Exhibition | Seeing the Light
Joseph Wright of Derby, A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on the Orrery, in which a Lamp Is Put in Place of the Sun, ca. 1766, oil on canvas, 58 × 80 inches (Derby Museum & Art Gallery).
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Now on view at the Foundling Museum:
Seeing the Light
Foundling Museum, London, 7 March — 4 June 2023
We at the Foundling Museum are excited to display A Philosopher Giving That Lecture on the Orrery in Which a Lamp is Put in Place of the Sun by revered ‘painter of light’ Joseph Wright of Derby. First exhibited in London in 1766, this dramatic painting—on loan from Derby Museum & Art Gallery—offers a fascinating window to changing social attitudes and public understanding of science, education, and technology in the eighteenth century. Wright and his large network of friends and acquaintances had multiple points of connection with key people in the Foundling Hospital’s history and collections. Visit the Museum to discover the story of the Lunar Society and the threads that link a token admitting the holder to a lecture in experimental philosophy, a clock detailing the phases of the moon, and a letter written by girls apprenticed by the Hospital to Wright’s painting and the Age of Enlightenment it celebrates.
While The Orrery is on display in London, visitors can see the Foundling’s magnificent painting by William Hogarth, The March of the Guards to Finchley (1750), at Derby Museum & Art Gallery.
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Note (18 April 2023) — Although it it has yet to penetrate the widespread conception of Wright as a progressive revolutionary artists set, above all, on visualizing Enlightenment science, Matthew Craske’s book Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Darkness (Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2020) should be required reading for anyone trying to understand Wright as an eighteenth-century artist. –CH
Exhibition | Hogarth’s Britons
Now on view in Derby:
Hogarth’s Britons: Succession, Patriotism, and the Jacobite Rebellion
Derby Museum & Art Gallery, 10 March — 4 June 2023
Curated by Jacqueline Riding and Lucy Bamford
William Hogarth, The March of the Guards to Finchley, 1749–50, oil on canvas (London: The Foundling Museum).
No other artist defines our image of 18th-century Britain quite like William Hogarth. His vibrant narrative paintings, reproduced and circulated widely through print, engaged with some of the most pressing social and political issues of the times. Amongst these was Jacobitism, a campaign to restore the exiled Stuart dynasty to the throne of Great Britain. This exhibition explores Hogarth’s response to this threat, including the last and most serious of all attempts: the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. Led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) with support from France, the Jacobite Army would eventually reach Derby before retreating back north to Scotland and defeat at the Battle of Culloden.
Led by Derby Museums, Hogarth’s Britons has been produced in partnership with the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and is the first exhibition of Hogarth’s works to be staged in Derby. It brings many pieces that have never before been seen in the city, including Hogarth’s masterpiece, The March of the Guards to Finchley (Foundling Museum, London). Others, such as the newly discovered portrait of the Prince by Allan Ramsay (National Galleries of Scotland), will be returning to Derby for the first time since the rebellion of 1745. The exhibition also brings together items from national and private collections, representing local divided loyalties and the experience of life under Jacobite-army occupation.
Hogarth’s Britons: Succession, Patriotism, and the Jacobite Rebellion is co-curated by Jacqueline Riding, acclaimed art historian and author of Jacobites (2016) and Hogarth: Life in Progress (2021); and Lucy Bamford, Senior Curator of Art at Derby Museums.
Jacqueline Riding, Hogarth’s Britons (London: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2023), 120 pages, ISBN: 978-1913645458, £18 / $25.
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Note (added 29 February 2024) — The original posting was updated to include information on the catalogue.
New Book | The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho
From Macmillan:
Paterson Joseph, The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho: A Novel (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2023), 432 pages, ISBN: 978-1250880376, £17 / $28.
It’s finally time for Charles Ignatius Sancho to tell his story, one that begins on a slave ship in the Atlantic and ends at the very center of London life. . . . A lush and immersive tale of adventure, artistry, romance, and freedom set in eighteenth-century England and based on a true story
It’s 1746 and Georgian London is not a safe place for a young Black man. Charles Ignatius Sancho must dodge slave catchers and worse, and his main ally—a kindly duke who taught him to write—is dying. Sancho is desperate and utterly alone. So how does the same Charles Ignatius Sancho meet the king, write and play highly acclaimed music, become the first Black person to vote in Britain, and lead the fight to end slavery? Through every moment of this rich, exuberant tale, Sancho forges ahead to see how much he can achieve in one short life: “I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more.”
