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48  LADY LUCY WHITMORE FIG 2 The Library at Dudmaston, Shropshire Photo: © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel FIG 3 William Wolryche Whitmore, c. 1850, artist unknown, hand-coloured photographic print on paper, 20.5 x 15.5cm, Dudmaston, Shropshire Photo: © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel 3 2 Lucy’s first impressions of Dudmaston and its surroundings were favourable. Her letters record her joy at the ‘excessively pretty view’ from the house’s windows and her explorations of the wider estate.10 She praises the views overlooking the River Severn and describes the ‘enchanting’ cascades within the property’s famous Dingle (largely designed by William Wolryche’s mother, Frances, in consultation with William Shenstone’s ‘Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening’).11 Unfortunately for Lucy, the deployment of the Shropshire Militia to the south coast in March 1810 interrupted this settling-in period. Her first experience of life as an officer’s wife was in a cottage in Fareham, Hampshire, which she attempted to make as habitable as possible. Essential to this were the couple’s books, which travelled with them and did ‘more than anything [to] contribute to the comfort’ of their temporary lodgings.12 Over the course of the next four years, the Whitmores accompanied the militia from Hampshire to Devon to southern Ireland, a pattern of life to which Lucy did not take. She searched for contentment in her reading – Amabel (the final novel of Elizabeth Hervey, William Beckford’s half-sister) and Madame de Staël’s De l’Allemagne get particular mention – and in learning to play the harp, but her correspondence from this period reveals a despairing melancholy that she was unable to escape. Militia life was certainly a contributing factor, but her childlessness, loneliness and the death of her beloved cousin Harriet Pelham appear to have been the main causes.13 Lucy’s depression was not a new experience. In her correspondence with her mother, she writes of having felt ‘wretched’ when living at Weston, her misery possibly exacerbated by the ill health that dogged her throughout her life. Her primary complaint appears to have been trigeminal neuralgia, otherwise known as ‘tic douloureux’ (this is the term Lucy uses), a disorder affecting facial nerves that results in intense shooting or stabbing pain in the lower part of the face. The effects of the condition are often described as being similar to those of an electric shock.14 Lucy appears to have suffered to an unbearable degree: ‘I have now a constant […] sensation just in that part of the jaw which terrifies me. Anything – anything but that of suffering may it please God to send me.’15 In between bouts of suffering, Lucy experienced periods of happiness. She and William went on an extensive tour of Europe between 1814 and 1816, following the course of the Rhine before spending some months in Italy. William’s journal recounts their travels in some detail, including an audience on Christmas Day with Napoleon on Elba. The Whitmores’ love of books and libraries dictated some of their itinerary. They made visits to the magnificent public library in Bern, the library in the Doge’s Palace, Venice (‘the finest room I ever saw’), the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, and the Vatican Library. At the latter they were able to view four manuscripts: ‘a Virgil & Terence of the day of Constantine on parchment, a Dante and an history of the Dukes of Urbino. The 2 last were beautifully illuminated and in excellent preservation.’16 It is tempting to think that the Whitmores were paying particular attention to libraries with a view to transforming the one at Dudmaston. William and Lucy were evidently discussing the house’s redesign as early as February 1810, the latter describing the remodelling plan as ‘delightful’, but it was not until the 1820s that the work was carried out.17 The principal alteration to the house was the creation of the present Library (Fig. 2), formed by knocking
page 49
LADY LUCY WHITMORE  49 two rooms into one. The long windows along the room’s west-facing wall allow in a great amount of light and afford striking views across the Big Pool towards the Dingle and the Severn Valley beyond. Within the room, the four large recessed bookcases, with guilloche uprights and elongated Greek-key cornices, are a product of the union between the Bridgeman and Whitmore families, having been inspired by the furniture in the Library at Weston Park. It has also been speculated that the alternating flowers and ears of corn in the frieze are representative of Lucy and William respectively.18 The earliest list of the contents of the Library was created some 30 years after the room’s construction.19 The inventory is far too