The Tennyson Connection part 1
The Tennyson, Franklin and Rawnsley families of Lincolnshire were inextricably joined through friendship and marriage.
Alfred Tennyson’s father, George Clayton Tennyson became Rector of Somersby & Enderby in 1806 and the young Tennysons grew up at Somersby Rectory. George Clayton Tennyson had business dealings with Henry Sellwood, Solicitor and Land Agent in Horncastle. Henry Sellwood was married to John Franklin’s sister Sarah, until her death in 1816. Of their three children, the youngest Louisa married Alfred Tennyson’s older brother Charles Tennyson Turner in 1836 and the eldest daughter Emily married Alfred Tennyson in 1850.
Thomas Hardwicke Rawnsley formed a longstanding friendship with George Clayton Tennyson when as a young curate he took up his post in the nearby parish of Spilsby in 1813, later becoming Rector of Halton Holgate from 1824 until his death in 1861. T.H. Rawnsley’s daughter Sophy had been a particular friend of Alfred Tennyson and a recipient of some of his poetry. Her brother Drummond married Catherine Ann Franklin, John Franklin’s niece in 1842.
Alfred Tennyson c1840, print by John Carr Armytage from a painting by Samuel Laurence
We have John Franklin’s niece Catherine Franklin to thank for her reminiscences of her first meeting with the Tennysons . She accompanied her uncle John Franklin to Lincolnshire in 1836, the purpose being to say goodbye to his Lincolnshire relatives and friends before he left for Van Diemans Land (Tasmania). Catherine’s parents had both died in India of cholera in 1824 and she lived with her guardian and Uncle, William Burnside and family in Nottinghamshire. She had been staying in London with the Franklins and they took the old Perseverance Boston coach from Snow Hill to Boston in Lincolnshire. Jane Franklin didn't accompany them, she remained in London to continue with the arrangements for Van Diemans Land.
"We proceeded on our way to Horncastle & there it was I first saw my cousin Emily (now Lady Tennyson) … Louie had been married only a week or ten days previously & we were to see our new connections the Tennysons at dinner. In they came, tall & dark, & handsome. Alfred the Poet & his eldest sister Mary I think the handsomest woman I ever saw. Frederick the eldest brother was a fairer man …"
Catherine goes on to describe the dinner:
"To my great alarm the Poet was told [off] to take me in to dinner & owing to some confusion I escaped sitting next to him at dinner but it was only to endure the greater trial of sitting opposite to him & seeing the glass put up to his eye to find out what manner of girl I might be & of hearing him ask his next neighbour in a sepulchral under tone “Is she a Hindoo?” I felt very very much out of it, all the dinner & was thankful when we went to the drawing room, where after a time we were joined by the gentlemen Uncle F rather indignant at Alfred’s cool proceeding of stretching himself across 3 chairs to smoke as soon as we had left the dining room – the stringent etiquette of the service in those days could not brook such an offence against good manners & respect for Elders & betters.
I was set down to the piano being a fair performer when Alfred took a chair & came close to me to see as he said the sparkling ornaments I was wearing, whereon he called me “Zobeide” as my garnets were fit for an Eastern Princess & I was I believe considered to be somewhat Eastern looking as a girl. There was not much time for talk as they had some mules to drive home to Somersby, but I thought them very remarkable looking people tho’ certainly formidable in their unconventional manner."
Catherine's reminiscences
By the reference to “Hindoo” it is possible that Alfred was confusing Catherine with her cousin Mary Franklin, the illegitimate daughter of Major James Franklin (brother of John Franklin, who had served in the military in India for the British East India Company). Mary’s mother was a Hindoo woman of whom nothing is known, but following her death James Franklin had sent his daughter back to Lincolnshire to be brought up by his sister Hannah Booth and her husband. James Franklin himself had died two years earlier in 1834.
Alfred may also have been under the impression that Catherine, like her younger brother Willingham, had been born in India. This was not the case. Catherine had been born in England and remained there while her parents travelled out to India in 1822, her father having been appointed Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Madras. Her two younger siblings also remained behind, the three of them looked after by Catherine’s grandmother, Elizabeth Burnside in Nottingham. At the time it was considered too dangerous health wise to take three young children with them, but in the event Catherine’s two siblings died in England and her parents both succumbed to cholera in 1824, leaving both Catherine and her brother Willingham as orphans.
Alfred mentioned garnets. The family portrait of Catherine, which probably dates from around the time of her marriage to Drummond Rawnsley in 1842, shows her wearing a garnet brooch.
Catherine Franklin, probably in 1842 around the time of her marriage to Drummond Rawnsley
Catherine’s second meeting with Alfred Tennyson occurred when she was staying at Halton Holgate on her way to her cousins the Booths at Friskney. This was probably around 1840:
“He had been at Mablethorpe some weeks revising & adding to his Poems with a view to bringing out an Edition in 2 vols. He looked very much like the old man of the sea as if seaweed might cling to him unkempt & unwashed & altogether forlorn as to the outer man. When told he had seen me before he looked hard at me & said “Now who are you? & what are you? & where do ye come from?” to which my reply was – Cattarina Anna Franklin Spinstis Nottingham. The curtness of my answer appeared to amuse him. He had I suppose thought to bully me as I was young looking but I was too old for that & seeing his engagement with Emily Sellwood was then in abeyance I cared nothing about him personally though delighting in his poetry. He talked pleasantly that evening & the next day he walked up & down the garden at Halton noticing especially the yellow crocuses then in full beauty & very abundant calling them torches of flame. His line in Oenone was no doubt suggested by the Halton garden “And at his feet the crocus brake like fire”. That walk in the Halton garden was the most eventful one of my life, and Alfred Tennyson with his short but keen sight was the first to perceive what was to come of it. I went on my way to Friskney that afternoon & saw the Poet no more for 5 or 6 years, till we lived at Shiplake & he came now & then to see us there.”
Halton Holgate Rectory and garden painted by Catherine Rawnsley in 1882
Halton Holgate Rectory was the home of Rev Thomas Hardwicke Rawnsley & his wife, and the significance of this for Catherine was meeting her future husband, their son Drummond Rawnsley. They were married in 1842, from Henry Sellwood’s house in Horncastle where Catherine had been staying. In time the beautiful house and garden at Halton would become their home, but in 1842 this was in the future. They settled at Hadham, Hertfordshire where Drummond was vicar. In 1849 they moved to Shiplake on Thames, and it was here that Alfred Tennyson visited them with far reaching consequences, as Catherine relates in her reminiscences:
“He was fond of my husband as he had good reason to be for he had no truer or more devoted friend & I have never regretted or in fact done otherwise than required in the part I took in helping to smooth away difficulties at the time of his marriage to my cousin Emily, who has been as every one who knows them feels a most valuable & valued wife”
Drummond Rawnsley, probably painted around 1842
The quill pen in the family portrait of Catherine is significant in that Emily Sellwood gave her cousin “Kate” a beautiful pen with a pearl feather handle at the time of her wedding to Drummond Rawnsley in 1842 .
The story of Catherine Rawnsley’s part in bringing together Alfred and Emily is told in The Tennyson Connection part 2.