his groans and procured assistance to convey him there. My father survived the accident some thirteen years, but never completely recovered from its effects. Its immediate result was the cancellation of the Cambridge arrangements, and my brother and myself were compelled to plunge into work forthwith. I was conscious of the fact that my education was arrested, and determined, as far as possible, to make up the deficiency by private study, and by attending the lectures of Professor Tyndall, Dr. Miller, and other leading men of that day. With these studies were combined work in mechanical shops where could be learnt the use of tools, in turning, pattern making, smithing and forging, besides civil and mechanical engineering; and lastly chemistry under my old and valued friend, the late Dr. Stead, F.R.S., of Middlesbrough. Both my brother and I were, about the years 1867-70, officers in the London Rifle Brigade, which, years later in the Great War, did such magnificent work for the Empire.

Our firm, under the title of ” Sir Charles Fox & Sons,” consisted of my father, my brother Douglas,and myself ; but eventually after many years it was changed to its present firm, ” Sir Douglas Fox and Partners,” to enable the younger generation to be admitted as partners.

Sir Francis Fox 1844-1927

He was known as Douglas and was a British civil engineer who had been knighted for his work on with James Brunlees on the Mersey Railway Tunnel and a railway linking Birkenhead with Liverpool. He was oldest son of Sir Charles Fox and Mary Brookhouse (second daughter of Joseph), and had two brothers and a sister. His father had been knighted for his work on The Crystal Palace for The Great Exhibition of 1851.

Mary Wright was the daughter of the Industrialist Francis Wright and his wife Selina FitzHerbert. Her sister Selina Wright married Sir Francis Fox, who was the brother of Sir Charles Douglas Fox.

According to the Wiki Sir Charles Douglas Fox and Mary Wright, had one son and four daughters. One of the daughters is my great grandmother Lucy Adeline Fox, who married her cousin Ernest FitzHerbert Wright, son of FitzHerbert Wright and Charlotte Rudolphine Louise von Beckman. The photograph above is from the scrapbook of their other daughter Agnes Selina Fox, who doesn’t seemed to have married. I’ve found a couple of pages in the scrap book with some photos and newspaper clippings about the Golden Wedding of Douglas and Mary. One clipping mentions his son as F. Wright living with his wife at 19 The Square, Kensington. I’m guessing he’s called Francis after his maternal grandfather. The press clipping also mentions another daughter, married to the Rev. Edward H. Askwith of Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland. I’ve found a Reverend Edward Harrison Askwith married to a Mary Douglas Fox, daughter of Sir (Charles) Douglas Fox and Mary Wright listed on the FamilySearch.org as follows:

Reverend Edward Harrison Askwith (8 Sep 1864 in Ripon, Yorkshire), son of Thomas Askwith (b. 21 Sep 1816, d. 8 Jul 1888, Ripon, Yorkshire) and Sarah Nowell Johnson (b. 13 Feb 1825, of, Ripon, Yorkshire, d. 8 Jun 1906, Church Crescent, St. Albans, Hertfordshire).

Married (2 Jul 1889  St. Peter’s, Norbiton, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey) Mary Douglas Fox (b. 12 Nov 1864, of, Sevenoaks, Kent). The following children have been shown:

1. Edward Douglas Askwith,  b. 9 Feb 1895, Brookside, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire,
2. Judith Margery Askwith,  b. 7 Nov 1896, Selwyn House, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
3. Beatrice Mary Askwith,  b. 29 Jan 1900, Selwyn House, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire

I found more about the Askwith family here, and it seems like Edward’s grandfather was the John Hadden Askwith mentioned on The Peerage.

The fourth daughter I think was called Judith Isabel who married the Rev. James Sedgwick Wimbush of Terrington, Yorkshire (see here and here), who was the son of Samuel Wimbush (Rector of Terrington) and Catherine Jane Nicholson. James and Judith had the following children:

Michael Douglas Wimbush b.1905 Swainswick, Somerset.
John Bourchier Wimbush b.1908 Swainswick, Somerset.
Richard Knyvet Wimbush b.1909 Terrington, Yorkshire.
James Christopher Wimbush b.1902
Samuel Humphrey Wimbush b.1904 Kensington.

]]> http://descentfromadam.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/sir-charles-douglas-fox-and-mary-wright/feed/ 0 juzzie foxand wright http://descentfromadam.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/sam-alexanderss-memorial-plaque/ http://descentfromadam.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/sam-alexanderss-memorial-plaque/#comments Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:22:02 +0000 juzzie http://descentfromadam.wordpress.com/?p=2709 Continue reading »

A plaque commemorating my nephew Sam Alexander will be unveiled on Hammersmith Bridge at the end of March. It was one he and his friends jumped off on a few occasions as teenagers. From what I’ve been told this was mostly in Summer and usually after they’d been to one of the watering holes along Hammersmith’s Lower Mall, or at least once they had persuaded someone else to go on their behalf while they hung out in Furnivall Gardens. This follows the renaming of the Bridge by his friends and family last year (see Sammersmith Bridge post). The plaque includes a line from the The naughtiest angel in heaven poem written and read by my sister Serena at her son Sam’s funeral.