Paterson Joseph is an award-winning actor who has been fascinated by Sancho for many years. He wrote and starred in the play Sancho: An Act of Remembrance in 2018, which was staged in the UK as well as the US. A veteran of the stage, TV, and film, Paterson has appeared on The Mosquito Coast, an Apple TV+ original series; Doctor Who; Noughts + Crosses; and other BBC programs. The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho is his first novel.
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Thomas Mallon recently reviewed the book for The New York Times (11 April 2023), observing that
. . . in an author’s note, Joseph explains his desire to present Black English characters “in the form in which I met Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Jane Eyre.” Entering the realm of fiction, he catches the genre’s particular mood in Sancho’s 18th century. All the sudden shifts in fortune, the deathbeds and legacies, along with the guileful use of what Sancho calls “cheek”: These are elements in the episodic, picaresque adventures of every Tom Jones and Moll Flanders that elbowed a way through the Georgian era. . . .
The full review is available here»
New Book | Flora Macdonald: ‘Pretty Young Rebel’
The Battle of Culloden was fought on this day (16 April) in 1746. From Penguin Random House (I much prefer the British cover, shown here, over the American one. –CH) . . .
Flora Fraser, Flora Macdonald: ‘Pretty Young Rebel’: Her Life and Story (Knopf, 2023), 288 pages, ISBN: 978-0451494382, £25 / $30.
A captivating biography of the remarkable young Scotswoman whose bold decision to help ‘Bonnie’ Prince Charlie—the Stuart claimant to the British throne—evade capture and flee the country has become the stuff of legend.
After his decisive defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, Prince Charles Edward Stuart was a man on the run. Seeking refuge in the Outer Hebrides, hoping to escape to France, he found an unlikely ally in Flora MacDonald, a young woman in her early twenties, loyal to the Stuarts. Disguising the prince as an Irish maid, petticoats and all, Flora conveyed Charles by boat to Skye, where they lodged safely with her family, until the prince’s inexpert handling of feminine attire caused concern, and he was persuaded to forgo the ruse before fleeing the area undetected. Flora never saw him again.
This famous incident led to Flora’s enduring appeal as a courageous Scottish heroine, inspiring and influencing countless novels, poems, and songs—most notably, the classic ballad “Skye Boat Song” adapted from a traditional tune in the late nineteenth century. But her remarkable life didn’t come to a close with her clandestine mission to Skye. Faced with a confession from one of the boatmen, Flora was arrested and taken to London on charges of treason, where under interrogation, she wittily deflected questions and staunchly defended her motives. She was eventually released under the 1747 Act of Indemnity, but disaster would befall her yet again: in 1774, Flora and her husband, Allan MacDonald, fled the impoverished highlands for a brighter future in Cross Creek, North Carolina—utterly unaware of the burgeoning revolution that would upend their lives there, with Allan imprisoned and Flora fleeing, penniless, back home to the Hebrides.
In this probing, evocative portrait of a tumultuous life, Flora Fraser peels away the layers of misinformation, legend, and myth to reveal Flora MacDonald in full. Fraser presents a fascinating picture of this headstrong and irrepressible woman. As Samuel Johnson declared upon visiting her in Scotland, her name was “a name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honor.”
Flora Fraser is the author of The Washingtons: George and Martha; Beloved Emma: The Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton; The Unruly Queen: The Life of Queen Caroline; and Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III. She lives in London.
New Book | Beauty and the Brain
On Thursday, 4 May 2023, at 7pm (EST), Rachel Walker will discuss her book at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. The event will be live-streamed via YouTube. Registration is required for both in-person and online attendance.
From The University of Chicago Press:
Rachel Walker, Beauty and the Brain: The Science of Human Nature in Early America (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022), 288 pages, ISBN: 978-0226822563, $45.
Examining the history of phrenology and physiognomy, Beauty and the Brain proposes a bold new way of understanding the connection between science, politics, and popular culture in early America.
