A Harpy and His Brothers: The Wildmans in Bedford Square and Newstead Abbey

A HARPY AND HIS BROTHERS

The Wildmans in Bedford Square & Newſtead Abbey

“Between this harpy and two brothers who played in concert at proper time half my ſubſtance has been devoured.”

W ILLIAM B ECKFORD

No. 16 Bedford Square, where the Paul Mellon Centre has been based since 1996, has always been esteemed as one of London’s most prestigious addresses. Built in 1775–1782, Bedford Square is widely considered to be the finest surviving example of a Georgian town square in London; in its architecture, it embodies ideals of order, symmetry, and simplicity that mirrored the favoured self-image of the British social elites; in its practical development, it demonstrates the commercial innovation of London’s architects, builders, and aristocratic landowners at the dawn of modern capitalist enterprise.

This display explores the multifaceted history and reputation of Bedford Square by focusing on two brothers who were among its first inhabitants: the successful lawyer Thomas Wildman (1740–1795), who lived at no. 16, and his younger sibling James Wildman (1747–1816). Together with another brother, the merchant Henry Wildman (1746–1816), they profited especially through their connections with the fabulously wealthy William Beckford, managing his legal affairs and his extensive plantations in the West Indies. Thomas Wildman’s wealth allowed his son, also Thomas (1787–1859), to purchase Newstead Abbey, a historic property in Nottinghamshire previously owned by the poet Lord Byron. Alongside his wife, the younger Thomas Wildman spent a fortune restoring and extending Newstead Abbey, creating a Gothic fantasy as a memorial to the poet.

The display shows some of the ways that the architectural and cultural histories of Bedford Square and Newstead Abbey have been addressed in the past, and the ways in which those stories might be revised and complicated. The inclusion of the film project Blood Sugar, developed by volunteers at Newstead Abbey, offers further perspectives on these historical stories, centring the experience of African-Caribbean people as poetic interpreters, writers, film-makers, and performers.

Portrait of Thomas Wildman

The painter George Romney's records show that a “Mr Wildman” sat for his portrait [Item 1] several times in 1782 and 1784, and again in 1786–1788.1 At least three finished portraits seem to have survived.

Although it is not documented whether these show James Wildman or Thomas Wildman, it seems more likely that this portrait shows

Thomas as he was based in London over these years, while James was in Jamaica. We know from the dates of Wildman correspondence in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, that James Wildman was in Jamaica when one of these portraits was delivered “home” in London in November 1788.2 This, or another version of the portrait, was later recorded in the ownership of James Wildman at his Kent property, Chilham Castle.

16 Bedford Square

The Paul Mellon Centre’s blue flag flies over the doorway to no. 16 Bedford Square, the house taken by Thomas Wildman in 1786.3 Wildman was the second occupant of the property, following Joseph Shrimpton, a corn factor in the City of London. It had been built in 1782 by John Utterton, plasterer of St George, Bloomsbury, on a plot leased from the Bedford Estates. Although organised in a symmetrical and orderly way as “palacefronted” terraces, the houses in the Square were built in a highly

View of the north side of Bedford Square, London, with nos. 15 and 16 to the right, the home of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.

entrepreneurial, speculative way by an array of different builders and architects.

Later inhabitants of no. 16 included prominent judges, lawyers, and clergymen. By the beginning of the twentieth century, like most other houses in the Square by that date, it was in use as office space— in the case of no. 16 as the home of the Royal Academy of Music.

Newstead Abbey

Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire was founded as an Augustan priory in the late twelfth century.4 The only part of the original structure to remain standing is the late thirteenth-century, Gothic, west front, visible to the left in this nineteenth-century view. The property was given by Henry VIII to Sir John Byron of Colwick in 1540, and passed down through the Byron family, who altered and rebuilt it as a grand home. The fifth Lord Byron inherited the property in 1736 and spent a fortune on the grounds

and Gothic-style follies, including a castle overlooking the lake. The house was in disrepair when the poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824), inherited in 1798. With his own finances depleted, he sold the house to Thomas Wildman in 1817. Under Wildman’s ownership, Newstead was lavishly restored and attracted much interest as a tourist attraction.