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MANSFIELD

James, m[erchan]t be r[ight] of Peter, M. B[urgess] 7 Sept 1776

John, mt B[urgess] & G[uildbrother] by r of James M, mt, late bailie, B & G. 27 Aug, 1760
Lauchlan, mt, B & G in rt of dec. fr. James M, late bailie, B & G 27 Aug 1760
Mr James, capt-lieut of 7th Regt of Dragoons, B & G in r. of dec, fr. Baillie James M., gratis by act of C[ouncil] 5 Sept 1770

I am born in 1932, the youngest of eight children, and am, without doubt the last straw for my parents; I suspect they do not have sex again. They marry young, in 1915, overcoming furious opposition from both their families and the Catholic church.  My father, a short, handsome man, whose thick hair turns white before he is thirty, comes from a large, Protestant family of eleven sports-mad children (one of whom writes a cruel, anti-Catholic letter to my mother upon her engagement, in a crude attempt to frighten her off).  They have all been away to war; the boys to cavalry regiments, the girls to join the Red Cross or to  became V.A.D.s.  Uncle Norman, the charmer, loved by all, is killed in the last cavalry charge of the war, or so family legend has it. He stares out at us from his photographs, handsome in the uniform of the 19th/20th Cavalry, Queen Alexandra’s Own. I think he looks sad, as if he knows that he will not be coming back. One of these photographs in our drawing-room, another in Granny’s house and one by my aunt Angela’s bed. She was in love with him but he  loved my mother and so did Uncle Bertie. My father had an accident on the school Rugger field and lost both both cartilages so the army wouldn’t have him; he  had to stay at homes to run the mills and accept white feathers.

Lieut. Norman Birtwistle

I love my father very much and am glad he did not go away to the war.  He is practical, principled and hardworking; devoted to shooting, his garden and the countryside,  he is a complex and difficult man. When he gets engaged to my mother, he takes her to Manchester to buy an engagement present.  He has a First Class Season Ticket and travels with his friends, playing cards; he buys her a Second Class Return and she travels alone.  At Finnegan’s he buys her a fitted Dressing Case in blue Moroccan leather. It costs two hundred and fifty pounds and has ivory brushes, mirror, button hook and glove stretchers; there are cut-glass bottles with silver tops, a little silver bedside-clock, a manicure set and a pair of opera glasses….   He and my mother no longer get on. She smiles at us but her eyes are sad.

Wedding James Birtwistle and Muriel Marwood

The night before she marries, grandfather tells Mummy that whatever her husband does is All Right; she is twenty-two. Her wedding dress has a dropped waist and ends just above her white stockinged ankles and her white Louis-heeled, buttoned shoes. A  long veil of fine silk tulle is drawn over her head and fastened there by a circlet of wax orange- blossom; she clutches an oversized bouquet of drooping lilies and ferns … she says she went up the isle to meet one man and was dragged back down it by another …  she says Daddy was a beautiful waltzer, the perfect dancing partner who changed at the altar into a brusque, impatient husband. From then on he calls her Martha, not Muriel,which is her name. His name is James Astley; Mummy calls  him Astley or sometimes J.A.B. When she asks him for money for something we need, he usually says no but when he goes to the lavatory every morning and reads the National Geographic magazine, he leaves his trousers hanging over the bannisters of the top landing. and my mother sometimes takes five pounds out of his back pocket to keep things going… she says what hurts is that he doesn’t even notice that it has gone.

My mother’s family are  devoutly Catholic  and generally regarded as being sensitive and artistic. Their own mother dies when mine is seven; they are then bought up by nurses; when Queen Victoria dies and when it thunders, the nurses through their aprons over their heads and scream …my mother is terrified of thunder.. she goes into a cupboard under the stairs with her rosary beads and a blessed candle.  Grandfather installs a governess, Ethel Corbishley who, although English and unmarried, they must call  ‘Madame’. Until she is married, my mother never brushes her own hair and never goes shopping without Madame.

I can see Madame now, as I last saw her, sometime in the ‘Fifties, a short woman, upright, sprightly, tottering a little on small, shapely legs and high heels.  Above these neat underpinnings she is  dumpy, with a formidable pigeon-chest that makes a permanent display-shelf for a curly gold cross which is thickly set with moonstones. There is a frizette  of greying curls along her forehead in the Edwardian fashion; beneath this her  eyes are like shoe-buttons.

She stays at Pleasington Lodge with the family until all my aunts and uncles are all in their fifties and still calling her Madame, while she in turn, calls the youngest, the aunt after whom I am named, Baby. The family suspect that Totty (my father’s slighting name for her) has been Grandfather ’s mistress at some time after his wife’s death.  My mother will have none of it, though she does admit that Grandfather should have married this devoted, rather silly women whom he had frequently taken away with him on holiday to Monte Carlo (where he had a spectacularly unsuccessful ‘system’), thus ruining both their reputations and causing him to be ostracised by many former friends and acquaintances.

My mother is known as the Pleasington Peach and is considered to be a beauty.  My father, on first seeing her at a ball there, says to a friend ‘By Jove, I didn’t know such peaches grew in Pleasington’; a most uncharacteristic flight of fancy on his part but the name sticks. She is the warm, safe centre of my world; I pray daily that she will not die before me or at least not until I am grown up and preferably married when, I suspect, I shall just about be able to manage without her. Usually I say this prayer in the dog kennel with my arms round the black labrador, because it seems safer in there. I also pray that Daddy and Mummy will stay together … I know they are not happy but I cannot imagine  being without them both or living anywhere else and feel sick when I try.

My mother is the only one of eight siblings to marry. Baby Leo dies when a few weeks old. Her two sisters stay at home, educated, to some extent, by Madame; in French, sketching, playing the piano, in flattering and waiting upon their father, a kind but vain and selfish man who prides himself on his resemblance to the King. They do not go away to the war, although their cousin Monica drives an ambulance in France. One brother, Reggie, becomes  a Benedictine monk at Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire, where all four boys went to school.

The other three boys go off to the Great War and return with a clutch of medals; Grandfather frames these with their citations.  Cyril has been  gassed; shell-shocked Basil has a breakdown. Handsome Gilly, the tallest and  most charming of them all, becomes mildly alcoholic and  breaks several local hearts.  I remember the uncles as kind, gentle, funny and ineffectual men who, from time to time, spend a few desultory hours in the family crown-cork factory, their greatest enthusiasm being reserved for playing a little golf and supporting Blackburn Rovers .