Between the 1770s and the 1860s, people all across the globe relied on physiognomy and phrenology to evaluate human worth. These once-popular but now discredited disciplines were based on a deceptively simple premise: that facial features or skull shape could reveal a person’s intelligence, character, and personality. In the United States, these were culturally ubiquitous sciences that both elite thinkers and ordinary people used to understand human nature. While the modern world dismisses phrenology and physiognomy as silly and debunked disciplines, Beauty and the Brain shows why they must be taken seriously: they were the intellectual tools that a diverse group of Americans used to debate questions of race, gender, and social justice. While prominent intellectuals and political thinkers invoked these sciences to justify hierarchy, marginalized people and progressive activists deployed them for their own political aims, creatively interpreting human minds and bodies as they fought for racial justice and gender equality. Ultimately, though, physiognomy and phrenology were as dangerous as they were popular. In addition to validating the idea that external beauty was a sign of internal worth, these disciplines often appealed to the very people who were damaged by their prejudicial doctrines. In taking physiognomy and phrenology seriously, Beauty and the Brain recovers a vibrant—if largely forgotten—cultural and intellectual universe, showing how popular sciences shaped some of the greatest political debates of the American past.
Rachel E. Walker is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hartford, where she teaches courses on the history of race, gender, and science in America. Her recent article “Facing Race,” received the Murrin Prize for the best article published in Early American Studies in 2021.
C O N T E N T S
Introduction
1 Founding Faces
2 A New Science of Man
3 Character Detectives
4 The Manly Brow Movement
5 Criminal Minds
6 Facing Race
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Lecture Series | 2023 Wallace Seminars on Collections and Collecting
This year’s Wallace Seminar Series on Collections and Collecting:
2023 Wallace Collection Seminars on the History of Collections and Collecting
Online and/or In-Person (depending upon session), The Wallace Collection, London, last Monday of most months
Established in 2006, the Seminars in the History of Collecting series helps fulfil The Wallace Collection’s commitment to the research and study of the history of collections and collecting, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries in Paris and London. Seminars are normally held on the last Monday of every month, excluding August and December. They act as a forum for the presentation and discussion of new research into the history of collecting, and are open to curators, academics, historians, archivists and all those with an interest in the subject. Each seminar is 45–60 minutes long, with time for Q&A.
Book your place via the Wallace Collection website. Bookings will open a few weeks before each seminar. A detailed summary of each forthcoming seminar will be provided around the same time. The 2023 Seminars in the History of Collecting will be on Zoom and livestreamed via YouTube for the months of January to April. We hope to be able to hold our seminars in hybrid format from the month of May, in person at the Wallace Collection and live on YouTube. For enquiries or to join our mailing list, please contact collection@wallacecollection.org.
Monday, 30 January
Simon Spier (Curator, Ceramics and Glass 1600–1800, Victoria & Albert Museum, London), Creating the Bowes Museum: Collectors, Dealers, and Auctions in Mid-19th-Century Paris
Monday, 27 February
Caroline Dakers (Professor Emerita in Cultural History, University of Arts London), Millionaire Shopping: The Collections of Alfred Morrison (1821–1897)
Monday, 27 March
Thomas Cooper (PhD candidate, University of Cambridge), Reconstructing the Art Collection of May Morris (1862–1938)
Monday, 17 April
Diana Davis (Independent researcher), ‘Fertile in Resources and in Ingenious Devices’: Ferdinand de Rothschild and His Dealers Revealed through the Archive
More information available here»
Monday, 22 May
Jonathan Conlin (University of Southampton), Knickerbocker Glory? Alphonso Trumpbour Clearwater (1848–1933) and the Collecting of American Silver
More information available here»
Monday, 26 June
Alessia Attanasio (PhD candidate, University of Birmingham), The Fortunes of Baroque Neapolitan Art in English Collections during the Grand Tour, 1680–1800
Monday, 31 July
Sarah Thomas (Birkbeck, University of London), Slavery and the ‘Life’ of a Painting: Parmigianino’s Virgin and Child and the Taylor Plantations of Jamaica
Monday, 18 September
Ellinoor Bergvelt (University of Amsterdam), The Collection of William Cartwright (1606–1686) at Dulwich Picture Gallery
Monday, 30 October
Barbara Lasic (Senior Lecturer, MA in Fine and Decorative Art and Design, Sotheby’s Institute of Art), ‘Like a Tale from the Thousand and One Nights’: Reconstructing the Taste and Collections of William Williams-Hope (1802–1855)
Monday, 27 November
John Holden (Independent author, researcher, and an Associate at Demos) and Rebecca Wallis (Cultural Heritage Curator, National Trust), Ralph Dutton (1898–1985), 8th Baron Sherborne: The Life of a Collector
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Note (added 29 June 2023) — The posting was updated with a change for July’s presentation; originally Peter Humfrey (Emeritus Professor of Art History, University of St Andrews) was scheduled to speak on “The Picture Collections of the Poet Samuel Rogers (1763–1855) and of His Siblings.”
