Bournemouth's Who Was Who

Florence Gibson by Reginald Easton

A rare portrait of Floss Gibson, the adopted daughter of Sir Percy and Lady Shelley of Shelley Park, is to be auctioned at Bonham’s in Knightsbridge later this month.

Florence, or Floss, was a niece of Lady Shelley and grew up with her Aunt Jane at Boscombe. The miniature was almost certainly painted there. The background is a sandy beach and a bay.

At the age of twenty Floss married Captain Leopold Scarlett at Christchurch Priory. With the Percy and Jane Shelley being childless it was the son of the Leopold and Florence Scarlett who became the Shelley heir. He was living at Shelley Park as Shelley Leopold Scarlett in 1903 when he became the 5th Lord Abinger on the death of a cousin.

The Guardian today, Saturday 1 November, carries the obituary of Bishop Donald Arden who was born in Boscombe.

As Archbishop of Central Africa he had a huge influence on the Anglican Church in Africa where many diocesan boundaries across several countries were carved out during his time.

The obituary by his wife Jane first appeared online in September.

Rosemary Tonks was “far from being a recluse,” said Neil Astley speaking at the launch of the book about the disappeared poet.

He said that myths about Rosemary’s whereabouts during her lost years included suggestions that she was in Cuba or a convent and always very poor.

We now know that she was in Bournemouth with enough money to live comfortably although incognito.

She went out in the town and even cycled. She often visited London although she probably talked to few people when there.

The event was held on Wednesday 29 October at London’s King’s Place below the The Guardian offices. It was hosted by The Rimbaud and Verlaine Foundation and called The Disappearing Poet to highlight that Arthur Rimbaud disappeared in 1879 and Rosemary Tonks in 1979.

The foundation was formed following the gift of 8 Royal College Street in Camden where Arthur Rimbaud lived with fellow poet Paul Verlaine in 1872. Four years later Verlaine moved to Bournemouth where he spent 18 months teaching.

Bedouin of the London Evening: collected poems by Rosemary Tonks is published byBloodaxe; £12.

Rosemary Tonks (picture Michael Peters)

New book on Rosemary Tonks

Old Forest Lodge

Piccadilly Hotel

Published today is a most significant and unexpected literary book.

Bedouin of the London Evening is the collected poems of Rosemary Tonks. The introduction, written by Neil Astley, telling the unknown story of her lost years is as important as the poems and extracts of writing.

Neil alone is responsible for revealing the full life of Rosemary. He announced her death when many thought she had been dead for years. She had just disappeared to live alone in Bournemouth.

She destroyed her work and failed to cash any cheques sent by her publisher. As recently as 2009 BBC Radio 4 devoted a programme to her called her The Poet Who Vanished. Neil informed her about the broadcast but she didn’t want to listen to it.

Rosemary Tonks had attended Wentworth College (now part of Bournemouth Collegiate School) in Boscombe at the end of the 1930s. Post war she married and became the literary star of London with a sports car and a home in Hampstead. Her neighbour was Edith Sitwell who also had childhood memories of Bournemouth.

After divorce came traumatic years when she suffered temporary blindness. Convalescence brought her back to Bournemouth in 1978 to stay with her aunt Dorothy Tonks, her mother’s sister. As a result Rosemary bought a house called Old Forest Lodge at the top of Bath Hill where she was to live incognito for the next 35 years.

Neil tells a sensational story of how there in the garden, hidden from the bus stop by a wall, she burnt or destroyed valuable effects as well as her work including the only manuscript of her seventh and final novel.

He insists that Rosemary was not a recluse since she went out often and made frequent visits to London.

In Bournemouth in recent years Rosemary sat unrecognised in the cafes at Waterstone’s in The Arcade and Borders in The Square. On Christmas Day she might appear for lunch at The Piccadilly Hotel in Bath Road. She was on the electoral roll although nobody noticed as she was listed under her married name, Rosemary Lightband. She died this year and with that name was buried without ceremony on May Day outside the town.

This is the book Rosemary Tonks did not want to see but which she deserves.