I am not sure about Aunts Freda and Angela; they are kind  but touchy,  suspicious, and faintly disapproving, but of what exactly, I can never discover; Jock, their black Scotty, growls and bites, we keep our  distance. We call them The Lodge People and all of them die of heart-failure at their childhood home, Pleasington Lodge, a pretty white Palladian villa. Even Reggie, returning home, as a monk, Dom Stephen Marwood, O.S.B, to bury his brother Cyril, collapses and dies there. I am taken in to see my dying uncle Cyril and am badly frightened by his agonised breathing, his sunken, burning eyes, hollow cheeks and beak-like nose. When he dies, I am taken in again; the stentorious breathing is silenced but I am haunted for years  by the way his nose juts up under the white sheet that covers him.

I’ve already included an extract from MacDonald Bards: from Mediaeval Times written by Keith Norman MacDonald, M.D. in 1900, which includes a sketch about Alice and some abridged poems (see here). I’ve also included a selection of her poems on this site, such as Culloden Moor, To The Clan Donald, Lochabair Gu Bràth, Lochaber’s Sons and The Weaving of the Tartan. I’lll hopefully get around to publishing them all, but in the meantime I’ve included a few more below.

THE SPELL OF THE MOUNTAINS

Hast thou e’er heard it—
Heard it and understood—
The sough of the low wind’s warning
Sweeping across a wood ;
The tension of nerve in the silence,
The hush ere the coming storm,
Riving the pine from the mountains,
A helpless and quivering form ;
The voice of the wild hills calling,
In the roar of the cataract’s foam ;
Dashing against your heartstrings,
Pursuing wherever you roam ?
Hast thou e’er watched the dawning,
As her touch through Nature thrills,
The pulse of new life awaking “
In the hush of the slumbering hills ;
The whirring noise of the wild duck
Skimming the mountain tarn ;
The gentle lowing of cattle,
Warm-housed below in the barn ;
God’s dumb creation arising
At the call of that mystic hour,
Dividing the day from the darkness,
To praise His infinite power ;
Sinking again into slumber,
To await the new-born day,
Whose trumpeting herald proclaimeth
The night is passing away ?
Far out on the plains of Iceland,
White with untrodden snow,
The reindeer are racing in thousands,
Jingling their bells as they go.
The weak, the fallen, the luckless,
Wild hearts with fever afire,
Who fall in the race are trampled—
The race for a life’s desire.
Once in a life, if once only,
Reindeer and doe must fly,
To drink of the brackish waters
Of the wild North Sea—or die!
In the silence of virginal forests,
In the heat of the tropical grove—
Wherever man’s restless ambition
His brother to exile drove ;
In the marble halls of a palace,
By the tottering steps of a throne,
Be that man a son of the mountains,
The mountains will claim their own.
Once in a life, if once only,
With heart and brain afire,
Through the ranks of love or friendship,
Comes the thirst of a life’s desire.
To hear the falls of the Spean*
In their tumbling vehemence roar,
Or watch the salt spray dashing
In a storm on the ‘ Dorus Mor ;’+
When the spell of the mountain calling
Rends the soul with her plaintive cry,
Back to the heather-clad mountains
Her sons must return, or die !
* A river in Lochaber.
t Near Corryvrechan.

TO THE ‘ SIOL CHUINN,’* ON THEIR SECOND ANNUAL GATHERING

‘Mid the turmoil of the city,
High above its noisy din,
To the pipers’ stirring marches
Are our clansmen gathered in.
In their bright and varied tartan,
In each noble, manly form,
Steadfast eye, and truthful faces
Speak the kind hearts, true and warm.
From the far-off sea-girt islands,
From the beauteous mountain-glen
Come the merry-hearted maidens,
Come Clan Donald’s loyal men.
Never such a day of meeting
Since that dark and fatal day
When ye met and fought together
In that last disastrous fray ;
When thy best blood stained the heather
With a deeper purple tinge —
Pledge of that undying spirit
Made to conquer, not to cringe !

Not in vain our clansmen gathered
‘Neath the banners of our name,
Till the English strongholds shuddered
To the echoes of their fame.
For their own sweet Highland homesteads
‘Gainst our foes they took the field :
Shall we see them pass to strangers,
Or our rights more tamely yield ?
Glens of birch and tangled hazel
Now their children also claim :
Is there one refuse to aid us,
Let us not partake his shame !
Outcast from his clan for ever,
As an alien let him be,
Or a withered branch that’s severed
From a green and living tree !

Clansmen, may no distant future
See our meeting, if God wills,
Not within a crowded city,
But upon our heather hills !
Through the glens, once more repeopled,
On the land once more our own,
Wake the sleeping pulse of Nature
With the pipes’ melodious tone !
It is coming, just as surely
As the mist must slowly rise,
Disclosing old familiar places
With a new and glad surprise.
Golden fields of ripe corn waving,
Maidens singing at the wheel,
Silent forest-echoes waking
To the children’s merry peal.
Highland customs, Highland faces
Reigning both in cot and hall,
And the claims of kin and clanship,
One great bond, uniting all.

* ‘ The Children of Conn,’ a designation of the Clan Donald.

THE QUEST OF THE WEST WIND

On the purple wings of the twilight hour,
When love expands as the evening flower,*
Disclosing her heart in a golden shower
When the glare of the day is over,
A soft West Wind stole over the seas,
Rustling and sighing ‘mid the rowan-trees,
Whispering drea.ms to the slumbering leaves
Where the bees on the rosebuds hover.

A maiden sighed as the shades came down,
Hiding the day with their darkening frown,
And the surf came rolling in, sullen and brown,
Flecked with a white-frothed anger.
Her heart stirred, restless and ill at ease—
E’en the scent of the roses ceased to please —
For the song of the wandering evening breeze
Was fraught with a dreamy languor.