1.

THE WILDMANS and WILLIAM BECKFORD

Thomas and James Wildman were born in Lancashire, the sons of Edward Wildman and his wife Elizabeth (née Baggott).5 Later family records claimed that the father was associated with “Scrambler House, Melling” in that county, suggesting a gentrified origin. Instead, it appears that the family were long-established in the area as farmers and that the claim to gentility was spurious. Thomas and James moved to London as young men, along with another brother, Henry Wildman, who became established as a merchant in the City of London. At the end of the nineteenth century, the family were recalled locally as “among the sturdy Lancashire yeomen hard of head and strong in constitution who made their marks in the business and professional worlds in the last century”.6

Thomas Wildman trained as a lawyer and was admitted as a solicitor on 5 June 1764. He achieved success in a partnership with James Coulthard based in Lincoln’s Inn.7 In 1770, Thomas Wildman became the guardian of William Beckford (1760–1844), the son of one of his law firm’s most important clients. The Beckford family had grown enormously wealthy through their ownership of slave plantations in the West Indies, and the connection made the Wildman brothers’ fortune. After Beckford came of age in 1781, Thomas Wildman effectively took over the management of his legal and business affairs, much to his own benefit and to the advantage of his brothers. Beckford’s inheritance was said to be £1,000,000 with an income of £100,000 a year—“the largest property real and personal of any subject in Europe”.8 In 1782, James Wildman was sent out to Jamaica as the “attorney” (senior manager) for the Beckford estates: given the time that correspondence containing instructions took to travel from absentee plantation owners (like Beckford) to the plantation managers, attorneys like James Wildman had a high degree of autonomy.9 Henry Wildman was recorded as a “Merchant & Insurance Broker” at 2 Cowpe’s Court, Cornhill in 1771, and was later listed as a merchant in 6 Fan Court, Fenchurch Street. He was an exporter to Jamaica and, in 1777, he petitioned the

Board of Trade and Plantations, “praying leave to export to the Island of Jamaica, on board the ship Savanna La Mar, certain military stores, therein mentioned, for the use of the inhabitants of the said island”.10 Henry Wildman was clearly closely involved in his brothers' business dealings.

The family’s wealth thus derived directly or indirectly from the exploited labour of enslaved people. Although the Wildman’s connections with Beckford are well known, they were more directly engaged with slavery than has hitherto been acknowledged. In March 1788, Thomas Wildman in London was arranging for James Wildman to receive a ship “with 600 slaves, from the Gold coast”, at a time when the future of the trade was being actively debated in Parliament—much to the alarm to those who profited from the plantations.11 In May of the same year, Thomas Wildman noted that: “I am still much engaged in the Slave Trade—Grenada & S[aint] Christophers Governments & the Town of Liverpool are my clients in this Business. I have great reason to believe that the whole will end in regulations as to the purchasing & conveying the Negroes …”.12 In June 1789, Thomas praised James’s efforts in “getting as good a stock of Negroes on every one of Mr B’s properties as you possibly can”.13 The Wildmans invested in a ship that bore their name, which was destined to go to Africa and carry enslaved people to the West Indies when it accidentally caught alight and was destroyed in Ramsgate Pier in 1794.14 Their plantation holdings were significant. In 1810, there were 886 enslaved people recorded on the Quebec plantation in Jamaica, which Thomas Wildman had acquired from Beckford in 1790: at that date, Henry Wildman had Esher estate with 273 slaves, and James owned Salt Savannah and Low Ground with 480 slaves.15 The registers of enslaved people on the Vere Estate in Jamaica, owned by James Wildman’s son James Beckford Wildman in the 1820s, reveal that there were at least eight enslaved men, women, and children who took, or were given, the surname

Figure 1: Henry Green, A George III silver bowl, stand and cover, London, 1788, silver, 13cm, 5in high overall, each piece engraved with monogram 'TW', underside of cover inscribed 'Novr the 20th The Gift of Mrs Beckford to Thomas Wildman Aged 15 Months 1788'. Image courtesy of Sotheby's.