rudimentary to act as a proper library catalogue, but it does give an indication of the size of the Whitmores’ collection – some 1,250 titles spread across six bookcases in the Library and two in the Morning Room.20 The vast majority of the publications’ dates roughly correspond to the period of their marriage. The books cover subjects one might expect to find in a country house library formed in the first half of the 19th century: political pamphlets, natural history, travel, European history, literary periodicals, poetry, novels, devotional works, sermons and juvenile literature. A scrap of paper in the Dudmaston archive provides an indication of the rate of growth of the Whitmores’ library. Between 1826 and 1829, they purchased works from a variety of booksellers, including John Hatchard of Piccadilly, John Richardson of Cornhill and Thomas Edgecombe of Worcester, expending, on average, a fairly modest £60 per annum.21 When faced with an inventory of a privately owned library, it is sometimes tempting to apportion ownership of particular titles to those responsible for building the collection.22 Needless to say, this reductive approach is not always helpful and tends to result in the acquisition of more ‘trivial’ works being attributed to women. However, in the case of Dudmaston, the small collection of Lucy Whitmore’s books owned by the National Trust provides an informed insight into her role in building the collection and her use of it.23 This collection of Lucy’s books was assembled by Rachel, Lady Labouchere (1908–96) (Fig. 4), the last chatelaine of Dudmaston, who had them shelved within a small Regency ebonised four-tier bookcase (Fig. 5).24 Lady Labouchere appears to have had a particular fondness for Lucy Whitmore and was responsible for giving pride of place in the Staircase Hall to a marble bust of her by Lorenzo Bartolini, together with her harp (Figs. 6 & 7).25 It is clear that the small assemblage of books – 87 titles, ranging in date from 1782 to 1837 – is only a partial representation of Lucy’s collection, but it is richly illuminating. Almost all the surviving books contain Lucy’s inscription and some indication of the date of acquisition. Several, including the aforementioned gift from her brother George, came with her from Weston Park. A number are recorded as gifts, primarily from family members (nine were given to her by her mother), but some from more intriguing sources. A copy of James Macpherson’s Ossian, for instance, was given to Lucy by the ‘Recluses of Llangollen’.26 Only one book is recorded as being a gift from her husband: the 1837 edition of The Christian Keepsake, probably acquired for its biography of Felicia Hemans, one of Lucy’s literary 4 acquaintances.27 Nine mostly didactic titles are marked ‘Childrens Library’, presumably relating to a collection put together by Lucy, either for her nephews and nieces or for local children from the nearby village of Quatt. Visually there is little apparent uniformity. The bindings on Lucy’s books feature a wide assortment of styles, colours and decorations, and are unlikely to have been chosen by the owner. This is not to say that Lucy was uninterested in a book’s outward appearance. When in 1824 she presented her father with a copy of Family Prayers for Every Day in the Week, she had the publisher specially bind the book in ornately decorated purple morocco.28 A closer look at Lucy’s collection reveals nine books that possess what may be a favoured binding style. The binding resembles that of the book given to her father: a sombre blue-black, straight-grained morocco binding with gilt lettering and arabesque tooling on the spine (Fig. 9). A receipt from the Worcester bookseller Richard Child, dated July 1838, lists a blue leather binding for a copy of Browns Sermons, perhaps indicating his role in the binding of Lucy’s books.29 The books can be divided into two distinct groups: secular and Christian. The former group is the smaller and contains a mix of poetry, literary periodicals and juvenile history. Collected editions of the works of Shakespeare, Burns, William Cowper (Fig. 8) and William Shenstone sit alongside single works, including Robert Southey’s Roderick, the Last of the Goths and Samuel Johnson’s Rasselas (Fig. 10). The collection does not, however, include any novels, of which Lucy was clearly fond.30 FIG 4 Sir George Peter Labouchere and Rachel Katherine Hamilton-Russell, Lady Labouchere, in the Library, Dudmaston Hall, Shropshire, 1984, John Ward (1917–2007), watercolour on paper, 48 x 63cm, Dudmaston, Shropshire Photo: © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel; © The Estate of John Ward FIG 5 Bookcase, c. 1815, ebonised wood with marble top and gilt-bronze mounts, 124 x 104 x 19cm, Dudmaston, Shropshire Photo: © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel 5