Far from her home, in a stranger land,
Gazing beyond the ribbed bars of sand,
Where the winging seamew’s snowy band
Proclaimed the flight of the swallow
—
Away on the breath of the driving wind,
With nought to harass and nought to bind,
‘Neath brighter skies a new home to find,
Where, alas ! she could not follow.

‘ Tell me,’ the lonely maiden cried,
‘ O wayward Wind, that wanders so free
Over the land and over the sea,
Hast thou no message or song for me
That shall still my heart’s desire ?
Thou bringest the rain to the parched rose,
A smile where the rippling streamlet flows ;
The violets their sweetest perfumes disclose,
Wooed by thy magic lyre.’

The Wind in the trees softly replied :
‘ I come from the fertile land of France,
Breathing the airs of an old romance
Blent with a lily, a smile, and a glance;
‘Tis thine, should you will it so.’
‘ Bear back thy song,’ said the maid ; ‘ though sweet,
Like yon fleecy cloud ’tis as airy and fleet:
The theme of the song for the nation is mete—
Transient as meteor-glow.’

To the fair, sunny South, its flowers to explore,
And gather anew for the maid rich store,
The Wind swept out on its mission once more,
To essay some new charm again.
A song, ‘neath the gleam of the evening star,
To the tinkling sound of a light guitar,
Wafted a message of love afar
From a dark-eyed son of Spain.

‘ Such passionate love as this I dread,
Where jealousy runs like a twisted thread ;
Though warm and true, no doubt,’ she said,
‘ To such I will ne’er surrender.
The maid who would wed with a son of the South
Must guard every word that falls from her mouth,
Lest the monster should grow to such monstrous
growth,
From which dear Heaven defend her !’

‘ I come from one of Albion’s sons,
Where gold like a mountain rivulet runs
Still into the lap of those favoured ones,
To add new heaps to their store;
Whilst the poor and needy must rest in peace,
Content with the sweat of their brows to increase
New wealth for the master who holds the lease
Of lives that are dead at the core.

‘ Yet for thee I sing a more pleasing tune,
Though ever the strain harks back to the moon
—
A waltz, a dream, or a night in June;
For, alas ! there is no variety.’
‘ Ah, no,’ sighed the maiden, ‘ I ne’er could go
To a land so monotonous, dull, and slow,
Without song or dance to break through the woe
Of a leaden-faced propriety.
For gay and loving, tender and true,
Must the heart be found, though you search the
world through ;
I have tended and guarded the rose for you,
But the rue you have brought to me.’

On the voice of the Wind came a tremulous sound,
As if angel wings were sweeping the ground;
Such a flood of melody swelled around
As of heavenly harps let loose.
‘Twas a child of Erin, with Erin’s smile,
Who struck the wild chords with such loving guile,
The heart of the maid he did almost wile
In a net tied with Cupid’s noose.

‘ Oh, son of the Emerald Isle, depart!
You have snared my senses, but not my heart,
With thy witching eyes and thy winning art,
But I do not sigh for thee.
I sigh for a smile as witching as thine,
And for eyes that as true as the starlight shine,
That once, and once only, looked into mine,
Far down by the Western Sea.’

Wearied and spent, the Wind listlessly strayed
Midst the Northern mountains in beauty arrayed;
O’er a bed of white heather his errand betrayed,
Where Cupid reposed on his throne.
‘ Oh, where hast thou been, thou perfumed Wind ?
‘Tis a breath of the heavens thou hast been to find;
Now all the world seems so beauteous and kind,
And its flowers have lovelier grown.’

‘ I have been where the delicate harebell blows,
By the waters whose musical cadence flows
Down the hills where the heather and rowan grows,
And the snow on the summits lie.
I have heard the weird music that bursts on the ear
To drive away sadness or dissipate fear,
As through the wide glens the pipes sounded clear
Till the answering echoes reply.

‘ There the trimly-built sons of the North look so gay,
With their wide-floating plaids, in their tartan array,
As they dance to a reel or a stately strathspey,
Whilst their hearts beat a rhythm as true.
From the brightest, the lightest, best dancer of all,
As a tree of the forest, both graceful and tall,
I bring thee a token his face to recall—
A sprig of white heather for you.’

Then trembled the maiden, and placed in her breast
The magical flower that soothed trouble’s unrest.
‘ Oh, bear me away, thou kind Wind of the West,
To the hills of the North, as a bird seeks her nest.
I have found me love’s haven, now ended thy quest—
‘Neath the tartan plaid beats the heart truest and best !’

* The evening primrose.

Monday, 23 Jan 1939 PROBATE
MACDONELL – Alice Claire, of 20 Pembroke-crescent, Hove, Sussex, spinster, died 12 October 1938, at 9 Rutland Gardens, Hove. Administration (with will), Exeter, 23 January, to Angus Charles Majoribanks Maitland, of no occupation. Effects £126 3s 7d.

[Alice C. MacDonell Age 83, 1938 4Q Hove 2b 363] 

Her poems often appeared as introductions and inclusions in a number of mostly Scottish publications during her life, such as Celtic Monthly. Some were also set to music by the likes of Stanley Hawley and Colin MacAlpin. There were also published collections, including:

- Lays of the Heather: poems (1896)
- Songs of the Mountain and the Burn (1912)
- The royal ribbon (1920)
- The Crushing of the Lilies (1927)
- For God and St. Andrew (1928)
- The Glen o’ dreams (1929)

I’ve included an extract below from MacDonald Bards: from Mediaeval Times written by Keith Norman MacDonald, M.D. in 1900. It includes a sketch of Alice and includes some of her poems. Interesting, I found the following reference to Alice in The tartans of the clans and families of Scotland (1938) by Sir Thomas Innes of Learney:

Alice Claire Macdonell of Keppoch, is now Chieftainess of Keppoch and Bardess of Clan Donald.

