9 minute read
EDWARD LEAR and KNOWSLEY HALL
By Margaret Brecknell
Above: Edward Lear c1866
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Edward Lear, who was born 210 years ago, is best known today for his nonsense verse and for making the limerick fashionable.
He made his name initially, however, as an illustrator and it was because of his artistic talent that he was employed by the Earl of Derby at the Stanley family’s ancestral home of Knowsley Hall, here in the North-West. Lear’s five years at Knowsley proved to have a huge impact on the way in which his career subsequently progressed, as well as providing an invaluable insight into the unusual collection of wild animals which were then kept in captivity on the estate.
Lear was born in London on 12th May 1812, the second youngest of an extremely large family. His father, Jeremiah, worked as a stockbroker and at the time of young Edward’s birth the family lived in a large Georgian house called Bowman’s Lodge. The site, on which this property was once situated, is today located in the busy London suburb of Holloway, but at the time the house was quite isolated and offered excellent views over the city. Lear would later recall that his earliest memory was of witnessing the fireworks which formed part of the victory celebrations following the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Soon after this event, however, Jeremiah began to experience severe financial difficulties and the young Edward was sent away from the family home, together with his eldest sister, Ann. Some 21 years his senior, Ann effectively became his surrogate mother. She never married and remained devoted to him for the rest of her life until her death in 1861. Not long after leaving Bowman’s Lodge, the young Edward experienced his first epileptic seizure, the first of many which continued throughout his life.
Above: Cover from 1875 edition of A Book of Nonsense
The young Lear showed promise as an artist from an early age, even though he also suffered from poor eyesight. He himself would later recall how he had to draw “for his bread and cheese” from the age of fourteen, selling sketches to visitors and colouring painted screens and fans, as well as “awhile making morbid disease drawings for hospitals”. He was then employed by the recently established Zoological Society of London to draw the birds at London Zoo.
By the age of 19, Lear was already proving to be an ornithological draughtsman of some note. His first book, Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots, was published in 1830 and through this work, quite by chance, he first came to the attention of his future patron, Edward Smith-Stanley, later the 13th Earl of Derby. He had sought permission from the Zoological Society of London to draw some of the parrots in the zoo’s collection and Lord Stanley, a keen naturalist, happened to chair the meeting when Lear’s request was approved. When subsequently, in 1832, Stanley was looking for an artist to draw some of the rare animals and birds which formed part of the large aviary and menagerie he had assembled on the Knowsley Hall estate, he offered the role to Lear.
Knowsley Safari Park has been a popular tourist attraction ever since it first opened in 1971. However, most of today’s visitors are probably unaware that much earlier in its history the estate was home to such a vast collection of exotic animals and birds. The 13th Earl of Derby began to develop his private menagerie from around 1806 onwards. At its height he is believed to have employed thirty members of staff to attend to his collection, which covered nearly 100 acres.
During this period, it was not uncommon for explorers and naturalists to send home live examples of the exotic species which they encountered abroad and, as one of the most eminent natural historians of his generation, the Earl was well placed to receive such specimens. He established contacts all over the world to supply him with new species. The Earl is also known to have financed several private expeditions to what were then considered far-flung parts of the globe. One such occasion occurred in 1839 when Joseph Burke, a gardener on the Knowsley estate, was sent to southern Africa to link up with a famous German specimen collector of the age called Karl Zeyher. Between 1832 and 1837, Lear made frequent visits to Knowsley. He is often portrayed, particularly in later life, as being a solitary and depressed figure who hid away from society. One clue as to a possible reason for this behaviour may be found in his diaries. It is apparent that Lear was hugely embarrassed by his epilepsy. In the early Christian church epileptics were said to have been possessed by demonic spirits and even by the 19th century an appalling level of stigma was still attached to the condition. Lear is said to have deliberately stayed away from public view if he sensed that a seizure was imminent. However, there is little hint of what was to come during his time at Knowsley, when by all accounts he enjoyed an increasingly close relationship with the family.