Royal Oak Programs, Spring 2023
18th-century offerings from the Royal Oak Foundation this spring:
Robert Sackville-West | Knole: A Private View into One of Britain’s Great Houses
Charleston Library Society, Charleston, 21 March 2023, 6pm ET
Set of pastels at Knole by Rosalba Carriera: Charles Sackville, 2nd Duke of Dorset at bottom right and his Italian mistress Lucia Panichi, at bottom left (Photo by Ashley Hicks, from Knole: A Private View of One of Britain’s Great Houses, Rizzoli, 2022).
The Sackvilles have inhabited Knole, one of Britain’s greatest houses, for more than 400 years. In his talk, Robert Sackville-West, the 13th generation of the family to live at Knole, will take Royal Oak members on a personal tour of this ‘calendar house’, with its legendary 365 rooms, 52 staircases, 12 entrances, and 7 courtyards. Lord Sackville will illustrate the smoldering spirit of Knole, from the state rooms—with the finest collection of 17th-century Royal Stuart furniture in the world and outstanding tapestries—to the private apartments filled with portraits by Van Dyck, Gainsborough, Sir Peter Lely, and Reynolds. He will include a trip behind-the-scenes into the labyrinth of cellars and show attics filled with family mementos.
He will describe his ancestors who inhabited his family home—the grave Elizabethan statesman, the good-for-nothing gadabout at the seedy court of James I, the dashing cavalier, the Restoration rake, the 3rd Duke of the ancien régime—who inhabited his family home and were described by Vita Sackville-West (born at Knole) as “a race too prodigal, too amorous, too weak, too indolent, and too melancholy.” Lord Sackville will talk about the way his family has shaped and furnished the house and describe how Knole itself has shaped the Sackvilles, influencing their lives and their relationships up to the present day. The talk will feature stunning images of the interiors and architectural and decorative features taken by Ashley Hicks for Knole: A Private View of One of Britain’s Great Houses, published by Rizzoli in 2022.
More information available here.
Robert Sackville-West, 7th Baron Sackville, studied history at Oxford University and went on to work in publishing. He now chairs Knole Estates, the property and investment company that, in parallel with the National Trust, runs the Sackville family’s interests at Knole.
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Oliver Gerrish | Distinguished to Eccentric: Norfolk Country Houses
Online, Zoom Webinar, 20 April 2023, 2.00pm ET
Also available as a digital rental from April 21 to May 5
Houghton Hall.
For centuries, Norfolk’s wide-open skies, unspoilt coastline, and rich and beautiful agricultural land have inspired writers and poets, artists, and designers, as well as architects and builders. Join architectural historian Oliver Gerrish on an enchanting visual journey through Norfolk’s rich architectural heritage. From the Jacobean splendors of Blickling Hall, believed to be the birthplace of Anne Boleyn, to the early Palladian elegance of Raynham Hall, possibly influenced by Inigo Jones’ circle, and for 400 years the seat of the Townshend family.
When one thinks of Norfolk, two of the grandest private houses in England immediately come to mind: Houghton and Holkham Hall. More than a country house, Holkham, designed by William Kent and Lord Burlington for the Earls of Leicester, can be described as a symmetrical Palladian palace. The sublime grandeur continues inside in the Marble Hall, which was modelled on a Roman basilica, with steps leading to the impressive State Rooms on the piano nobile.
The other neo-Palladian Norfolk ‘palace’ is Houghton Hall, one of England’s most beautiful stately homes designed by Colen Campbell and James Gibbs, with lavish interiors by William Kent. Both of these stately homes were built to reflect the wealth, taste, collections, and power of its inhabitants. Oliver will also examine private Norfolk houses from the 19th and 20th century. One from the Arts & Crafts movement is E.S. Prior’s 17-bedroomed Voewood in High Kelling, Norfolk, which is now owned by a well-known book dealer.
Finally, we will see the quirky Edwardian Sennowe Park, remodeled by George Skipper in 1900–1907 for the grandson of the founder of Thomas Cook travel. Known for its imaginative design, barrel vaulted library, and Art-Deco style tiling, the house is rarely on view.
More information available here.