AILIS SORCHA NI’ MHIC ‘IC RAONUILL NA CEAPAICH
(ALICE CLARIE MACDONELL OF KEPPOCH)

Our famous and well-known clan bardese Miss Alice Clarie MacDonell, is the 8th and youngest daughter of Angus XXII. of Keppoch, and maintains the reputation of her clan and family, and illustrious ancestors from whomshe inherited poetic
gifts of a high order.

Ailis dhonn gur mòr mo ghràdh ort Gruaidh na nàire’s beul an fhurain.

The founder of this brave, poetic, and war-like family of Keppoch, was Alastair Carrach* third and youngest son of John, first Lord of the Isles, by his second wife, the Lady Margaret, daughter of Robert High Steward of Scotland, who in the year 1370 ascended the throne of Scotland by the title of Robert II.

* Curly headed and fair, ” that is shawit Alexander sua that being the countries custome, because Highland men call it the fairest-hared and sua furthe, for this Alexander was the farest-hared man as they say of any that ever was,” &c.

Several reasons have been alleged for the assumption of the surname MacDonell instead of MacDonald by this family. In Maelan’s “Costumes of the Clans of Scotland,” it is stated that Coll of Keppoch, the son of Gilleasbuig, who lived in the end of the seventeenth century, was the first who changed the orthography of the name to” MacDonell by the persuasion of Glengarry, Lord Aros.

That’s not likely, neither was any persuasion necessary, as according to the Black Book of Taymouth, his father, Archibald, signed his name MacDonell, and Donald Glas the second, signed Montrose’s bond in 1665 (at Kilchuimen [Fort Augustus] to unite the loyalty of the Highlanders) as “Donald MacDonell off Keppoch.” The patronymic of the family first was ” Sliocdh Alistair Mhic Aonghuis,” from Angus son of Alistair Carrach, down to the time of Raonull Mòr, when it became Mac-Ranald ” Mac ‘Ic Raonuill.” Up to the time of Alastair nan Cleas, 10th Chief of Keppoch, they always signed ” Mack Ranald” from the patronymic, then it was anglicised from MacDhomhnuill into MacDonell, which is nearer the Gaelic than MacDonald, which was derived from the Latin MacDonaldus, and in all subsequent documents the name and signatures
are MacDonell.

Few families can boast of such a number of bards, both in the direct and indirect lines, and able ones too. The first of them was Iain Lom (and his son), entitled John son of Donald, son of John, son of Donald, sen of Iain Aluin, the 4th Chief, was the most famous. Then we have Donald Donn, Donald Bane of the spectre, Alexander and Donald Gruamach of the house of Bohuntin, Rev. John MacDonald, ” Ni’ Mhic
Aonghuis òg,” grand daughter of Angus òg, fifth son of Alistair nan Cleas. A daughter of Donald Glas the 2nd, and sister of the brothers Alexander and Ranald, who were murdered. Gilleasbuig na Ceapaich, his daughter Juliet, and his sons, Angus Odhar, and Alexander, and Coll, and several others, until we come down to the subject of our present sketch.

Miss Alice MacDonell was educated by private tuition, and at the convent of French nuns in Northampton, finishing off at St. Margaret’s Convent, Edinburgh. She gave early promise of the bardic gift by stringing couplets together, and running about the romantic Braes of Lochaber, listening to wonderful tales of battles and chivalry, weird romances, fairy tales, Ossianic poetry, and lovely Highland music, all tended to foster the poetic talent, and lay the foundation of that intense patriotism and grand martial spirit which pervades much of her poetry, and which would have satisfied even Alistair Carrach himself. Besides her numerous accomplishments, Miss MacDonell is very well read in Shakespeare, ancient and modern poetry, history, and romance. For several years some of her poems have been published in various Highland papers, but they were not published in book form until 1896, when her ” lays of the heather” appeared a goodlysized book of 206 pages dedicated to Prince Rupert of Bavaria, thepresent representative of the Stewarts, containing 53 pieces of different lengths, and of a martial, descriptive, and sentimental character. As might be expected her first poem is to her beloved native glen. “Lochabair gu Bràch” (Lochaber for ever), written for a historical work, entitled ” Loyal Lochaber,” by Mr W. Drummond Norie.

In all thy moods I love thee,
In sunshine and in storm,
Lochaber of the towering bens,
Outlined in rugged form.
Here proud Ben JNevis snowy crowned,
Rests throned amid the clouds ;
There Lochy’s deep and silvery wave
A Royal city shrouds ;
Whose waters witnessed the escape
Of coward Campbell’s dastard shape,
Disgrace eternal reap:
Whilst fair Glen Nevis’ rocks resound
With Pibroch Dhu’ renowned;
From Inverlochy’s keep.
Grey ruined walls, in after years
That saw the great Montrose,
MacDonald’s, Cameron’s, men lead forth
To victory ‘gainst their foes.
Oh ! Lochaber, dear Lochaber,
The rich red afterglow
Of fame that rests upon thy shield,
Unbroken records show.
” 0, Lochabair, mo Lochabair fhèin gu bràth “
(Oh, Lochaber, my own Lochaber for ever.)

The next is ” Lochaber’s sons” (the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders) in which mention is made of the ties that existed between the Camerons and the Keppochs. Allan Cameron of Erracht’s mother was a sister of the gallant Keppoch of the ’45, and she it was who designed the tartan of the 79th, a blending of the colours of the MacDonald and Cameron tartans. Another significant poem is to the Clan Donald,
on their first formation as a society since the ’45, which breathes intense patriotism throughout.

Rouse ye children of MacDonald,
From each far and distant shore !
Hands outstretched across the ocean
Cling in fancied grasp once more.
Helpers of the weak and suffering,
As the knights of ancient lore ;
Hearts that never knew dishonour
Beat as loyal as of yore.
Wake again, O great Clann Dhomhnuill ! (The Clan Donald)
Let not duty call in vain :
In the vanguard of the battle,
Form your serried ranks again.