“Wildman”, including in 1823, an “Edward Wildman”, a fifty-three-year-old African “negro”, who had died after “scalding severe” and a “Thomas Wildman”, a forty-five-year-old man also described as an African “negro”, who had died of dropsy.16 The fact that there is today a Wildman Street in Kingston, Jamaica, is a further testament to the way this family impressed itself onomastically into the history of the island.

After Thomas Wildman died in 1795, Beckford’s business interests were taken over by Henry and James. Relations soured, as it became clear how much the brothers had exploited Beckford. William Beckford had corresponded with Thomas Wildman extensively, on all sorts of matters. He would typically refer to Wildman as “my dear Friend” and, in 1788, Beckford’s wife, Lady Margaret Gordon, presented the family with a silver cup and cover with an inscription marking the birth of their eldest son, Thomas [Figure 1].17 In 1789, Beckford was the godfather to James Wildman’s son, who was named in tribute to him, James Beckford Wildman (1789–1867). Exiled in Europe, after his homosexuality threatened to become public knowledge, Beckford maintained his correspondence with Wildman. Writing from Paris in 1791, he noted: “I have forgotten Fonthill— and everybody in England except yourself and Mrs Wildman”.18 Whatever he may have known of Beckford’s private life, Thomas Wildman sought to defend him to his brother James: “the odious vice imputed to him you will find him as free from in every respect as any man breathing”.19

Beckford broke away from the surviving brothers in 1802, at which point they presented him with a massive bill of £86,000 for legal services (approaching £4 million in today’s money). Later, Beckford would make an angry manuscript note where he referred to Thomas Wildman as a “harpy” who, with James and Henry, had “devoured” half his fortune.20

BECKFORD & WILDMAN in CITY and COUNTRY

In the eighteenth century, the wealthiest members of society generally kept fine townhouses in London—the centre of government, business, and cultural life—while also maintaining grand homes in the countryside. Whether they derived their wealth from commerce or professional life (like the Wildmans), or indeed drew their fortunes from colonial estates (like Beckford), these families emulated the lifestyles of the landed gentry or aristocracy by buying country estates where they could indulge Gothic or pastoral fantasies and draw attention to (or invent) ancestral associations—although not always with complete success.

With the money he was making as a lawyer, most profitably in connection with Beckford, Thomas Wildman purchased the lease on 16 Bedford Square in 1785 and moved in during 1786. In April 1786, he married Sarah Hardinge at St Clement Danes, London: she was the daughter of Henry Hardinge of Bacton Hall in Suffolk and said to be worth £30,000,21 but was then named in the press as “Miss Harding, of King’s-row, Bedfordsquare”.22 A son, Thomas, was born, almost certainly in the house, in August 1787, and baptised at the parish church, St Giles in the Fields, Holborn, on 15 September 1787.23 Thomas Wildman retired to Gifford Lodge, a large house in Twickenham, in 1789, while retaining 16 Bedford Square which was bequeathed in his will to his widow.24 In 1793, he had also taken the lease of another, larger house in Bedford Square, on the eastern end of the south side (now no. 53), although it is unclear whether he lived there. He did, however, arrange for the lease of a third house in the Square, no. 35, for his brother James. With war and civil unrest among the enslaved population and Maroons of Jamaica, as well as the threat of abolition to his business interests, James Wildman aimed to retire to England in 1793. At that time Thomas Wildman handled his brother’s purchase of a grand property, Chilham Castle in Kent. In the event, the wartime situation and with unrest in the slave plantations meant that James’s return was

delayed until 1795, and Thomas rented out no. 35 to “Sir J. Honeywood & his family … as every thing was really spoiling by the damp”.25

