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Historic & Literary Associations
with the Blennerhassett Family
contributed by Leslie Eric Blennerhassett
for those who enjoy literature, finding diverse historic,
literary or artistic associations with a family name
in which one is interested can be very rewarding... |
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TALBOT CLIFTON |
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Talbot Clifton 1868-1928
portrait by <???>
at Lytham Hall,
courtesy of Lytham Estate Office
image from:
"West Lancashire Evening Gazettte"
(now "Blackpool Gazette")
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| (John) Talbot Clifton (1868-1928), squire of Lytham, Co.Lancashire, was a descendent of Susan Blennerhassett, sister of Harman Blennerhassett of "Blennerhassett Island" , through his mother Madeline Agnew, daughter of Sir Andrew Noel Agnew 9th Baronet of Lochnaw.
Talbot Clifton led an adventurous life, travelling to North & South America, Russia, Africa, India and the Far East. During his first visit to the United States, in 1890, he had a lengthy affair with Lillie Langtry (1853-1929). He features in "As I Was Going Down Sackville Street", a classic memoir from the golden age of Dublin and autobiography of his close friend Oliver St John Gogarty (1878-1957), surgeon, writer and member of the first Irish Senate.
Sackville Street, Dublin was in 1924 renamed O'Connell Street, to honour "The Liberator" Daniel O'Connell (1775-1847) whose statue has stood in the centre of the street near O'Connell Bridge since 1882, and whose wife Mary O'Connell was granddaughter of Jane Blennerhassett and Maurice O'Connell of Waterville, Co.Kerry.
Aged 39 years he married Violet Mary Beauclerk, whom he met in Peru. He bought Kylemore House, Clifden, Co.Galway and lived there while on naval duties from 1917 until 1922, in which year he and his wife had to leave Ireland following a confrontation with Sinn Feiners, described in Gogarty's book, in which he attempted to recover his Lanchester car after it had been hijacked from his home. Talbot returned to Lytham Hall, where he gave sanctuary to Gogarty who also fled the Irish Civil War in 1922. Talbot was a great benefactor of Lytham and of St Annes.
Gogarty was a friend of James Joyce (1882-1941), with whom in 1904 he shared accommodation in a Martello Tower at Sandy Cove near Dublin. Much to his chagrin, Gogarty became famous for being portrayed as the stately Buck Mulligan in Joyce’s "Ulysses". Martello towers are small defensive fortifications of early 19th century, built at intervals along the coast of Britain and Ireland to resist the anticipated Napoleonic invasion, this tower finding new purpose as a house.
Talbot's maternal uncle Sir Andrew Agnew, 8th Baronet of Lochnaw, was married to the beautiful Gertrude Vernon, whose stunning 1892 portrait "Lady Agnew of Lochnaw" launched the career of John Singer Sargent R.A. (1856-1925) as the great society portrait painter. Lady Agnew’s distinguished and varied life could perhaps be considered a suitable template for the subject of Henry James' 1881 novel "The Portrait of a Lady", of whom he writes: "She was better worth looking at than most works of art". Sargent was close friend and travelling companion of Wilfrid Gabriel deGlehn and his wife Jane Erin Emmet, both painters. Jane Erin Emmet was a cousin of novelist Henry James (1843-1916), whose brother, another brilliant man, was psychologist and philosopher William James. Several others of the outstandingly talented Emmet family were painters; an exhibition "Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture by Five Generations of the Emmet Family" was held at New York in 1936, another "The Emmets: A Family of Women Painters" at the Berkshire Museum in 1982 and yet another at Arden Gallery, New York in 2007. Jane Emmet's niece Elizabeth "Lybba" Emmet Morgan was a great beauty, often sitting for eminent photographers and artists including William Bruce Ellis Ranken (1881-1941).
In 1919 Sargent painted a portrait of David Beatty, better known as Admiral of the Fleet Earl Beatty, remembered for the Battle of Jutland during the first world war. Beatty was a descendant of Catherine Blennerhassett of Castle Conway, Killorglin and her husband Richard McLoughlin, who were also ancestors of Thomas Addis Emmet (1764-1827).
Thomas Addis Emmet was a close friend of Harman Blennerhassett, both men studying law at Trinity College Dublin and both admitted to the Irish bar (King's Inn, Dublin) as barrister in 1790. A follower of (Theobald) Wolfe Tone (1763-1798), leader of the "Society of United Irishmen", Thomas Addis Emmet had joined the Dublin branch of the society in 1795, becoming branch secretary in that year and a member of the Directory (the Executive) in 1797. Following the failure of the first United Irishmen rebellion in 1798 and subsequent death of Wolfe Tone (who committed suicide to avoid execution), then the failure of the second rebellion and execution of his brother Robert Emmet in 1803, T.A.E. in 1804 emigrated to the United States, settling at New York City where he became a respected and successful lawyer and briefly (1812-1813) Attorney General for the State of New York. The American Emmets mentioned here are his descendants.
