A Strange Business is the last in an evolving quartet of books that began with my Turner: A Life (1997), continued with Faraday: The Life (2002) and looked more widely at the social background of art and science in the nineteenth century in London Lights: The Minds that Moved the City that Shook the World (2007).
J. M. W. Turner, ‘Mr Turner’ as he has been known in our house for twenty years, is the thin red line that runs through all four books. He is an occasional presence in Faraday: The Life; he hovers about London Lights; and in A Strange Business he is a constant undercurrent, churning here, surfacing there. Beyond, around and reflected by Turner, the nineteenth is a rich and extraordinary century, a gleaming, oil-streaked, sun-drenched pool. The only way that seemed appropriate for me to approach it was with a running jump and something of a splash.
Those listed here all helped usefully and critically in bringing this book to fruition, and I thank them all warmly: Lucy Blaxland, Felicity Bryan, Julius Bryant, Claire Burnand, Neil Chambers, Robert Chenciner, James Collett-White, Nicholas Donaldson, Zach Downey, Tracey Earl, David K. Frasier, Colin Harris, Colin Harrison, Kurt G. F. Helfrich, Rosemary Hill, Jeannie Hobhouse, Frank James, Andrew Kernot, Stephen Lloyd, David McClay, John Maddicott, Martin Maw, James Miller, Sebastian Mitchell, Clare Mullett, John and Virginia Murray, Oswyn Murray, Mark Norman, Jan Piggott, Froukje Pitstra, Jonathan Reinarz, Gabrielle Rendell, Eric Shanes, Bruce and Maggie Tattersall, Jevon Thistlewood, Michele Topham, Matthew Turi, Nicholas Webb, Andrew Wilton, Joan Winterkorn, Lucy Wood, Susan Worrall and Vicky Worsfold. Staff of the Bodleian, the Royal Institution, the British Library, the National Art Library, the National Gallery Archive, the University of Birmingham Cadbury Research Library, the Barclays Bank Archive, the London Metropolitan Archives and Coutts & Co. were active and prescient in their assistance. Likewise, my love and thanks go to my family, in particular my wife Kate Eustace who has once again put up with a lot, and advised sagely.
Permissions to quote from copyright material have been generously given by Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; Bourlet; British Library Board; Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham; Lilly Library, University of Indiana; National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum; National Gallery Archives, London; National Library of Scotland; RIBA Drawings & Archive Collection, British Architectural Library; Royal Institution of Great Britain; Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. If I have inadvertently quoted copyright material without proper acknowledgement, I apologise and invite copyright holders to contact me. I would like to thank the John R. Murray Charitable Trust for a generous grant towards illustration costs. At Atlantic Books Ben Dupré, Toby Mundy and James Nightingale have been sources of strength and confidence. I thank them all.
James Hamilton
Kidlington, 2014