Miss MacDonell has been as successful in her choice of titles, as in the subject of her poems, and no one can go through the work without seeing that the author is capable of still greater things, ” The Highland Brigade,” at the battle of the Alma, consists of 133 lines, is an excellent poem, and enough to rouse any Highlander’s enthusiasm.

“The Bonnie Scots Greys” (second to none), is an equally fascinating poem ; ” The thin, red Line,” and ” The passage of the Gare,” are likewise well chosen. ” The Rush on Coomassie,” ” A Soldier’s vow,” ” The Lad with the Bonnet of Blue,” II ” The wearing of the tartan,” ” The spell of the mountains,” ” The plaint of the mountain stream,” ” Sunset,” and many others are very good and reflect great credit upon the authoress, but she is not done yet. Since the ” Lays of the Heather” was published the following
further poems have come from her pen :— ” How they won the Red Hackle” (about the
42nd); ” Gillean an Fhèilidh ” (the lads with the kilts); “The lassie wi’ the tartan,” ” A Rùin,” (term of endearment), ” The Dream Glen,” ” Sea Dreams,” ” The Parting on the Bridge,” ” When Distant Hills Look Near,” ” Through the Zone of Fire” (Flora MacDonald), “The Doom of Knocklea,” “The Taking of Abu-Hamed,” ” The Song of Sleep,” ” Never go Back,” ” Friendship,””Haunted,” ”TheDargaiHeights,” ” Cill Charoil,” ” My Picture,” ” Parting,” ” On the eve,” and several others not yet published. Some stanzas of one of the unpublished ones— ” The Doom of Knocklea ” are appended, ” The Doom of Knocklea” (suggested by an incident in the Highland evictions.)

Whistle ! for food in your eerie lone,
Gold Eagle of Cnoc-nam-beann !
Folds there are none, but the granite stone.
To steal for thy young on Cnoc-nam-beann,
The thatchless roof, and the ruined wall,
Will echo back to your hungry call,
No song in the shelling, nor cow in the stall,
To tell of the kindly haunts of men
As the lonely winds sweep up the glen.
Ochon!
Whistle ! and cry in your haunted cave,
Spirit of him who was called Knocklea,
Ye stand on the brink of an open grave
With the forms of the dead for company.
The red deer roams on the bare hillside,
No sound of life on the moorland wide
Ye scattered afar in the day of your pride :
Nor living nor dead, are ye lonesome then,
As the wintry winds sweep up the glen
And moan ?
The ship went down as it left the shore,
Freighted with sorrowing human lives ;
The waves brought back to thy castle door
Aged mothers and year-old wives.
Above the wail of the tempest’s shriek,
The curse of the strong and the cry of the weak
Rose high o’er the blackened boulders peak,
For the ruined hearth and the empty pen
As the lone wind swept the evicted glen
Of the Dead!
Ye were strong as ye laughed in your cheerless mirth,
For the peasant lives who had perished there !
They wished to remain in the land of their birih,
Behold! how their Godhath heard the prayer !
The gloom of the rocks on thy dwelling fell.
There is neither laughter nor tear in Hell!
Souls of the just with their God are well,
How fares it with thee in thy cursed den,
When the lone winds sweep the leafless glen.
O’erhead ?
Whistle and cry to your hunting hounds,
The white Doe lies in the bosky park,
W hoop ! and away, the dead man bounds,
For you are living and they are stark.
Fingers point Lo their grass grown homes,
Little ones weep on their own grave stones,
The forest echoes give back thy groans,
Till the tenantless walls are peopled again
With living children and lusty men.
Thy Doom !
Ware the river and haunted cave !
Ware the forests of dark Knocklea !
Ware the cursed where the pine trees wave !
Ware the torrent that tumbles free !
There evil walks in the train of night
With the man accursed in the day or his might,
Here men have perished in fearsome plight
Who answered the cry for the aid of men
That shrieks and raves thro’ the wind swept glen.
In gloom !

(Set to music by Colin MacAlpin.)

Our clan bardess has also immortalised the heroic conduct of Brigadier Hector MacDonald at Omdurman in verse and song—” Our heroe’s welcome ” must be familiar to most Highlanders.

From the crash of cannons’ roar
And the flash of ringing steel,
Toilsome march, and swift Bivouac,
Broken by the trumpets peal.
From the desert Afric s sands
Long renowned in battle story;
Omdurman’s undaunted field
Where thy name is linked in glory.
Ciad’s ciad mile fàilte*
Dear to soldier’s heart the laurels,
When a glorious deed is done ;
Dearer when from grim oppressions
Broken chains, the wreath is won.
Dearer still, when hearts that love thee,
Honour in thy honours claim,
When the race of Conn united
To the world their rights proclaim.
Ciad’s ciad, &c.
Maidens ! softly touch the clàrsach,
Sing your sweetest songs tu-day,
Pipers ! rouse the magic chanter,
Loud Cian Coila’s gathering play,
Clansmen ! nledge with Highland honours,
Highland cheer, our heroe’s name,
Till tìle Highland hills re-echo
Back again our Hector’s fame.
Ciad’s ciad mìle fàilte.

* A hundred thousand welcomes.

Miss Jessie MacLachlan, the famous Scottish vocalist, sang the above song at the London banquet given to Colonel Hector MacDonald, which was set to music by Mr Colin MacAlpin. Miss MacDonell’s latest poem is ” The mother land,” extending to sixty-three lines, which has just been published, 1899, in the year book of the MacDonald Society. It breathes the same fervent patriotism so characteristic of many of her poems. The following quotation will give an idea of the poem as a whole.