Bedford Square was a new development, completed between 1775–1782. Comprising town houses built to the highest, “‘first rate” standard, as defined in the recent London Building Act (1774), Bedford Square was part of the northward development of London’s elite housing, undertaken in the late eighteenth century by the great landowners including the Bedford Estate. Organised as four apparently symmetrical “palacefronted” terraces with a central landscaped garden that could only be accessed by the homeowners, this was an exclusive development that evoked grandiose architectural ideas. In practical terms, it was, however, built along highly entrepreneurial lines, with multiple leaseholders and builders. The acclaimed architect Sir John Soane pointed to the Square as a historical turning point, when “the spirit of speculation begins to show itself more decidedly [and] the buildings appear less

Frontispiece of Item 7

important and less substantial” than the aristocratic mansions that preceded them.26 As observed by Soane (who, as the son of a bricklayer, was rather selfconscious about class), these newer properties were only partially successful in emulating the aristocratic style of the past.

Although Soane went on to become a celebrated and strikingly original architect, from 1786 to 1792 he did rather mundane work for Thomas Wildman, including the initial survey for no. 16, and making alterations to the plumbing and the kitchen (in the basement).27 During that same period, Soane was also doing work for William Beckford at Fonthill Splendens, the family house in a classical style that he would go on to transform into an extraordinary Gothic fantasy. On marrying Lady Margaret Gordon, a daughter of the fourth Earl of Aboyne, in 1783, Beckford had taken his own London house at 9 Portman Square, north of Oxford Street. Portman Square, like Bedford Square, was developed in

where his uncle James Wildman retired after working on the Beckford estates and developing plantations for the Wildman family in Jamaica.

Figure 2: Chilham Castle in Kent,

Reproduction from Thomas Wildman’s sketchbook. Courtesy of Newstead Abbey.

the 1770s as part of the northern expansion of London’s elite housing. It was, however, grander than Bedford Square and attracted more aristocratic residents, although alongside multiple absentee plantation owners like Beckford. As Beckford noted in a letter, these developments evoked classical grandeur while also offering rural pleasures, noting of the house he purchased that it had “Grecian chimney pieces formed of real antique friezes” and an “unlimited view … over green fields”.28 He was also well aware of the dubious social reputation of those who had made money from the colonies, and who tended to keep to their own social circles, reporting that Elizabeth Home, Countess of Home, the daughter of a Jamaica planter and the owner of grandest house on Portman Square, Home House, was widely known as the “Queen of Hell”.29

The rebuilding of a family property, Fonthill in Wiltshire, as a fantastically proportioned Gothic folly preoccupied Beckford for many years.30 He engaged the architect James Wyatt to lead the design work, which, along with opulent interior design and abundance of artworks installed there, was a drain on the massive fortune he derived from plantation ownership. As he put it in a letter of 1794, it would only be “by the permission of Providence and Mr Wildman” (Thomas Wildman, managing his finances) that Wyatt’s “magnificent plan”

The wealth that the Wildman brothers accumulated allowed them to live comfortable lives in London, where their businesses and professional lives were based, and simultaneously to maintain larger, more historical properties in the countryside... emulating the wealthy lifestyles of aristocratic and superwealthy families.

in 1796. Reproduction from Thomas Wildman’s sketchbook.

Figure 4: An interior at Heathfield House, Turnham Green, west of London, the mansion where his widowed mother took the family

Courtesy of Newstead Abbey.

Figure 3: “Ruins of the corn mill, before the waterfall was formed” at Newstead Abbey, developed by the younger Thomas Wildman. Reproduction from Thomas Wildman’s sketchbook. Courtesy of Newstead Abbey.

might be realised.31 Later, with his income fluctuating wildly, Beckford was obliged to sell of parts of his collection and, in 1822, Fonthill itself. Fonthill became an object of fascination for tourists—until the structure failed and it had to be demolished in 1845.