T.A.E.'s son Robert Temple Emmet (1792-1883), a lawyer like his father, was Justice of the New York State Superior Court. In 1842 Robert attempted to help his mother's friend Margaret Blennerhassett, by employing the renowned orator Senator Henry Clay as their lawyer to present Margaret's petition to the U.S. Congress, by which action she hoped to recover from the US Government the value of her home on Blennerhassett Island, damaged by the Wood County Militia in 1806. Margaret died in 1842 before any action had been taken on her petition.
In America Thomas Addis Emmet welcomed his old friend Harman Blennerhassett at their New York home, T.A.E.'s wife Jane Patten and Harman's wife Margaret becoming devoted friends. Eventually, at their joint request, the two friends were interred side-by-side in the Emmet family vault at New York, Margaret's son Harman Blennerhassett Jr. being also buried there. In 1996, through the initiative of Ray Swick, historian for West Virginia State Parks, the remains of Margaret Blennerhassett and Harman Jr. were exhumed, to be reburied on Blennerhassett Island, West Virginia, close to her infant daughter Margaret who had died there in 1804. Black granite markers were erected on the new graves in 1998. |
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References:
"The Clifton Chronicle" by John Kennedy, 1990
"As I was going down Sackvlle Street" by Oliver St John Gogary, 1936
"James Joyce" by Richard Ellman, 1959
"Ulysses" by James Joyce, 1922
"The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James, 1881
"The Portrait of a Lady, Sargent and Lady Agnew" by Julia Rayer Rolfe with David Cannadine, 1997
"The life and letters of David Earl Beatty" by W S Chalmers, 1951
"Our Admiral, A biography of Admiral of the Fleet, Earl Beatty, 1871-1936" by Charles Beatty, 1980
"Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn (1870-1951): John Singer Sargent's painting companion" by Laura Wortley, Spanierman Gallery NY 1997
"The Emmets: A Generation of Gifted Women", by Tara Leigh Tappert, Borghi and Co. New York 1993 |
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ROBERT EMMET |
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Robert Emmet 1778-1803
portrait on loan to
"Number Twenty Nine",
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| Thomas Addis Emmet's younger brother Robert Emmet (1778-1803), known in Ireland as "The Patriot", picked up the torch from Wolfe Tone to lead a second United Irishmen rebellion against British government in Ireland. This rebellion also failed, Emmet losing control of his followers, the not-unsympathetic Lord Chief Justice of Ireland being dragged from his carriage and hacked to death outside Dublin Castle. Robert was charged with high treason, tried and convicted, his telling speech at the dock concluding with "...when my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written..." , a line that soon entered nationalist Irish folklore.
Emmet was publicly hanged at Dublin, his body beheaded, the ancient and customary punishment for treason. A death mask was made, usual following execution of a "notorious criminal", by Scottish-born Dublin artist James Petrie, on which mask Petrie later based his Portrait of Robert Emmet, believed painted for Emmet's grieving girlfriend Sarah Curran. Robert Emmet's death mask was at one time owned by Garland Emmet, descendant of Thomas Addis Emmet, but is now in the museum at Kilmainham Goal, Dublin. Emmet's headless body is known to have been buried nearby at Bully's Acre, then removed by friends to be reinterred elsewhere in Dublin, the location of his final resting place a subject of controversy ever since. Local tradition in Co.Kerry claims it was taken there from Dublin, to be reinterred under the back porch of Blennerville Church (since demolished) but this is almost certainly wishful thinking as evidence suggests his body remained at Dublin.
The Emmet family, although strongly Church of Ireland, were kinsmen of the Roman Catholic O'Connells. It is interesting to contrast the achievements of Daniel O'Connell's peaceful methods of protest with those of the United Irishmen and their martyred heroes Wolf Tone and Robert Emmet. Irish historian Edward Alfred D'Alton in 1910 wrote of Robert Emmet: "On the whitewashed walls of every Irish peasant's home, beside the picture of the Pope and of O'Connell, there is another that is familiar to us all. It is that of Emmet... wherever the Irish race has gone it is the same, and abroad or at home, the name of Emmet is one with which to conjure... to erect a monument which is still unthought of and to write that epitaph which is still unwritten"
Petrie's Portrait of Robert Emmet, painted postumously from Emmet's death mask, is displayed on loan at Number Twenty Nine, Dublin's excellent "Georgian House Museum" on FitzWilliam Street Lower, managed by the National Museum of Ireland. The first occupants of the house, in November 1794, were Mrs Olivia Maria Beatty, widow of David Beatty, and their children, one of whom, also named David Beatty, is ancestor of Admiral Earl Beatty. |
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RAYMOND CHANDLER |
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Raymond Chandler
1888-1959
Portrait by Scott Laumann
(mixed media)
copyright © Los Angeles Times |
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Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), doyen of crime writers and creator of detective "Philip Marloe, Private Eye", acquired a job at "The Westminster Gazette" newspaper through the intercession of Rowland Ponsonby Blennerhassett, K.C., M.P. (1850-1913), a barrister with a House of Lords legal practice who was a friend of Chandler’s uncle.
