ADVENTURE, LOVE AND KEEPSAKES

AUDREY WAUGH

Joanna Elizabeth Turnbull (1870–1955), the younger sister of Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull and fondly known in her family as Sissy, was born in Wellington in 1870. In 2017, George Tatham (a great-nephew of Alexander Turnbull) donated Joanna’s autograph album to join the other Turnbull family treasures in the library.

Autograph albums were personal but not private; unlike diaries, they were maintained to be seen by others. People used them to collect quotations, signatures, illustrations and more from among family members, friends and associates. They were very popular from the fifteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, after which their popularity began to wane. The Turnbull Library holds more than 70 autograph albums, with the earliest example dating from 1694.

Joanna’s album spans the period from 1888 to 1897. During this time its pages were filled with poems, music, watercolours, ink drawings, inscriptions, autographs, pressed flowers and invitations to social events from Joanna’s time in Paris and beyond. The volume is bound in black leather and enclosed in a white linen cover embroidered by Joanna with blue cross-stitching. The contributions may not be the author’s own but, as with most autograph albums, they help build a picture of who Joanna was, what she did and the social circles in which she moved.

In the album’s final year, 1897, James Leigh-Wood (1870–1949) was a fellow passenger on Joanna’s voyage from London to Wellington aboard the RMS Ionic. The album includes an invitation to tea from ‘Ye Bachelors of Cabin 6’, indicating that Joanna attended along with several other single women. Joanna must have made quite an impression, evident in James’s inscription at their journey’s end: ‘the voyage is o’er, the chance acquaintance flown, and memories pass as bubbles lightly blown, but in one heart, I’d crave a kinder end—to merge the chance acquaintance into friend’. The romance blossomed, despite the protests of Joanna’s brothers, Alexander and Robert, and after a relatively long engagement the couple married in 1900.

Some of the album’s more intriguing additions include four hair clippings from Joanna’s pets, with names and dates recorded alongside. Collecting hair clippings—from various loved ones—was common in the Victorian era, and people would often incorporate samples into their keepsakes. Joanna was obviously very fond of her pets and wanted to preserve the memory of them alongside some of her own adventures. And that is what this album captures in its treasured pages—the spirit of adventure, love and friendship.

REFERENCE ATL-Group-00177: MSX-9534_07

MAKER / ARTIST Joanna Turnbull (1870–1955)

DESCRIPTION Page from Autograph album, 1888–97

, including Joanna’s signature and L.W. (James Leigh-Wood). Many of the people who signed this card also contributed an artwork, poem or quote in the album. Right: Laura Buller’s entry ‘A spirit yet a woman too’ is thought to be a drawing of Joanna.

Ionic Left: a card of autographs from passengers aboard the RMS

REFERENCE ATL-Group-00177: MSX-9534_98; MSX-9534_34 (digitally merged)

MAKER / ARTIST Joanna Turnbull (1870–1955)

DESCRIPTION Pages from Autograph album, 97 1888–