The wealth that the Wildman brothers accumulated allowed them to live comfortable lives in London, where their businesses and professional lives were based, and simultaneously to maintain larger, more historical properties in the countryside. The original occupants of Bedford Square were generally lawyers, physicians, politicians, and successful businessmen—part of the social elite, not necessarily like the occupants of say Portman Square, who were aristocratic. Similarly, Newstead Abbey and Chilham Castle were grand properties, but were never as extensive or excessive in their building and collections as Fonthill. However, Thomas, James, and Henry Wildman used their fortunes in ways which emulated the wealthy lifestyles of aristocratic and super-wealthy families like the Beckfords. Henry Wildman, whose operations as a merchant were based in the City of London rather than the West End, acquired, in his brother Thomas’s words, “a charming house at Layton, & he says one of the best in the county of Essex, it is a very good house indeed”.32 At Newstead, the younger Thomas Wildman made a point of incorporating invented heraldic devices and other imagery that wove together the Wildman and Beckford families, and claimed historical origins that were largely fabricated.

These three images [Figures 2, 3 and 4] are taken from a sketchbook by the younger Thomas Wildman in the collection at Newstead Abbey, which includes multiple images from his travels in Europe and around Britain. These include images of various family properties.

THE WILDMANS at NEWSTEAD ABBEY

Opposite:

Figure 5: James

Lonsdale, Thomas Wildman, date unknown, oil on canvas, 125.7 × 100.3

cm. Newstead Abbey (NA 561)

© Nottingham City Museums & Galleries

Thomas Wildman’s eldest son, Thomas, was probably born in Bedford Square and was baptised at nearby St Giles. Thomas Wildman had left his wife and children wealthy and, after his death, the family moved to Turnham Green. In 1799, the widowed “Mrs Wildman” paid income tax indicating a personal income of £1,680 personally, and £3,400 for her children—perhaps over £220,000 in today’s money.33 The income tax paid in 1800 suggested an income of £5,430—over £235,000 today. The young Thomas Wildman was sent to Harrow School before joining the army. He served in various regiments during the Peninsular and Napoleonic Wars, including at Waterloo where he sustained an injury. He also found time to cultivate a relationship with Louisa Preisig, a Swiss girl, when she was eleven or twelve, rumoured to be, with her sister, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Sussex, who was certainly a close friend of Wildman.34 They married in 1816, when she was still only fourteen, an age young enough to draw attention even

Right:

Figure 6: James

Lonsdale, Louisa Wildman, date unknown, oil on canvas, 127 × 102 cm.

Newstead Abbey (NA 562)

© Nottingham City Museums & Galleries

then. One contemporary referred to Thomas Wildman as “West Indian and very rich. He had made of those queer marriages some queer men make—educated a child for his wife. She turned out neither pretty nor clever, but she satisfied him, and was liked”.35 The precise nature of their relationship remained unclear.

Item 12

In 1817, Wildman purchased Newstead Abbey from the poet, George, Lord Byron, who he had known as a schoolboy at Harrow.36 The house had fallen into disrepair, but Thomas and Louisa Wildman spent the next decades repairing and extending the house, creating a Gothic fantasy and a sort of shrine to the poet. With no heir, the house was sold after Thomas Wildman’s death. In the 1930s, the house came into the possession of Nottingham City Council, which keeps it open as a tourist attraction and a magnet for Byron enthusiasts. In the last few years, the story of Wildman’s wealth and its origins in exploited labour has been more directly addressed at the Abbey.

Opposite: Frontispiece of Item 12

Front and back of Item 17

Item 24

In the early nineteenth century, the famous French porcelain manufactory Sèvres exported fine wares that were left partly plain so they could be painted by their owners. This plate is one of a set of ten painted by Maria Wildman (1789–1841), Thomas Wildman’s only daughter, in around 1818–1821, each signed and with inscriptions identifying the subject matter. Five are decorated by her with scenes around Europe, where her brothers Thomas, who owned Newstead Abbey, James and Edward had travelled during military service. These include four views in Spain and “Haugemont looking towards Waterloo”. The others bear topographical views around Newstead Abbey. All the plates bear the crest assumed by the Wildman family. Further plates from the series have appeared on the art market, including plates showing Chilham Castle, views of England and France, a view of the Horse Guards in London, and one showing the troops at Waterloo. In 1822, Maria Wildman went on to marry Colonel John Gardiner (1777–1851) of the 6th Foot, later LieutenantGeneral Sir John Gardiner KCB.