Oliver Gerrish has a Master’s degree in architectural history from the University of Cambridge. He is a trustee of the Derbyshire Historic Buildings Trust and helped to found their Architecture Awards. For over 10 years he was actively involved with The Georgian Group, for whom he re-founded and successfully led the Young Georgians from 2002 to 2016. He was one of the youngest feature writers for Country Life, and has written for The Georgian magazine and reviews for House and Garden and others. He has lectured nationally on subjects ranging from the masters of the Arts and Crafts to the role country houses play in the lives of younger people. He regularly organizes tours of historic buildings throughout Britain for private clients and charities.
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Rufus Bird | St. James Palace: From Leper Hospital to Royal Court
The Union League of Philadelphia, 2 May 2023, 6.30pm (with an option for dinner)
The General Society Library, New York, 4 May 2023, 6pm ET
Also available as a digital rental from May 5 to May 19
Bird’s eye view of St James Palace.
Visitors to London may recognize the red brick building at the bottom of St. James’ Street—St James’ Palace—and its location near many Pall Mall clubs and boutique hotels. St James’s Palace is a remarkable building at the heart of the history of the British monarchy and served as the official residence of the British monarchy from 1698 to 1837. However, despite its pivotal role in British history, St. James’s Palace is the least known of the royal residences.
While King Charles III and the Queen Consort live at Clarence House, their home is actually one of several structures which formed a part of the buildings that emerged from the Tudor palace in 1530s. St. James’s medieval origins were as a leper hospital dedicated to St. James. The palace’s history also includes stories of murder; family arguments between father and son; a lost masterpiece building by William Kent; and lavish royal apartments. Over the centuries, St. James’s Palace survived dilapidation and fire, 19th century reconstruction, and remained the location for important international diplomacy. Rufus Bird—whose office was in the heart of St. James’s Palace for over 10 years—will bring to life the stories of this remarkable palace. He will explore the role of the palace a principal seat of the British monarchy after fire consumed Whitehall Palace, and explain the building’s impact on the development of London and the West End.
More information on Philadelphia available here and for New York available here.
Rufus Bird is an art advisor at Gurr Johns where he is Director of Decorative Arts and Heritage Collections, Europe. After receiving History of Art from Cambridge University, he joined Christie’s as a graduate trainee and joined the Furniture Department in 1999. In 2010, he was appointed by HM Queen Elizabeth II as Deputy Surveyor of the Queen’s Works of Art, and then in 2018 as Surveyor of the Queen’s Works of Art. At the Royal Collection, he was responsible for about 500,000 works of decorative art across fifteen residences. He is one of the authors of the official history of St James’s Palace published by Yale University Press and Royal Collection Trust in 2022.
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Jeremy Musson | ‘Still Life Drama’: Dennis Severs’ House Revived
Online, Zoom Webinar, 9 May 2023, 2pm ET
Also available as a digital rental from May 10 to May 24
Drawing Room of the Dennis Severs’ House (Photo by Lucinda Douglas-Menzies).
Step back in time at the Dennis Severs’ House, located at 18 Folgate Street in London. Visitors are invited to participate in what the American founder called “a still life drama.” This extraordinary multi-sensory experience allows guests to walk through each room of the house feeling as if the 18th- and 19th-century inhabitants have only just withdrawn a moment before.
Collector and founder Dennis Severs bought the semi-derelict 18th-century Spitalfields house in the 1970s. With no desire to restore, Severs wanted to honor what he imagined were the echoes of the house’s history. He created the fictional story of a Huguenot silk merchant’s family named Jervis, who lived in the house for generations from 1724 to 1914. Each room tells the triumphs and tragedies of this fictional family through the original objects Severs bought from London’s street markets and sale rooms, atmospherically lit by candlelight. Painstakingly assembled over 20 years, many of the rooms were mocked up in the manner of stage scenery using inexpensive materials—all conveying a haunting sense of London’s past: silk waistcoats are flung on rumpled bed clothes, a card game has just ended, fires crackle, and steam rises from a filled punch bowl.
Jeremy Musson recently featured this unusual house in Country Life Magazine. Jeremy will speak about the house which he says “defies categorization…and is a house of mystery and paradox.” He will illustrate the rooms—recently repaired and conserved by the trustees during COVID lockdown—and show English houses that possibly influenced Severs’ designs. He also will show how the founder used costume and set designers, as well interior designers, to create a remarkable home that captures a moment in time and history.
More information available here.
