We had not been there long before a gardener appeared and started his evening round of watering. The grass and flowers must not suffer, whatever happened outside his domain. As he came towards us I looked up and noticed that a few more people had crept out and were moving about aimlessly. Then some soldiers walked in carrying instruments; though late, there was to be a band after all.
It settled itself, got out its music, struck up and was soon playing merrily. But to our astonishment it was a Greek band this time—our soldier and sailor musicians were otherwise occupied while General Sarrail took the town. Since the early morning most of the Greek troops had been shut up in their barracks, in case of serious trouble. These must have been specially released. However it was done, it was managed quite amicably, and as we left, instead of an Allied band playing in a Greek seaport, this Saturday afternoon here was a Greek band playing in a French enclave. The ‘émeute’ had ended. King Constantine’s fête-day was not without music of sorts.
Sita.
WILLIAM DE MORGAN: A REMINISCENCE.
One dark and snowy day last winter a distinguished company met in the Old Church at Chelsea to do honour to the memory of Henry James. Once more this January, under the same grey and gloomy skies, with the same war-cloud hanging like a pall over the land, another memorable gathering took place in the ancient riverside shrine, when the last rites were paid to another illustrious Chelsea resident, William De Morgan. Henry James, greatly as he had endeared himself to us all and nobly as he had thrown in his lot with England in these anxious times, had only recently made his home in this neighbourhood, but William De Morgan had been closely connected with Chelsea for nearly half-a-century. Chelsea was the scene of his triumphs both in art and literature. Here he set up his first kiln, in a garden at the back of Cheyne Row, and here too, in later years, he wrote his famous novels.
His family was of French origin. He told me how one of his Huguenot ancestors, four generations back, went out to India, and married two Frenchwomen in succession. His son, Auguste De Morgan, came over to England, settled here, and became the grandfather of the distinguished mathematician, Augustus De Morgan, who held the post of Professor of Mathematics at University College for more than thirty years, and married the daughter of another mathematician of note, the Cambridge Lecturer William Frend. This Mrs. De Morgan was a remarkable woman, of cultured tastes, whose beautiful face and lively interest in the people and things about her made her still attractive in old age. She is fondly remembered by many of her friends in Chelsea. Their eldest son, William De Morgan, was born at 69 Gower Street in 1839, and took up painting as a profession, before he turned his attention to pottery. His sister, Mary De Morgan, who died eight or nine years ago, was an able and talented woman—a marked contrast to her brother in appearance, being small and slight, with a sharp voice and abrupt manner. She amused people by her quick repartees and witty sayings and wrote several fairy-tales, which recalled Hans Andersen by their imaginative charm. The first of these—‘On a Pincushion’—was published in 1877, and illustrated with drawings by William De Morgan; the last—‘Wind-fairies’—appeared in 1900, and was dedicated to Angela, Dennis, and Clare Mackail, the grandchildren of Edward Burne-Jones. Mary De Morgan also wrote a striking novel, called ‘A Choice of Chance,’ which was published in 1887, under the nom de plume of William Dodson, a name which effectually concealed the writer’s identity. The gift of story-writing was evidently in the family, although in William De Morgan’s case it was to lie dormant for many years.
In 1871, on the death of his father, William De Morgan brought his mother and sisters to live in Cheyne Row, two doors from Carlyle’s home, and began to make his fine lustre-ware in a picturesque old building known as Orange House. After his marriage to Miss Evelyn Pickering in 1888, he settled in a charming old house in The Vale, where he and his wife lived until it was pulled down more than twenty years later, when they moved into a corner house in Church Street. Their winters, however, were chiefly spent in Florence, partly for the sake of De Morgan’s never robust health, partly in order to be near his wife’s uncle, the painter, Spencer Stanhope, who was a prominent member of the English colony in that city. But after the death of this relative the ties which bound the De Morgans to Florence were loosened, and in 1912 they finally gave up their Italian home to spend the whole year in Chelsea.
From his early youth William De Morgan was the intimate friend of Burne-Jones and William Morris, whose artistic aims and tastes he shared, and was a frequent and welcome visitor at the Grange and at Kelmscott House. His simple childlike nature, his ready wit and love of fun, made him a great favourite with the young people in both households. Lady Burne-Jones has told us what an active part he took in their family life, both in joy and sorrow, at one time amusing her children and their young cousin, Rudyard Kipling, with his merry pranks, and on another occasion, when she herself was dangerously ill, sitting up all night with her distracted husband. And Miss May Morris remembers the delight of her whole family when her father wrote to say that he was bringing De Morgan back from town to spend a few days at Kelmscott. De Morgan himself was never tired of recalling these blissful summer holidays in the old Manor on the Upper Thames, when he and Morris roamed up and down the lovely Cotswold country in search of a suitable place for their workshops. Eventually, in 1882, he built a factory for his tiles near Morris’s works at Merton Abbey, and his jars and dishes of glowing ruby and mother-of-pearl were always to be seen in the Morris Company’s showrooms in Oxford Street. In beauty of shape and colour, these lovely things recalled the wonderful Gubbio ware wrought by Messer Giorgio in Renaissance times, while De Morgan’s Persian tiles came so near to those which Lord Leighton brought from Damascus to decorate his Arab court, that it was almost impossible to detect any difference between the two.
Unfortunately, in spite of its decorative charm and of the general admiration which it aroused, De Morgan’s pottery never proved a commercial success. This was partly due to the great cost of production, and partly no doubt to his own lack of business capacity. Like the French potter Palissy, whom in many ways he resembled, De Morgan’s fertile brain was always busy with fresh ideas, always starting out on untrodden tracks and attempting new experiments. If one of these happened to prove successful, he promptly frittered away his earnings in making fresh ventures on a new and grander scale. His kindness and liberality to the workmen in his service were unbounded. He took the deepest interest in their welfare, and countless instances of his generosity to individuals are on record.