THE MOTHER LAND

Upon thy kindly breast once more,
Heart to my heart, cheek to thy cheek, red lips
Of honey, scented heather beil, and myrtle sweet
and wild,
Keening soft lullabys from out their mossy depths,
In the sound of the swift brown burns, and the
winds
Lilting under the feathery fronds and the clustering leaves,
Trailing away down the rocky banks where the
berries grow.
0 ! but thou givest rest sweet mother land !
With thy cool delicate airs, and the songs,
The old time songs of the hills, Dearghull and
Naoise sang
In their wattle hut by the side of the Etive loch,
Cuchullin sang in the far-off isle of the mists,
And Ossian sang away there by the fairy haunts of
Treig,
Songs of the perfect life in the land of Atlantis out
by the setting sun.

Miss MacDonell’s last poem, published in the October number of the ” Celtic Monthly,” shows no falling off on her previous productions. It is in praise of the Paladin of the Soudan, ” Major-General Sir Archibald Hunter, K.C.M.G., who so distinguished himself in the recent Soudan campaign, and who gained for himself not only the reputation of being one of the bravest of the brave, but a far higher and rarer quality, that of chivalry—by his mother’s side a Graham, showing that he follows in the footsteps of those two knightly Paladins of his cian, Montrose and Bonnie Dundee.” The first and last stanzas are quoted to give an idea of the poem.

1 Not mine the right thou gallant son,
Nor yet the skill to sing thy praise;
Till some more powerful hand shall wake
His tuneful lyre with polished phrase.
Some bard from out thine own cian Graeme,
So far renowned in Scottish fame,
His clansmen’s deeds inverse pjrtrays,
A Bister Scot her right may claim.

5 Worthy of that brave cian art thou
That owned a Clavers, a Montrose,
Beneath their knightly banners furled
Thy name shall also find repose.
Nor courtly ways with these are sped,
Nor chivalry with these arc dead,
So long as Scottish names disclose
One with such knightly virtues bred.
Our bardess is still singing away, and long may
she continue to do so, a wish which, I am sure,
the whole cian Donald will heartily endorse.
” Gu m a fada beò thu’s ceò dheth do thighe.”

Angus MacDonnell, xx or xxii of Keppoch?

I’ve included an extract below from MacDonald Bards: from Mediaeval Times written by Keith Norman MacDonald, M.D. in 1900. It includes a sketch of my great great great Grandfather Angus MacDonell of Keppoch, together with a poem of his. What’s interesting is that K.N. Macdonald refers to Angus as XXll of Keppoch, and says that represented the chieftainship from 1831 until the time of his death in 1855. I’ve written at length about how his chieftainship no longer seems to be recognised by Clan Donald (see here), which is interesting as there’s plenty of records from the time that show that he was considered to have been by at least some of his clan.

AONGHNAS MAC DHOMHNUILL.
(ANGUS MACDONELL).

The subject of this sketch, Augus MacDonell, xxii. of Keppoch,* was a grandson of Barbara, daughter of “the gallant Keppoch,” of “the forty-five,” and of the Rev. Patrick MacDonald of Kilmore and Kilbride, the author of the famous collection of Highland airs published in 1784.

He represented the chieftainship from 1831 until the time of his death. He married Christina MacNab, of the MacNab’s of Inishowen, Mwho was a grand-daughter of Charlotte, the youngest daughter of the famous hero of Culloden already mentioned, and, therefore, a second cousin of his own, by whom he had a large family. He was a very handsome man—tail, fair, wellknit together—and inherited some of the best traits of his distinguished ancestors. A staunch Jacobite, of course, and full of the ardour of his patriotic race he would have been an ideal chief, and no doubt if occasion had arisen during his time he would have been found “aye ready” for any emergency, and would have shown that the blood of the Keppochs had not in the slightest degree degenerated. He wrote several pieces of poetry, chiefly in a humorous or satirical vein,
all of which, except one, have been mislaid or lost. He also saved some traditional papers relating to the family, which were in the possession of his uncle, John MacDonald of Inch, and who was on the eve of burning them a short time before his death. The specimen of his versification appended does not reproduce all he could
have done. It was simply written one evening after dinner to create some amusement for his guests, among whom was the author of the subject for which the lines were written. The following are parts of the poem in question, being a reply to adverse criticisms on a prayer-book written by the Rev. Father Rankine, the priest at Badenoch, and after at Moidart.

