Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman

by I. Giberne Sieveking

FRANCIS NEWMAN IN PRIVATE LIFE BY MRS. BAINSMITH, SCULPTOR

My father and mother were very great personal friends of Newman's, consequently I saw a great deal of him during my early girlhood.

My father was the late George Bucknall, of Rockdene, Weston-super-Mare, and for many years was a great invalid. He suffered from locomotor ataxy. Professor Newman lived just across the road from our house: we could often see him walking about his garden, or sitting at his library window, and very often he came across to our house to discuss his books or letters with my father.

As a young girl I remember the great fascination of his courtly, genial manners. I shall never forget my first interview with him. It happened on my return home from school for the holidays. Being much distressed at having to change from the old pronunciation of Latin to the "new," it occurred to my father that I should ask Professor Newman to help me. So I went in to see him. He was sitting by the fire in large fur-lined boots made of felt, and wearing two coats (for he always found it difficult to keep sufficiently warm). When I stated my difficulty, he went to his shelves with his wonderful smile (the room was lined from floor to ceiling with books) and took out his translation of the Iliad, and read it to me. Then he said quite casually, "Now I will read the same passage to you in Latin." And he proceeded to read it aloud in a musical voice of exquisite charm. I cannot express the pleasure which this gave me, nor how it set me at my ease with him from that moment. He gave me a very warm invitation to come again, and he would gladly help me in any holiday work I wanted to do.

I was always specially struck with his way of talking about religion. He was very reverent in what he said, and it was evident that he was at heart deeply religious. I mention this because in later years it has been often a shock to me to find him condemned by others for doubting revealed religion.

The Professor's special views on foods were very strong, and he had a great dislike for the custom of rearing cattle for food. Once he gave a dinner party to show how many choice courses could be served with vegetarian recipes only. As my mother was ill at the time, I was invited to go with my father. I remember the delightful way in which he received us. He presented the "youngest lady" (myself) to the "oldest gentleman"— the late Professor Jarrett, who was an old college friend of his, and who was staying with Newman. I remember the awe with which I gazed at him. Mr. and Mrs. Dymond, Mr. and Mrs. Temperley Grey, and Mr. and Mrs. F. G. Comfort were among the other guests.

Once, when he was talking to my mother, he said: "You are wearing a nice coat" (a black fur one). "I suppose it is very dear? How much a yard do you think it would cost?" As he spoke he looked down at his own coat (the outside one of three), and said: "I have had this coat twenty years and cannot match the cloth." This was not to be wondered at, for it was a long hairy one—quite green with age. Another day I came into the room and heard the Professor say to my mother quite seriously: "I never can understand how it is that my hat always interests the idle little boys in the street. They say as I pass them, 'Where did you get that hat?' Everyone wears a hat of one shape or another, and I really fail to see why mine should be so very interesting."

He was wearing a soft felt hat with a very broad brim, set far back on his head; and with his peculiar American-looking beard and thin grey locks that came down over the high Gladstone collar which he always wore, and a black and white shepherd's-plaid scarf wound round his neck and twisted over in front with its ends tucked into his waistcoat, he looked sufficiently odd.

I remember once running as fast as I could to catch the post, and as I started I saw the Professor in front of me, evidently bent on attaining the same object. Great was his glee when at last I did overtake him (though I had some difficulty, for he ran well even at the age of seventy), and he said, "I thought I would give you a good race, but you have caught me up after all!"

One day he called just as I was going for a ride. He gave me quite a lecture on the dangers of the side-saddle, and said very earnestly that women ought to ride "astride" (at that time this was a thing incompris in England). He declared that women in other countries were accustomed to riding thus, and that it was the only safe method of riding.

At the time of his brother's being made Cardinal, some ardent admirers of the Professor's in Australia sent him a very beautiful silver inkstand. His delight and pleasure in receiving such a present was great. But that people should think of him in that way was a great surprise, for his humility as regarded his powers was a very noticeable fact about him always. The design of the inkstand was one of great beauty and good workmanship. It represented ostriches standing under a palm tree, and beside them was an exquisitely made silver feather for a pen.