Item 18

This plan of the ground floor of Newstead Abbey, with proposed alterations in bold, shows the extent of the property and the task taken on by Thomas Wildman and his wife Louisa in restoring the house. The plan was drawn by the architect James Shaw (1776–1832), who had previously worked at James Wildman’s house, Chilham Castle, and had undertaken work in Gothic and Tudor styles elsewhere. Wildman was directly involved in the architectural and design work undertaken at the Abbey, and the architectural changes which were undertaken varied somewhat from what was proposed in this floorplan. The resulting building was a major tourist attraction, noted by the American writer Washington Irving in his account of a visit published in 1835 as an “irregular grey pile of motley architecture … One end was fortified by a castellated tower, bespeaking the baronial and warlike days of the edifice; the other end retained its primitive monastic character”.

Item 20

In recent years, the degree to which the Britain’s art and cultural heritage have been entangled with wider global histories including that of the slave trade and slave ownership has become much more widely conceded. Political pressure from individuals and community groups, together with new research (notably that undertaken by The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at UCL) has unsettled complacent myths about Britain’s role in the institution of slavery and forced an acknowledgement of the impact its legacies have on many people living now.

Blood Sugar was filmed at Newstead Abbey by the Nottinghambased Slave Trade Legacies (STL)

group with Dr Shawn Naphtali Sobers, and is based on a poem by Michelle “Mother” Hubbard. STL is a mainly African-Caribbean group working to gain acknowledgement of the contribution of our enslaved ancestors in British heritage sites. This film was installed permanently at Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, from April 2018 and is available to watch onlin. Scan this QR code to view Blood Sugar.

Above: Film still from Item 20, 00:00:24

ENDNOTES

1 Alex Kidson, George Romney: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, 2 vols. (New Haven, CT: published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 2015), Vol. 2, 630–31. On Thomas Wildman, see M.H. Port and R.G. Thorne, “Wildman, Thomas (1740–1795)”, History of Parliament online, www.ucl.ac.uk/ lbs/person/view/2146636928; “Thomas Wildman”, The Twickenham Museum, www. twickenham-museum.org.uk/ detail.asp?ContentID=375; and “Thomas Wildman I”, Legacies of British Slavery: UCL Department of History www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/ view/2146636928.

2 Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett c.499.

3 For history of Square, see Andrew Byrne, Bedford Square: An Architectural Study (London: Athlone Press, 1990); and Martin Myrone, Drawing Room Displays: Bedford Square: Creating Social Distance (London: Paul Mellon Centre, 2022).

4 Claire Hartwell, Nikolaus Pevnser, and Elizabeth Williamson, The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020), 371–79; and Rosalys Coope, Peter Smith,

Maurice Howard, Colin Briden, and J.V. Beckett, Newstead Abbey: A Nottinghamshire Country House: Its Owners and Architectural History 1540–1931, Thoroton Society Records Series, Vol. 48 (Nottinghamshire: Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, 2014).

5 For the family history, see Rosalys Coope, “The Wildman Family and Colonel Thomas Wildman of Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire”, Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire 95 (1991): 50–66; and Michael Birks, The Young Hussar: The Peninsular War Journal of Colonel Thomas Wildman of Newstead Abbey (Sussex: Book Guild, 2007).

6 “Round Lancaster Castle—Part X—Melling”, Lancaster Gazette, 30 August 1890.

7 Albert J. Schmidt, “Provincial to Professional: The Mentalité of Attorney James Coulthard (1718–86)”, Quinnipiac Law Review 22, no. 2 (2003): 213–34.