Jeremy Musson is a leading authority on the English country house. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and sits on a number of boards and trusts including the Country House Foundation. He was awarded an M Phil in Renaissance History at the Warburg Institute, University of London in 1989 and was architectural editor of Country Life from 1995 to 2007. Before joining Country Life in 1995, Jeremy was an assistant regional curator for the National Trust in East Anglia. He has written and edited hundreds of articles on historic country houses, from Garsington Manor to Knebworth House. He also presented 14 programmes on BBC 2, making up two series called The Curious House Guest in 2005–07. He lectures and supervises for academic programmes with Cambridge University, London University, and Buckingham University, as well as the Attingham Summer School. His books include Up and Down Stairs: The History of the English Country House Servant (2009), English Country House Interiors (2011), Robert Adam: Country House Design, Decoration & the Art of Elegance (2017), The Country House: Past, Present, Future: Great Houses of the British Isles (2018), and Romantics and Classics: Style in the English Country House (Rizzoli, 2021).
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Sophie Chessum | Clandon Park: Uncovering the Secrets of the Past
Online, Zoom Webinar, 23 May 2023, 2pm ET
Also available as a digital rental from May 24 to June 9
Recovered items following the fire at Clandon Park.
National Trust Curator Sophie Chessum witnessed the devastating fire at Clandon Park, Surrey on the night of April 29, 2015. The Palladian style house, a NT property, had been built in the early 1730s by Thomas Onslow and his wife to impress and entertain their friends, and included a Marble Hall with richly carved marble fireplaces by John Michael Rysbrack. Everyone was safely evacuated, but the 2015 fire raged through the house, leaving Clandon literally open to the skies.
Firefighters and NT staff tried to salvage some of the remarkable artifacts and objects, but the inside was gutted. Planning for the house’s future started almost before the cinders had cooled. Within weeks cranes removed the dangerous timbers and bricks, and a self-supporting scaffold was designed to wrap and roof the four-story structure. Everyone hoped for restoration, but after years of forensic investigation and consultation with experts, it was not deemed possible apart from the Speaker’s Parlour. The NT and teams of experts developed a new approach that celebrates what survives of the 18th-century building and seeks to tell the stories about how this masterpiece was built. The fire may have destroyed much of Clandon’s interior, but it also revealed how the house was constructed and crafted. Hidden secrets from Clandon’s history now revealed include: construction dating from timbers, stones reused from the previous Jacobean structure, hidden doorways and alcoves, and paneling in the State Bedroom.
Sophie will talk about that fateful night, show some of the salvaged fragments and objects under conservation—including the State Bed—and explain what curators and specialists have learned about the house. She will describe the current project which gives access to spaces conserved, offering visitors a unique ‘X-ray view’ and celebrating the craft skills of the people who created some of England’s greatest country houses.
More information available here.
Sophie Chessum is Clandon Park’s Senior Project Curator. Chessum has been with the National Trust since 1998, when she started as a Curatorial Researcher. Since 2002 she has been a curator for a number of internationally important houses, collections, gardens, and landscapes including Clandon Park, Claremont, Hatchlands Park, Hinton Ampner, Petworth House, Polesden Lacey, The Homewood, Uppark, and Woolbeding. She has been a consultancy manager at the National Trust since 2013, where she provides specific consultancy support to Ham House, Sutton House and 575 Wandsworth Road, Osterley Park, Morden Hall Park, Rainham Hall, Carlye’s House, Fenton House, Red House, and 2 Willow Road. In addition she is the curator for Ham House, Richmond Surrey. Since the fire at Clandon Park in April 2015, she has been seconded to lead the salvage elements of this project, providing curatorial expertise on the house and its collection and working closely with archaeologist and conservator.
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Justin Scully | Saving Fountains Abbey: Project Update
Online, Zoom Webinar, 1 June 2023, 2pm ET
Also available as a digital rental from June 2 to June 16
Flooding at Studley Royal Water Garden.
In 2020, Royal Oak donated $250,000 to preserve one of England’s most magnificent sites which was one of the first places in the UK to become a World Heritage Site in 1986. Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal Water Garden is an awe-inspiring landscape, owned by the National Trust since 1983. Cistercian monks established the Abbey in 1132, manipulating the River Skell to harness its power for grinding grain into flour. Over time, the Abbey became one of the largest, richest, and most influential Cistercian sites in Britain—until the Dissolution in the 1530s by Henry VIII.