Bedouin of the London Evening: collected poems by Rosemary Tonks is published by Bloodaxe; £12.

Two works by John Singer Sargent painted in Bournemouth are to be included in a major exhibition next year at the National Portrait Gallery.

The bearded Sargent visited Robert Louis Stevenson’s Westbourne house at least twice.

He painted the author walking about his drawing room whilst his wife sits in a chair. In a second portrait he is sitting in a chair.

The painting depicting Stevenson on his feet is often reproduced and is being lent to the London exhibition by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Sargent’s very first painting done at the house in 1884 is lost. He returned in 1885 and 1887 for Stevenson to sit for the two now to be exhibited.

The main RLS portrait, a favourite of NPG director Sandy Nairne, was the starting point of the show says curator Richard Ormond who has been working on the exhibition for five years.

Also in the exhibition will be a portrait of Sargent’s fellow American Henry James who knew Bournemouth and marvelled at the sea view even if he did not like the new houses.

Due to be lent by Glasgow Museums is the portrait of Mrs George Batten who was the lover of Bournemouth-born Radclyffe Hall.

Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends is at the National Portrait Gallery from 12 February to 25 May 2015; admission £14.50 (conc £13).

Chris Bryant’s just-published two volume Parliament: The Biography is an impressive and thorough work.

So it is interesting to read the passage in volume 2 about Winston Churchill becoming prime minister.

It is well-known that he was called to the palace on 10 May 1940 following a crucial meeting of the Labour Party national executive at the Highcliff Hotel. Labour had said yes to Churchill to lead the coalition.

Chris Bryant suggests in his book that the fall of Chamberlain was partly the result of a speech in the Commons on 7 May by Bourenmouth MP Sir Henry Page Croft. In the debate, just after the German invasion of Norway, Page Croft tried to defend Chamberlain but said: “If you are convinced that you can find a better man then put him there.”

This was followed in the same debate on the same day by Leo Amery’s famous and fatal call in the words of Cromwell to the Long Parliament: “Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

Churchill appointed Page Croft Under Secretary for War.

This Sunday 7 September is the 200th anniversary of architect William Butterfield’s birth.

This will be a special day for the congregation in  St Augustin’s Church at Cemetery Junction. St Augustin’s was his last church and designed as a favour for his friend Canon Henry Twells. It is a smaller version of St Mary Magdalen in Enfield.

Neither of these churches was built in his distinctive banded brick style. More typical is All Saints Margaret Street in London, which is marking the anniversary, and Keble College at Oxford. The latter is by chance the patron of St Stephen’s Church from which St Augustin’s was planted in 1891.

Former Royal Botanic Gardens director Sir Ghillean Prance is appearing on Tonight’s Antiques Roadshow with the diaries of his ancestor Frederick Gibbs.

Frederick Gibbs was tutor to the Prince of Wales who became Edward VII.

In 1856 the Prince was brought to Bournemouth by Gibbs who had organised a walking tour for his teenage pupil. They stayed one night at the (now Royal) Bath Hotel before exploring the town and walking along the beach to Poole. The second night was spent there at The Antelope before going on to Swanage.

In the final episode of Jeremy Paxman’s Britain’s Great War programme he visited Talbot Heath School.

This was to recall how the girls in 1918 had been warned that the men they might have married had been killed. The record of this incident is found in the autobiography of head girl Rosamund Essex who became editor of the Church Times.

Whilst a schoolgirl she lived in Boscombe where her father was chaplain to the Sisters of Bethany.

Britain’s Great War is available to watch again until Sunday 23 February.

Malmesbury House at Salisbury is featured on the front page of The Daily Telegraph Property supplement.

The house is in the cathedral close and next to St Ann’s Gate. Until 2006 it was the home of John Cordle who had been MP for Bournemouth East & Christchurch.

Lord Malmesbury was living there in 1795 when he inherited the Hurn Court mansion at Throop from his cousin Edward Hooper.

Hurn Court is now flats and estate agents sometimes suggest that George Frideric Handel played there. Sadly this is not so. Lord Malmesbury’s father, music-lover James Harris, entertained the composer at the Salisbury house.