FATHER RANKINE’S PRAYER BOOK

Ye critics spare your savage look,
Have mercy on poor Rankin’s book,
What! though there’s here and there a blunder,
Jaw-breaking words like distant thunder.
Know then, renown was not his aim,
Nor glory, yet, nor sounding fame,
Ye that see his faults too many,
His book -was made to gain the penny.
Don’t twit him with a deed so foul,
As gaining to his creed one soul.
Then critic spare his crippled verse,
To clink the Geordies in his purse,
In labour tossed, his infant brain
Conceived a thought brought forth with pain.
And Rankin is a man of feeling,
Tho’ Owen says he has been stealing
From leaves that lay on shelves for years,
Bronzed by the smoke that moves our tears ;
Where the spider wove in peaceful toil,
Since Owen did possess the soil.
Poor insect he must shift position,
The subject now of inquisition;
The cankered worm his work traduced,
Behold the web he has produced.
M.A. is added to his name,
Not by merit—’tis pilfered fame.
Owen lost his title and his book,
The one he lent, the other Rankin took.
Curious that the title page
Didn’t esi-ape the critics rage :
All the notice that it claims
Is that it’s wronfj in all its aims ;
And still we see it spreading wide,
Fast gaining ground on every side.
We wonder how this came to pass,
Yet no ! behold Sir Hudibras ;
A great brain turned topsy turvey,
When of his work we take a survey.
Verbs and nouns placed far asunder,
As Colossus’ legs where ships sail under;
He spurned all rules of moods and tense,
Because they’re used by men of sense.
From whence his words, that ill-spelt rabble,
Were they used at the tower of Babel ?
A Gaelic book in broad Scotch idiom,
Like the hotch-potch that mortals feed on.
As changeable in confoundations
As the souls in transmigration ;
No points or periods where they should
That would be given if he could.
Where’er there’s doubt in prose or song,
He’s always sure to take the wrong ;
A tortured fancy groans a sound,
Like Titans fighting under ground.
Who then put in his head that foible
Queen Bess’ ghost with Cranmer’s bible.
Lucre! the man pretends to scorn,
His book is bought like bill-reform.
The people stared with greedy look
Lured by the bait that hid the hook ;
What motley crew of b-b-b-bastards
Were to their view on paper plastered ;
Pandora’s box sent out all evils.
But here they’re back to fight tho Devil;
For this he had some credit gained
Before he g >t them so well trained.
His lines are all so out of measure.
That none can read them now with pleasure,
So very like the one that made them.
That none can doubt who ever read them.
To-day with something he’s quite full,
To-morrow he is another’s tool.
At times he is our Lord Protector,
And now, a Peter’s pence collector.
A church he’ll build, yet do not doubt it,
Some other view will drive that out yet;
A shining nature full of notion,
To find perchance perpetual motion,
That’s found if he’d but take the trouble
To look but once in his own noddle.
One thing is grafted on his creed,
We will not pass it without heed.
So very like old Rothiemurchus,
Who, on the Spey, lived near his ” duchas.’
Let what Bishop chose be in
He’s Vicar of Bray—is Rankin ;
What more faults let others tell,
I shall bid him now farewell

One who could write the above on the spur of the moment must have had more in him that only required drawing out, some political excitement would have done it. Many of our best songs were produced during the Jacobite period, and it only required something of the kind to induce our author to cultivate the muses with greater success than the poem on the prayer book.

Christina MacDonnell (Née McNab)

This sketch would not be complete without some mention of our poet’s helpmate, who was left a widow with a young family at too early an age. Mrs MacDonell, who has battled with life nobly and cheerfully, is still hale and hearty and long may she continue so. She has perhaps done more for Highland music than any other lady in the Highlands. She has preserved the best arrangements of many old Highland airs
that otherwise would have perished, and improved others. Within the last thirty years she has been consulted by several airangersof Highland music, and her stamp is marked upon the majority of their choice pieces—”Cailleach Beinn na Bric,”
” rodh Chailein,” ” Tha Dhriùchd fhèin air barr gach meangan ” (a fairy song), ” Och nan och mo lèir cràdh,” “A n nochd gur faoin mo chadal domh,” “Bodaich nam brigis,” ” Struan Robertson’s Salute,” “Tha ‘n cuan a’ cuir eagal air clann nan Gàidheal,” and several others in the “Gesto Collection of Highland Music” are her arrangements. Like the Gesto family in Skye, all her pieces are of the best, and nothing secondclass is to be found in her repertoire, and she plays them all beautifully. Though her forte lay in slow airs, marches, and pibrochs, yet she was some years ago a powerful strathspey player. The writer never heard a better exponent of “Righ nam port”—the king of reels—the reel of Tnlloch—and the prince of strathspeys, “Delvin side.” It is no wonder, therefore, that such a talented couple should have a clever son and clever daughters, but more of some of them presently.

Christina MacDonell (née MacNab) 1902

The Times, Saturday, Feb 3, 1906 DEATH                       
MACDONNELL – On the 30th Jan, at 60 Sternhold-avenue, London, Christina MacNab, widow of the late Angus MacDonell, of Keppoch, Inverness-shire, aged 89.   R.I.P.   Interment on the 6th inst., Brue Lochaber.   Scotch papers please copy.

Angela Kirby

Further to me setting up a category on this site for my mother’s poetry she sent me two new seasonal ones, which I’ve added below.

Winter appointment

It is, the stylist says,
combing my greying hair,
the latest thing -

this season’s decor -
these silver branches
that wreath the salon mirror.

Raising an eyebrow
at my reflection in the glass
I whisper

that age-old question
Mirror, mirror, on the wall -
and soft but clear

the answer comes
oh no, alas,
not you, my dear.

The Longridge shepherd thinks on…

Well, I’ll tell thee how it were…
we didn’t mek a lot of it at start,
what wi’ cold, and yon damn sheep
so restless. Drifts were that ‘igh,
but it were wind as got to oos,
froze our bloody bollocks off,
yon wind did.Dogs were oopset too,
wouldn’t settle like,joost whined
and whimpered, an’ yelped at moon,
meking a reet ‘ow d’ee do …. tha’ knows
‘ow dogs are, when soommat ails ‘em,
when soommat’s oop. Yoong Tel,
‘ee sees it first -bloody ‘ell, ‘e said,
joost like that, bloody ‘ell, an’ pointed
to t’biggest, foocking grëat star
tha’s ever sin, wi’ sooch a tail on it -
I tell thee, we’d seen nowt like it
beförean’ not like to again, I reckon,
notin this world, any röad – an’ then,
that Del, ‘e says, coom on lads, let’s
‘ave a decco, let’s tek a luke, like, no bloody
‘arm in that, an’ we’re off down t’ill,
t’lot of oos, silly as arse’oles, wi’ dogs,
sheep an’ all …. great bell-wether
out in’t froont, pelting down
t’Moocky Doock at foot o’t möor -
sithee,there were nowt to see, reelly,
joost a yoong lass wi’ a littl’un, an’
n owd bearded boogger fettlin’
a clapped-out mule – or donkey,
mebbee, I forget which – an’ yon
landlord, yon fat, pasty-faced git
from Goosenargh way, e’s only
choocked‘em out t’barn, but think on,
I’ll tell thee this – and ‘appen tha’ll
believe it, ‘appen tha’ll not -
we were all down ont’ knees
in snow and moock.