[Illustration: FRANCIS NEWMAN
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF LONDON UNIVERSITY
Enlargement of photograph of the bronze bust done from life by Mrs.
Georgina Bainsmith, sculptor, of St. Ives, Cornwall, which is now in
University College, London.]

One afternoon my father, mother, and I were all sitting reading, when the door opened and the Professor walked in. He held his hat in his hand, and a large rug was fastened round his shoulders like a shawl (over his three coats), and in his hands he held a small brown-paper parcel. As he came in he said, "I don't know why your maid did not announce me—I see she is a stranger"; and then turning to my mother, who had been ill, he said, "My cook has made a new vegetarian dish for my lunch to-day, and I requested her to make some for you, as I am quite sure it will suit you." The dish turned out to be delicious—one of those which his wonderful vegetarian cook was so constantly inventing. [Footnote: The parlourmaid, on being reprimanded for not showing Newman into the drawing-room, said she thought she was only to show "gentlemen" into the drawing-room!]

Newman had a theory that plants feel pain, and that we should treat all vegetable life as if it were sentient, and care for it accordingly.

The Professor was always ready to respond to any appeals for the advancement of the Woman's Suffrage movement. At that time it was very unpopular, but whenever we had meetings in favour of it at our house he was always the moving spirit.

At Weston-super-Mare Newman lived a life of great seclusion, and I believe I was the only young girl who visited him constantly—indeed, ours was the only house to which he came almost daily. Once when he was very ill, I think I was the only visitor admitted; and as Hannah, his old servant, ushered me in with a smile of pleasure, I heard a curious sound. On looking back to the hall door I saw a huge netting hanging from where the letter-box should be, trailing along the floor like a huge sausage, crammed full of letters of enquiry for the Professor. Hannah told me "the master had not been able to attend to them."

I had long possessed a great wish to devote my time to the study of modelling, and my father's great wish was that I should devote myself to Art. In 1885 I gained the distinction of a silver medal at Taunton Exhibition for modelling some flowers in clay on vases, with low relief panels. This pleased the Professor very much; and when, one day, I told him how keenly I wanted to model a bust of his head and shoulders, he smiled, and said, with an odd boyish, shy sort of pleasure, "Was he good- looking enough to be immortalized?" and added he would be delighted to sit to me for his portrait, though he had always refused to sit to others to be photographed.

So he used to come and talk to my mother, and thus I was able to work at my modelling with ease. Great was my delight when I found I possessed power over the clay, and was succeeding in making a portrait which everyone considered a good one. The Professor insisted on my being very particular over the collar and the scarf. (His collars always had to be made for him, as he could not buy in shops the kind he wore.) In later years of hard student life that followed, for me, with the added distinction of other medals, nothing ever came up to the excitement caused by my portrait of the Professor. The bust [Footnote: This bust is now standing in the general library of London University, with this inscription:—

"FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN
(brother of the Cardinal),

Emeritus Professor of University College, London.
Natus June 27, 1805. Obiit October 4th, 1897.
As an expression of the great esteem and affection in which he was held
by all who knew him, this bust (modelled from life by the
Sculptor) is presented to this University by

GEORGINA BAINSMITH, Sculptor, "St. Ives, Cornwall." Aug. 1907.] has always been one of my greatest treasures; and after the lapse of years that have gone by since it was first modelled, I still revere and reverence his memory and his truly beautiful life. Whatever he wrote, this is what his actual life and deeds expressed strongly: "he lived to do good." This is what impressed me most as a young girl, and my life has been richer and nobler for the honour and privilege of knowing Francis Newman.

Georgina Bainsmith,
née Bucknall. St. Ives, Cornwall.

[Illustration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BUST IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE (OF FRANCIS
NEWMAN), ON ITS PLINTH
BY MRS. GEORGINA BAINSMITH, SCULPTOR, OF ST. IVES, CORNWALL
The Reproduction is by Mr. J. C. Douglas, of Strives, Cornwall, and was
photographed from the clay before it was cast.]