In the early 18th century, John Aislabie began transforming his nearby landscape garden of Studley Royal into a picturesque design that incorporated the entire wooded valley and featured a huge water garden with lakes, grottos, canals, and cascades. Paths were created with viewpoints that centered on classical statues and follies. In 1767, his son William bought the neighboring Abbey ruins to incorporate them into the landscape and to create the ultimate vista or ‘Surprise View.’ Centuries later, the garden design is much the same, but this important landscape is often flooded from the River Skell. To save the site, the National Trust has partnered with conservation organizations, local farmers, and landowners to implement a natural flood management program.
Justin Scully, the site’s General Manager, will update Royal Oak members on the on-going progress of these efforts, including the planting of woodland and hedgerows and the creation of ponds and meadows to slow the water flow. He will illustrate the changes and explain the challenges faced by the preservation team. Additionally, he will talk about the surviving relics of the Chinese Garden and the wider 18th-century and monastic landscape, as well as exciting discoveries in the historic archives.
More information available here.
Justin Scully is General Manager at Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal Water Gardens, National Trust. The site is one of the busiest properties in the National Trust welcoming in excess of 600,000 visitors per year. Justin has worked for the National Trust for 14 years and in his 6 years at Fountains has overseen multi-million pound investment in visitor infrastructure and conservation, as well as the Skell Valley project, a £2.5m landscape scale conservation project.
Symposium | Georgian Group, Wren 300
Sir Godfrey Kneller, Portrait of Sir Christopher Wren, 1711, oil on canvas, 49 × 40 inches
(London: NPG).
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From The Georgian Group:
Wren 300: Georgian Group Symposium
Trinity College, Oxford, 15 April 2023
The Georgian Group’s 2023 Symposium, led by Geoffrey Tyack of Oxford University, will form a central focus of the Wren 300 Festival. Wren’s late work from 1690 to 1723, his subsequent reputation, and design legacy will be considered by leading scholars. Public tickets (£70) include a buffet lunch and drinks reception. A limited number of student tickets (£35) are available here. Please read the Terms and Conditions before booking. If tickets have sold out for this event, please email members@georgiangroup.org.uk to be added to the waiting list.
P R O G R A M M E
10.15 Registration
10.45 Session 1
• Geoffrey Tyack — Introduction / Wren’s Work in Oxford
• Rory Coonan — Wren before Architecture
• Jennifer Mitchell — Tom Tower
• Mark Kirby — The Furnishing of Wren’s Churches
12.45 Lunch
1.45 Session 2
• Anya Lucas — Greenwich
• Elizabeth Dean and Matthew Walker — Wren and Hawksmoor
• Will Aslet — Wren and Gibbs
4.00 Session 3
• Charles Hind — Wren’s Sale Catalogues
• David McKinstry — Wren’s 19th-Century Reputation
• Geoffrey Tyack — Destruction and Rebuilding: Wren’s Churches after 1945
5.45 Drinks Reception, The Garden Room, Trinity
New Book | The Anglican Episcopate, 1689–1800
Published by the University of Wales and distributed by The University of Chicago Press:
Nigel Aston and William Gibson, eds., The Anglican Episcopate, 1689–1800 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2023), 368 pages, ISBN: 978-1786839763, £70 / $88.
The eighteenth-century bishops of the Church of England and its sister communions had immense status and authority in both secular and religious society. In this volume, leading experts offer a comprehensive survey of all things episcopal between the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 and the early nineteenth century, when the Anglican Church enjoyed exclusive establishment privileges in much of Britain. The essays consider the appointment and promotion of bishops, their parliamentary duties, and their relation to Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and the American colonies.
Nigel Aston is a Research Associate at the University of York and Reader Emeritus in the School of History, Politics, and International Relations at the University of Leicester, where he taught for two decades. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on British and French eighteenth-century religious and political history, including the forthcoming book Enlightened Oxford: The University and the Cultural and Political Life of Eighteenth-century Britain and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2023).
William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford Brookes University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History. His most recent book is Samuel Wesley and the Crisis of Tory Piety, 1685–1720 (Oxford University Press, 2021).