Chandler was quoting another uncle from Waterford c1912 when he wrote of Rowland, “He was a member... of one of those ancient untitled families that make earls and marquesses appear quite parvenu“.
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References:
"The life of Raymond Chandler" by Dennis McShane (Dutton & Co., New York 1976 and G.K.Hall, Boston 1986), p.17 |
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Dame REBECCA WEST |
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Rebecca West
1892-1983
Portrait by
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| Rebecca West is the pen-name of Cicely Isabel Fairfield (1892-1983). Born in Co.Kerry, she was through her journalist father Charles Fairfield a descendant of George Rowan and Mary Blennerhassett (daughter of Thomas Blennerhassett, steward of Trinity College Dublin's Munster estates).
A great writer, author of numerous books and essays, she was one of the first female professional journalists, given the approbation of Irish socialist and fellow Fabian George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) who said she could "...handle a pen as brilliantly as I ever could and more savagely...".
She was an intellectual and social rebel, joining the newspaper "Freewoman" in 1911 and having a seminal influence on the feminist movement. Her first published book was "Henry James" in 1916. She reported on the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials 1945-46.
Expressing great interest in history and genealogy, she proudly alluded to her "Kerry Cousins", namely Blennerhassetts, Crosbies and Dennys who were leading gentry of that county, so came under criticism from some feminist and socialist quarters as to why she should waste time on her ancestry...
She is referred to in the guise of Biddy Doran, and in phrases such as 'rebecca or worse' in the "Anna Livia Plurabelle" chapter of "Finnegans Wake" , as supposed revenge by James Joyce.
She enjoyed a long lasting friendship with H.G.Wells (1866-1946) and by him had a son, Anthony West (1919-1987), with whom Wells had an ambivalent relationship. Anthony published a biography of his father, "H.G.Wells: Aspects of a Life". Rebecca was used by Wells in his novels, as she also used real people in hers. She did later express some regret about meeting Wells, feeling the circumstances prevented her being married to another man.
In his novel "Tono Bungay", which also includes what appears to be a far-sighted warning of the dangers of nuclear waste, H.G.Wells mentions "Sir Roderick Blenderhasset Impey, some sort of governor or such-like portent in the East Indies" , who may perhaps have been based on Sir Arthur Blennerhassett Voules (1870-1954), senior British civil servant in Malaya and Resident Councillor at Penang, whose family had extensive interests in the rubber industry. |
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References:
"Rebecca West, A life" by Victoria Glendinning, 1987
"Rebecca West: a Saga of the Century" by Carl Rollyson, 1995
"H.G.Wells: Aspects of a Life" by Anthony West, 1984
"Finnigans Wake" by James Joyce, 1939
"Tono Bungay" by H.G.Wells, 1909 |
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Lord John Acton
portrait by
National Portrait Gallery, London
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John Dalburg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton (b.1834 d.1902) was the outstanding English Catholic historian and influential philosopher of freedom.
One of his ablest pupils was Charlotte von Leyden (b.1843 d.1917) only daughter of Count von Leyden of Bavaria who was closely associated with the Arco-Valley family, also relatives of Acton’s wife. In 1870 Charlotte had married Acton's friend Sir Rowland Blennerhassett MP, 4th Baronet of Blennerville in Co.Kerry (b.1839 d.1909). As Lady Blennerhassett she was invited to contributed two chapters, "The Doctrinaires" and "The Papacy and the Catholic Church", for vol.10 of the "Cambridge Modern History", edited by Acton.
Acton was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge, and when he nominated Sir Rowland Blennerhassett to succeed him was faced with opposition from John Morley (later Lord Morley) the Liberal politician and writer, who would not agree to Acton’s nominee. Acton wished to bequeath his extensive library of 70,000 books to the University of Cambridge and Morley was in the position of arbiter for the acceptance or non-acceptance of Acton’s bequest, so as a result held the whip hand over the appointment. Acton was obliged to accept the nomination of Morley's candidate, the professorial chair going to classical scholar J.B.Bury (1861-1927) of Trinity College, Dublin. Acton admired Bury's work and, as this appointment ensured his library found a home at Cambridge, was not too disappointed re the failure of his own nominee.