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48  LADY LUCY WHITMORE

FIG 2 The Library at Dudmaston, Shropshire Photo: © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel FIG 3 William Wolryche Whitmore, c. 1850, artist unknown, hand-coloured photographic print on paper, 20.5 x 15.5cm, Dudmaston, Shropshire Photo: © National Trust Images/Andreas von Einsiedel

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Lucy’s first impressions of Dudmaston and its surroundings were favourable. Her letters record her joy at the ‘excessively pretty view’ from the house’s windows and her explorations of the wider estate.10 She praises the views overlooking the River Severn and describes the ‘enchanting’ cascades within the property’s famous Dingle (largely designed by William Wolryche’s mother, Frances, in consultation with William Shenstone’s ‘Unconnected Thoughts on Gardening’).11

Unfortunately for Lucy, the deployment of the Shropshire Militia to the south coast in March 1810 interrupted this settling-in period. Her first experience of life as an officer’s wife was in a cottage in Fareham, Hampshire, which she attempted to make as habitable as possible. Essential to this were the couple’s books, which travelled with them and did ‘more than anything [to] contribute to the comfort’ of their temporary lodgings.12 Over the course of the next four years, the Whitmores accompanied the militia from Hampshire to Devon to southern Ireland, a pattern of life to which Lucy did not take. She searched for contentment in her reading – Amabel (the final novel of Elizabeth Hervey, William Beckford’s half-sister) and Madame de Staël’s De l’Allemagne get particular mention – and in learning to play the harp, but her correspondence from this period reveals a despairing melancholy that she was unable to escape. Militia life was certainly a contributing factor, but her childlessness, loneliness and the death of her beloved cousin Harriet Pelham appear to have been the main causes.13

Lucy’s depression was not a new experience. In her correspondence with her mother, she writes of having felt ‘wretched’ when living at Weston, her misery possibly exacerbated by the ill health that dogged her throughout her life. Her primary complaint appears to have been trigeminal neuralgia, otherwise known as ‘tic douloureux’ (this is the term Lucy uses), a disorder affecting facial nerves that results in intense shooting or stabbing pain in the lower part of the face. The effects of the condition are often described as being similar to those of an electric shock.14 Lucy appears to have suffered to an unbearable degree: ‘I have now a constant […] sensation just in that part of the jaw which terrifies me. Anything – anything but that of suffering may it please God to send me.’15

In between bouts of suffering, Lucy experienced periods of happiness. She and William went on an extensive tour of Europe between 1814 and 1816, following the course of the Rhine before spending some months in Italy. William’s journal recounts their travels in some detail, including an audience on Christmas Day with Napoleon on Elba. The Whitmores’ love of books and libraries dictated some of their itinerary. They made visits to the magnificent public library in Bern, the library in the Doge’s Palace, Venice (‘the finest room I ever saw’), the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, and the Vatican Library. At the latter they were able to view four manuscripts: ‘a Virgil & Terence of the day of Constantine on parchment, a Dante and an history of the Dukes of Urbino. The 2 last were beautifully illuminated and in excellent preservation.’16

It is tempting to think that the Whitmores were paying particular attention to libraries with a view to transforming the one at Dudmaston. William and Lucy were evidently discussing the house’s redesign as early as February 1810, the latter describing the remodelling plan as ‘delightful’, but it was not until the 1820s that the work was carried out.17 The principal alteration to the house was the creation of the present Library (Fig. 2), formed by knocking

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