C O N T E N T S
Introduction — Nigel Aston and William Gibson
The Politics of Church and State
1 Securing the Mitre: The Promotion and Progress of a Bishop — Nigel Aston (University of Leicester)
2 Lord Bishops: The Episcopate in National Politics — Ruth Paley (History of Parliament)
3 Bishops and the Monarchy — Grayson Ditchfield (University of Kent)
Performance
4 Pastors of Their Flock: Visitation, Ordination, Confirmation — Colin Haydon (University of Winchester)
5 Authority, Conflict, and Consensus: Bishops, Their Clergy, and Diocesan Government — William Gibson (Oxford Brookes University)
6 Bishops and Patronage — Daniel Reed (Oxford Brookes University)
Cultures
7 Wives and Families: The Domestic Life of Bishops — Nigel Aston (University of Leicester) and William Gibson (Oxford Brookes University)
8 Bishops and Eighteenth-Century Intellectual Life — Robert Ingram (University of Ohio)
9 Bishops, Taste, and Culture — Matthew Craske (Oxford Brookes University)
Beyond England
10 Episcopacy in Scotland — Rowan Strong (Murdoch University)
11 Anglican Bishops in Wales — John Morgan-Guy (University of Wales: Trinity St David)
12 The Other Establishment: Bishops in the Church of Ireland — Toby Barnard, (University of Oxford)
13 Anglican Bishops, the Wider World, and the Other Christian Churches — Ted Campbell (Southern Methodist University)
Appendix: Episcopal Incomes — Ruth Paley (History of Parliament)
Summer Seminar | Material Religion in Early America
From the American Antiquarian Society:
Material Religion: Objects, Images, Books
2023 CHAViC-PHBAC Summer Seminar
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, 25–30 June 2023
Led by Christopher Allison and Sonia Hazard
Applications due by 17 April 2023
Scholars of religion have taken a material turn, delving into the study of images, objects, monuments, buildings, books, spaces, performances, and sounds. What do these inquiries look like in the context of early America, and how did religious materialities shape early American worlds? The goal of this seminar is to explore this area’s exciting archives, theories, and methods, enabling participants to bring together religion and materiality in their own work in fresh ways.
The American Antiquarian Society provides an exceptional site for hands-on inquiries into the material worlds of early American religions. Collections at AAS furnish materials relating to religion before 1900 in North America, including Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Catholicism, Protestantism, metaphysical religions, African-inspired religions, South Asian religions, and civil religion as well as collections that support studying religious hybridity and forms of Christianity as practiced in Hawaiian, Caribbean, and Indigenous nations and groups.
Topics will include lived religion, materialisms (old and new), sensory culture, books as objects, animisms and animacies, iconoclasm, visual piety, the ontological turn, residual transcription, and sacred objects in archival contexts. The seminar will be held from Sunday, June 25, through Friday, June 30, 2023, at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts. Co-leaders for the seminar will be Chris Allison and Sonia Hazard. Guest speakers will include Solimar Otero, Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology, Indiana University, Bloomington and Anthony Trujillo, doctoral candidate in American Studies, Harvard University.
Participation is intended for faculty, museum and library professionals, and graduate students. It welcomes researchers across fields such as art history, religious studies, history, anthropology, American studies, music, and literature. It is co-sponsored by the Center for Historic American Visual Culture (CHAViC) and the Program in the History of the Book in American Culture (PHBAC).
The format of the seminar will be select readings, highly interactive seminar discussion, collections explorations and archival sessions, individual research time with the collection, and site visits to notable collections and religious sites in the area, including the Worcester Art Museum, burial grounds, and sacred sites. The syllabus is available online. Information on access to the readings will be emailed to students.
Tuition for the seminar is $600, which includes lunch each day and some evening meals. Some financial aid is available for graduate students. The cost of housing is not included in the tuition fee. Housing is available at two nearby hotels.
Faculty
• Sonia Hazard is Assistant Professor of Religion at Florida State University. Her book, Building Evangelical America: How the American Tract Society Laid the Groundwork for a Religious Revolution, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. She did her graduate work at Harvard Divinity School and Duke University.
• Christopher Allison is Director of the McGreal Center for Dominican Historical Studies, Department of History, Dominican University. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Protestant Relics: Capturing the Sacred Body in Early America, under contract with the University of Chicago Press. He did his graduate work at Yale Divinity School and Harvard University.
Guest Speakers
• Solimar Otero is Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author of Archives of Conjure: Stories of the Dead in Afrolatinx Cultures (Columbia University Press, 2020).
• Anthony Trujillo is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at Harvard University. He works at the confluence of Native American and Indigenous studies, history, religious studies, anthropology, and the arts.
Enfilade 
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