Lady Charlotte Blennerhassett was a litterateur, writing in German, French and English on history, politics and religion. Her published work includes "Madam de Stael", "Talleyrand", "Marie-Antoinette", "Chateaubriand", "John Henry Cardinal Newman", "Marie Stuart", "Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon" and "Sidelights". In 1899 she received an honorary doctorate from the philosophy faculty at Munich in recognition of her labours in German, French and English literature. She was awarded the Golden Palm from the French Government for her research into French literature. She contributed to the Edinburgh Review and wrote a memorable tribute to Lord Acton.
Lord Acton, Sir Rowland Blennerhassett and Charlotte Blennerhassett were all liberal Catholics opposed to the Ultamontane doctrines of the contemporary Pope Pius IX, as was their mentor Professor Ignaez von Dollinger (1799-1890), an outspoken German priest and historian. When Acton began his study with Dollinger he had been captivated by Thomas Babington Macaulay, the eloquent Whig historian who championed liberty and human progress. Acton described himself then as “a raw English schoolboy, primed to the brim with Whig politics”, but Dollinger cured Acton of Macaulay, the young man becoming a fan of Edmund Burke (1729-1797) who early on had opposed the French Revolution. While with Dollinger, Acton attended lectures by the great German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) who stressed that the role of an historian was to explain the past, not to judge it. Rowland Blennerhassett had known Dollinger since 1864.
Lord Acton lamented and confided to Lady Charlotte Blennerhassett that “I am absolutely alone in my essential ethical position”. “Let me try as briefly as possible and without argument to tell you what is in fact a very simple, obvious, and not interesting story. It is the story of a man who started in life believing himself a sincere Catholic and a sincere Liberal; who therefore renounced everything in Catholicism which was not compatible with liberty, and everything in Politics which was not compatible with Catholicity. . . . Therefore I was among those who think less of what is than what ought to be, who sacrifice the real to the ideal, interest to duty, authority to morality”.
Dollinger and Acton had become outspoken critics of what they perceived as Catholic intolerance. Their contemporary targets were the Ultramontanes who sought to suppress intellectual freedom. Dollinger and Acton took issue with Vatican policy, especially after Pope Pius IX issued his notorious Syllabus of Errors (1864), which condemned alleged heresies of classical liberalism, including the scandalous idea that “The Roman Pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with, progress, liberalism and recent civilization”.
Acton contributed to a succession of Catholic journals whose mission was to help liberalize the Church: the bimonthly "Rambler" (1858-1862), quarterly "Home and Foreign Review" (1862-1864), and weekly "Chronicle" (1867-1868). These efforts were defeated in 1870 when the Vatican Council declared that the Pope was an infallible authority on Church dogma. Because Dollinger was a priest, his refusal to submit resulted in excommunication. Dollinger did not regard his excommunication as legal under Canon Law and certainly (under his opinion) did not eject him from the Catholic Church. Acton, a layman, wasn’t required to officially acknowledge the Vatican Council decrees, and he remained within the Church.
It was during this period that Acton wrote one of his most prophetic essays, “Nationality” (1862), which offered an early warning about totalitarianism: “Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety or the power of a country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realisation the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition”.
Victorian confidence and progress saw the full horrors of totalitarianism. In time there was good reason to recall what Acton had once written to the Anglican apologist of the Borgia popes, Bishop Mandell Creighton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". This lesson was aimed at Acton’s liberal contemporaries, many of whom were inclined to make allowances for historical figures by citing their stage of historical development, but it had special relevance to the political developments of the twentieth century. In this respect Acton’s prescient views were to be largely vindicated during the lead up and aftermath of two world wars, in which abuses of nationalism and totalitarianism played their part.
Sir Rowland Blennerhassett had a strong interest and involvement in education, particularly in Ireland, and his connections with Germany enabled him to see the superiority of Germany's technical education structure and industrial efficiency, he publically expressing concern re: the inadequacy of Britain in comparison. |
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References:
"Lord Acton and His Times" by David Matthew, 1968
"Acton and History" by Owen Chadwick, 1998
"The Catholic Who's Who Year Book" 1908
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THE FOLLOWING SECTION OF THIS PAGE, DEALING WITH THE SEYMOUR CONWAY FAMILY,
WAS ACCIDENTALLY DELETED IN MAY 2010
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