8 MSS Beckford C.84 f.54, Bodleian Library Oxford, quoted in Matthew Parker, The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies (New York: Walker & Co., 2011), 339.

9 B.W. Higman, Plantation Jamaica 1750–1850: Capital and Control in a Colonial Economy (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2005), 11.

10 Kent’s Directory, London 1771; and “Journal, March 1777: Volume 84”, in Journals of the Board of Trade and Plantations: Volume 14, January 1776–May 1782, ed. K.H. Ledward (London, 1938), 77–84, available at: British History Online http://www. british-history.ac.uk/jrnl-tradeplantations/vol14/pp77-84.

11 Letter of 5 March 1788, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett c.499.

12 Letter of 7 May 1788, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett c.499.

13 Letter of 3 June 1789, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett c.499.

14 The Times, 6 December 1794, 3.

15 “Quebec Estate”, Legacies of British Slavery: UCL Department of History https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/ estate/view/2375. See also Birks, The Young Hussar, 8–10.

16 See The National Archives, TNA, T 71/53; and T 71/51-55. See also Diane M. West, “Slave Names Memorialised: A HistoricalLinguistic Analysis of Monumented Slave Names in Jamaica”, MA

Thesis, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, 2017, 34–35. Several of these enslaved Wildmans were noted as being African, so they do not appear to be biologically connected to the English Wildman family. Masters’ names were quite often given or adopted by enslaved individuals in the West Indies, but with what significance remains unclear.

17 Sotheby’s, London, 14 July 2010, lot 142.

18 Quoted in Lewis Melville, The Life and Letters of William Beckford, of Fonthill (London: William Heinemann, 1910), 179.

19 Letter of 5 March 1787, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett c.499.

20 Quoted in Parker, The Sugar Barons, 341; see Port and Thorne, “Wildman, Thomas (1740–1795)”.

21 Birks, The Young Hussar, 8.

22 Westminster Archives, STC/ PR/5/13; and The Public Advertiser, 20 April 1786.

23 London Metropolitan Archives, P82/Gis/A/02.

24 The National Archives, PROB 11/1270/26.

25 Letters of 2 March 1793 and 6 February 1795, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett. c.500.

26 David Watkin, ed., Sir John Soane: The Royal Academy Lectures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 257.

27 Ptolemy Dean, Sir John Soane and London (Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2006), 150–51; and Christopher Woodward, “William Beckford and Fonthill Splendens— Early Works by Soane and Goodridge”, Apollo 147 (February 1998): 432.

28 Quoted in Derek E. Ostergard, ed., William Beckford, 1760–1844: An Eye for the Magnificent (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press for The Bard Graduate Center, 2002), 254.

29 Quoted Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, Buildings of England: London 3: North West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991), 651. See also Joan Coutu, Persuasion and Propaganda: Monuments and the Eighteenth-Century British Empire (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006), 38.

31 Quoted Melville, Life and Letters of William Beckford, of Fonthill, 214.

32 Letter of 1 January 1794, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. lett c.499.

33 See the dataset, “Income Tax Payments 1799–1802: Individual Tax Payments, Income more than 60 Pounds”, www.londonlives.org, version 2.0, 2018.

34 Coope, “Wildman Family”, 57 .

35 Quoted in Coope, “Wildman Family”, 58.

36 John Beckett with Sheila Aley, Byron and Newstead: The Aristocrats and the Abbey (Newark, DE: University of Delaware Press, 2001); and Coope et al., Newstead Abbey.

30 See Ostergard, William Beckford, 1760–1844; and also Caroline Dakers ed., Fonthill Recovered: A Cultural History (London: UCL Press, 2018).