On first arriving at Knowsley, Lear was treated as a member of staff who took his meals with the servants below stairs, but gradually became accustomed to dining with the family as an honoured guest. Lear later recalled that he first made friends with Stanley’s children and grandchildren, whom he liked to entertain by composing funny rhymes and drawing amusing sketches to accompany them. When the Earl discovered that the youngsters kept making excuses to leave the dinner table so that they could visit “the funny man downstairs”, Lear was invited to dine upstairs with them.
Thus, the nonsense verse, for which Lear later became so famous, has its origins in the time he spent at Knowsley. Indeed, it is believed that his most famous poem, The Owl and the Pussy-Cat, may well have originated from this period, although it was not published until many years later.
Lear’s time at Knowsley proved lifechanging in other ways too. Through the Stanley family he was introduced to many aristocratic and wealthy individuals, or “half the fine people of the day”, as he himself remarked, whom he would have had little chance of otherwise meeting. These contacts proved invaluable later in life when he was compelled to change artistic direction.
Sadly, by 1837, although still only in his mid-twenties, Lear was beginning to struggle from the effects of the chronic bronchitis which would plague him for the rest of his life. With the backing of his patron, Lord Stanley, he travelled to Rome in the hope that wintering in warmer climes would ease the condition and spent much of the next decade or so travelling extensively around the Southern Mediterranean.
He also continued to have other serious health issues. Shortly after leaving the UK, Lear’s eyesight deteriorated to such an extent that
he was compelled to abandon his zoological sketches, unable now to cope with all the intricate details required in drawing animals and birds for scientific study. Instead, he decided to pursue a new career as a landscape artist. His patron, Lord Stanley, purchased several of his early landscape paintings and many of Lear’s other paintings were purchased or commissioned by the wealthy individuals whom he had first met at Knowsley.
Lear became recognised as an accomplished landscape artist. However, his enduring legacy has proved to be his nonsense books. His first collection of limericks and nonsense verse, A Book of Nonsense, was published in 1846 and was dedicated to the Stanley children. The book included 72 humorous verses, accompanied by the absurd, but brilliantly executed, pen-and ink sketches for which Lear is now so renowned.
The book proved enormously popular from the start, but, despite its success, Lear did not publish any more humorous verse for well over a decade. He is said to have been astonished at his writing success, as he still primarily viewed himself as a professional artist. Indeed, to further his career as a painter, Lear returned home, in 1850, to study at the Royal Academy. However, he was still plagued by respiratory problems and little more than three years later abandoned any hope of making his permanent home in England.
In 1851, the 13th Earl of Derby passed away and the famous Knowsley Hall menagerie was put up for sale at auction. At his death the collection is said to have amounted to nearly 350 mammals and 1300 birds. According to the auction catalogue, included in the sale were “upwards of 1600 examples, including a unique collection of the rarest antelopes, deer, Indian cattle, zebras, llamas and alpacas, which are particularly deserving the attention of noblemen and gentlemen as ornamental specimens for the park”.
The Stanley family continued to act as Lear’s patrons for the rest of his life. During the mid-1850s, he returned to the Mediterranean and resumed his nomadic existence, travelling extensively before, in 1870, finally settling in the Italian resort of San Remo.
Lear led a solitary existence in his later years, rarely socialising and with just an Albanian manservant and his cat, Foss, for company.
The overweight tabby cat with a stumpy tail was immortalised in his owner’s verses and sketches such as in this passage from the autobiographical poem, How Pleasant To Know Mr Lear:
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat was finally published in 1871 as part of Lear’s Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets collection of verses. This story of two animals setting off to sea in a “beautiful pea-green boat” has charmed children and adults alike ever since.
Edward Lear passed away, aged 75, at his home on the Italian Riviera in January 1888, only a few months after the death of his beloved cat, Foss. The story of the man behind some of the best-known comic verses in the English language is surprisingly melancholic. Lear may well have spent some the happiest times of his life at Knowsley Hall, so it seems only fitting, then, that his connection with the stately home is still celebrated today. A sculpture trail featuring pairs of two-metre-high owls and cats has recently been created, which visitors to Knowsley will be able to enjoy throughout 2022.
