Alma-Tadema, Sir Lawrence, R.A. (1836–1912)
An Establishment painter, like Wallis interested in archaeology.
Alma-Tadema is said to have known everybody.
Broughton de Gyfford, Baron (John Cam Hobhouse) (1786–1869)
Byron’s early and good friend, and a lifelong friend of Peacock’s. He became an important governmental official. Peacock’s most intimate letters are to him.
Buchanan, Robert Williams (1841–1901)
English poet, best known for his ill-natured attacks—among them the well-known “The Fleshly School of Poetry”—on Rossetti and Swinburne.
Burne-Jones, Sir Edward Coley (1833–1898)
Artist, old friend of Wallis’s, and associate of William Morris. His wife, Georgie, writes the note to Henry on page 211.
Chesney, Francis Rowdon (1789–1872)
British explorer in the Near East.
Clairmont, Claire (1798–1879)
The stepdaughter of William Godwin, and stepsister to Mary Shelley. She was “ruined” at the age of sixteen or so by Lord Byron, with immense satisfaction to her vanity, and bore him a daughter, Allegra, who died in childhood. Claire herself lived to be very old and worked as a governess in Russia.
Clarke, Edith Nicolls, M.B.E. (1844–1926)
Daughter of Mary Ellen, and eventually principal of the National Training School of Cookery. She was distinguished by being made a Member of the British Empire.
Daniel, Peter Austin (1828?–1917?)
Friend and collaborator of George Meredith on the Monthly Observer, and lifelong friend of Henry Wallis. Daniel, I believe, wanted in his youth to be an artist, but he worked as a clerk in the East India Company, instead.
Gilbert, Sir John (1817–1897)
A painter of historical subjects.
Hogg, Thomas Jefferson (1792–1862)
In his youth a friend of Shelley’s; he became, in time, a respected judge, though he never became respectable, but rather chased women and did not believe in God. Good Victorians disapproved of him.
Hughes, Arthur (1832–1915)
British Pre-Raphaelite painter and lifelong friend of Henry Wallis.
Hunt, William Holman (1827–1910)
Noted British painter and lifelong friend of Henry Wallis. The injured picture mentioned in the text was his famous Light of the World.
Kingsley, Charles (1819–1875)
A “radical liberal” clergyman of the Church of England. Mary Ellen wrote an essay in praise of his The Saint’s Tragedy for the Monthly Observer. Author of Westward Ho, The Water Babies, Alton Locke, and many other novels and stories.
L’Estrange, Thomas
An obscure Irish gentleman who interested himself in Peacock’s affairs.
Love, Harriet
Cousin to Thomas Love Peacock on his mother’s side. She gave helpful biographical details for the earliest memoirs of Peacock.
Meredith, Arthur (1853–1890)
The son of Mary Ellen and George Meredith.
Meredith, George (1828–1909)
Important English novelist and poet. He was known in his day for his “advanced” views on such matters as women’s lot.
Meredith, Mary Ellen Peacock Nicolls (1821–1861)
An unfortunate but courageous woman.
Mill, James (1773–1836)
Peacock’s predecessor at India House; British political philosopher whom tradition has held Peacock did not like very much, which is apparently not true. They went on many long walks together, in any case.
Mill, John Stuart (1806–1873)
British philosopher, author of On Liberty, and Peacock’s successor at India House.
Milton, the first Mrs (d. 1652)
Mary Powell, who ran away from John Milton a month after they were married. Evidently she did not like him, and could hardly be persuaded to come back again. She is said to have inspired Milton’s pamphlets in favor of divorce. Ultimately, she died of childbearing, so her first impulse may have been correct.
Morris, William (1834–1896)
The artist, printer, designer, poet, decorator, socialist reformer, inventor, and a dozen other things. He lived at a beautiful place called Kelmscott and really started the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Nicolls, General Sir Edward, K.C.B. (1779–1865)
“Fighting Nicolls,” father of Edward Jr., and “the most distinguished officer” of which the Royal Marines can boast.
Nicolls, Lt. Edward (d. 1844)
First husband of Mary Ellen and father of Edith.
Peacock, Edward Gryffydh (1825?–1867)
Peacock’s son and Mary Ellen’s brother. Said to be a “wild” young man.
Peacock, Jane Gryffydh (1789–1851)
Wife of Thomas Love Peacock and mother of Mary Ellen.
Peacock, Sarah (1754–1833)
Mother to Thomas Love Peacock, and his great friend and “best critic.”
Peacock, Thomas Love (1785–1866)
English poet, novelist, and principal Examiner of the East India Company—or, important bureaucrat.
Petrie, Sir William Matthew Flinders (1853–1942)
A great archaeologist, whose most notable feat was to preside over the diggings at Abydos.
Read, Sir Charles Hercules (1857–1929)
Keeper of the Department of British Medieval Antiquities and Ethnography, old friend of Henry Wallis.
Rosewell, Mary Anne (1823?–1883)
The adopted daughter of Thomas Love Peacock, known as “May.”
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel (1828–1882)
English poet and painter, one of the founders of Pre-Raphaelitism.
Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal (d. 1862)
She was the unhappy model and mistress of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who married her after a “long engagement.” She died shortly thereafter of an overdose of laudanum, and Rossetti, in his extravagant grief, buried his manuscript poems with her, so that in a few years he had to have her dug up again to get them back.
Rossetti, William Michael (1829–1919)
Brother to Dante and Christina, William Michael was the writer and scholar and “straight” member of this otherwise eccentric family.
St. Croix, Marianne
Nothing whatever is known about her, beyond her early attachment to T. L. Peacock, whom she decided not to marry. She was probably related to George and Mary Meredith’s friend Hilary de St. Croix.
Scott, William Bell (1811–1890)
A poet and painter and friend of Henry’s.
Shelley, Harriet Westbrook (1795–1816)
First wife to Mr. Shelley, and the one Tom Peacock always preferred. Harriet committed suicide by drowning after Mr. Shelley ran off with Miss Godwin. She was pregnant when she died, which allowed her detractors to circulate ugly rumors about her, in defense of Shelley’s desertion of her. But a recent scholar, Mrs. Boas, has shown that the poor girl was probably pregnant—once again—by Shelley.
Shelley, Mary Godwin (1797–1851)
The author of Frankenstein. She was the second wife to Mr. Shelley, daughter of William Godwin and the great feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792–1822)
Major English poet who tragically drowned.
Smith, Madeleine
The defendant in a famous murder trial in 1857. She was accused of giving her lover arsenic.
Stephens, Frederic George (1828–1907)
An early associate of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and for forty years art critic of the Atheneum. His son Holly (Holman) was notably handsome, and a friend of Felix Wallis.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles (1837–1909)
British poet.
Wallis, Harold Felix (1858–1933)
Born Harold Meredith, because Mrs. Meredith was still married to Mr. Meredith at the time she bore him to Mr. Wallis. He grew up to have a successful career in banking.
Wallis, Henry (1830–1916)
Pre-Raphaelite painter, distinguished authority on Far Eastern ceramics, and the villain—or the hero—of this work.
Watts, George Frederic (1817–1904)
Painter and sculptor. In 1886, when he was almost seventy, he married a “friend and disciple,” Miss Mary Fraser Taylor—which accounts for the amusement of his friends.
Wollstonecraft, Mary (Godwin) (1759–1797)
The author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, the first major feminist work. Miss Wollstonecraft did not believe in marriage, but in the end did marry Mr. Godwin, the father of her child (Mary Shelley), for the sake of giving the child a name. She died just after, of childbed fever.