CATALOGUE of EXHIBITS

Item 1

George Romney (1734–1802),

Portrait of Thomas Wildman MP., Oil on canvas, 77.5 × 64.3cm

Kindly loaned by Private Collection, United Kingdom

Item 2

Lewis Melville, The Life and Letters of William Beckford of Fonthill (author of “Vathek”), (London: William Heinemann, 1910)

Open to p.179

LR: OPPE-1910-2

Item 3

Guy Chapman, Beckford (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937)

Open to pp. 286–287

LR: OPPE-1937-2

Item 4

Alex Kidson, George Romney: A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings, Volume 2 (New Haven, CT: published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 2015)

Open to pp. 630–631

LR: 7 ROMN(G).K

Item 5a-b

Two photographic mounts of George Romney, Mr Wildman of Bedford Square, from the Paul Mellon Centre’s Photographic Archive

5a: PA-F05289-0057

5b: PA-F08445-0043

Item 6

Philip Hewat-Jaboor et al., William Beckford, 1760–1844: An Eye for the Magnificent (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press for the Bard Graduate Centre for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture, 2001)

Open to pp. 254–255

LR: 7.07 BEC

Item 7

John Rutter, A Description of Fonthill Abbey and Demesne in the Country of Wilts: Including a List of its Paintings, Cabinets and Other Curiosities (Shaftsbury: John Rutter, 1822)

Open to frontispiece

LR: 728.83

Item 8

Andrew Byrne, London’s Georgian Houses (London: Georgian Press, 1986)

Open to pp. 79

LR: 728 BYR

Item 9a–b

Two copies of Andrew Byrne, Bedford Square: An Architectural Study (London: Athlone, 1990)

5a. Open to pp. 147

LR: 711.61 BYR

5b. Open to pp. 126–7

LR: 711.61 BYR

Item 10

Ptolemy Dean, Sir John Soane and London (Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2006)

Open to pp. 150-151

LR: 7 SOAN(J),D

Item 11

Nikolaus Pevsner, London 3—North West (London: Penguin, 1991)

Open to pp. 650–651

LR: 711 PEV

Item 12

The Home and Grave of Byron, 1851

Open to frontispiece

Kindly lent by Newstead Abbey

RB A17

Item 13

Handbook for Travellers in Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, and Staffordshire (London: Murray, 1904)

Open to pp. 84–85

LR: 036(41) MUR

Item 14

Newstead Abbey (Great Britain: Beric Tempest, 1990)

Open to pp. 728

LR: P.728 NEW

Item 15

Clare Hartwell, Nikolaus Pevsner, and Elizabeth Williamson, Nottinghamshire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020)

Open to pp. 372–373

LR: 711 PEV Above:

Item 16

Rosalys Coope et al., Newstead Abbey: A Nottinghamshire Country House: Its Owners and Architectural History 1540–1931 (Nottinghamshire: Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire, 2014)

Open to pp. 114–115

LR: 728.83 NEW

Item 17

Maria Wildman, Sèvres plate showing a view of Newstead Abbey, 1818–1821

Kindly lent by Newstead Abbey

NCMG 2009-106/5

Item 18

John Shaw, Framed ground floor plan of Newstead Abbey with proposed alterations in black, 1818

Kindly lent by Newstead Abbey

NA 867

Item 19

Gaud after Webster, Framed coloured lithograph of Newstead

Abbey, 1835

Kindly lent by Newstead Abbey

RB A 37

Item 20

Slave Trade Legacies (STL) group with Dr. Shawn Naphtali Sobers and Michelle Hubbard, Blood SugarNewstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire - A Slavery Connected History, 2018 Video Permanently exhibited at Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, Duration; 5:01

Courtesy of Newstead Abbey

Acknowledgements

Display contents and text prepared by Martin Myrone

Display and booklet coordinated by Bryony Botwright-Rance and Anthony Tino

Display and booklet designed by Luke Gould

The Paul Mellon Centre would like to thank Simon Brown, Shawn Sobers, Susanne Seymour and Lisa Robinson.

“History has built the rooms around us.”

The Centre is confident that it has carried out due diligence in its use of copyrighted material as required by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended).

If you have any queries relating to the Centre’s use of intellectual property, please contact: copyright@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

For more information about our research Collections see our website: www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk. Alternatively contact us by email at collections@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk or phone 020 7580 0311