What's in the Box? Rummaging in the Archives

One of my favourite pastimes is rummaging in archives, even in my own, and finding old things. I have pretensions to be a historian and writer, but really I'm just nosey. In March, I was at the end of my Arts Council England DYCP funding and in the private archive putting the albums of Mary's sketches into proper acid free boxes. I knew it would be the last time for a while that I'd be able to go and explore / photograph the archive. I thought I'd been through every relevant box. Yet, there were various items I had not found yet: Mary's diary from when she and her family had to hide from the debt collectors until everything was put in her name when she was 21 in July 1853; a letter about her being kissed at Eton by Mr Coleridge; any primary reference to her wanting children but not being able to have them.

It was 2pm, I stepped back to check that there were no more boxes to look through and

Sheila Berry in 1931 - possibly at her 'coming out' ball as she is 18. Photograph from the National Portrait Gallery.

looked up and a smallish box right at the top said 'Illustrious Friends Sources'. Illustrious Friends (1965) was the last book by Sheila, Countess Bikenhead, about the Severn family. This book followed her earlier Against Oblivion (1943) about Joseph Severn. Illustrious Friends started with Joseph but then also covered Mary's brother Arthur and his relationship with John Ruskin. Arthur married Ruskin's second cousin Joan, who was essentially Ruskin's carer for the last decasdes of his life. Both books have chapters entitled 'Mary' and 'Mr Newton', which - until this blog (I hope!) - has been the main account of Mary Severn's life. Sheila married Frederick Winston Furneaux Smith, 2nd Earl of Birkenhead in 1935 and it was her husband who was related to the Severns, being the grandson of Mary's younger sister (and Arthur's twin) Eleanor Severn (later Furneaux). Anyway, back to the boxes.

I reached up to the box and opened the lid and there were more letters from Mary, mainly to her father; her diary from June to July 1853 - when they were hiding from bailiffs; a letter from Ruskin to Charles Thomas Newton; letters from Eleanor to and about Mary and Eleanor's diary from the time of Mary's marriage, the death of their mother and her early years in Rome as well as letters from Newton to Eleanor after Mary's death. And another small sketch book! My heart was full.

However, it is these love notes that show exactly why I love rummaging in archives and being nosey about the past. The notes are not racy - more meet me here and then but looking at them took me to Rome in 1828.

Miss Elizabeth Montgomerie (b. 1804), according to ancestry.com, was was the daughter of Charles Montolieu Lamb and Mary Montgomerie, but was illegitimately linked to the aristocratic Scottish Eglingtons. She came to Rome in 1827 and met Joseph when she was with her Guardian the Countess Westmoreland (Jane Fane), with whom Joseph Severn had had a flirtacious relationship 2 years previously. The Countess had separated from her husband in 1810. She used Elizabeth as an errand girl in Rome - according to Birkenhead - and was jealous of Severn's attentions towards her. The pair met clandestinely, passing tiny notes, such as this one until their marriage in July 1828. Elizabeth became Mrs Severn, Eliza or mama to Mary.

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