George Fleming Richardson — geologist, curator and poet

While history celebrates the individual scientists and artists who change our understanding of the world, it rarely remembers the assistants who make this pioneering work possible. Perhaps it’s time to spare a thought for George Fleming Richardson, who supported the work of local palaeontologist Gideon Mantell.

When Mantell exhibited his collection in Brighton in 1837, Richardson acted as curator. He followed the collection when it was acquired by the British Museum the following year, and became an assistant in its department of minerals. He also took notes from Mantell’s lectures which he published as The Wonders of Geology in 1838. Richardson published several other works on geology, but he also maintained a parallel literary career as a poet. One example of his work can be found in The Book of Sussex Verse, copies of which can be found in Brighton History Centre. Probably dating from his time with Mantell in Brighton, the poem is Richardson’s attempt to capture the eastern promise of the Royal Pavilion.

Book of Sussex Verse, 1914

Brighton. The Pavilion.

Imperial palace, that art seen to smile

In Eastern splendour, on our English land,

As if, from China’s shore, or Egypt’s strand,

Some pow’r unknown had borne thy magic pile!

O, I would roam around thy turrets, while

They bask in moonlight beauty, while Romance

Wakes the high visions of the holiest trance,

And bids her fairest forms the night beguile.

Then shall mine erring fancy rove anew

O’er themes all wild and wondrous, that belong

To Arab story, or to Persian song,

And deem awhile their false enchantments true;

Like gentlest dreams to sleeping suff’rers borne,

To charm throughout the night, and vanish with the morn.

G.F. Richardson

Sadly, neither Richardson’s poetic nor scientific careers proved sufficient to sustain him. Financial problems drove him to suicide in 1848. Richardson’s  scientific rather than his literary work seems to have been better regarded in his lifetime; he became a fellow of the Geological Society in 1839. But it’s worth noting that this poem was still remembered over sixty years after his death, when The Book of Sussex Verse was first published in 1914.

More on George Fleming Richardson

RICHARDSON, GEORGE FLEMING (1796?–1848), geologist, was born about 1796. He acted at one time as curator to the collection of Dr. Gideon Algernon Mantell [q. v.], when it was on exhibition at Brighton in 1837. He also took notes of a series of Mantell’s lectures, which were published as ‘The Wonders of Geology’ (1838).

In 1838, when Mantell’s collection was bought by the trustees of the British Museum, Richardson entered their service as assistant in the ‘department of minerals.’ This post he filled for ten years. During the same period he lectured on geology and kindred subjects, and was elected a fellow of the Geological Society on 22 May 1839. In 1848 pecuniary embarrassments led him into the bankruptcy court, and he committed suicide in SomersTown on 5 July 1848. His geological handbooks were useful compilations; he was less successful in his efforts in general literature. He was author of: 1. ‘Poetic Hours,’ &c., 12mo, London, 1825. 2. ‘Rosalie Berton,’ in ‘Tales of all Nations,’ 12mo, London, 1827. 3. ‘Sketches in Prose and Verse,’ 8vo, London, 1835; 2nd ser. 8vo, London, 1838. 4. ‘Geology for Beginners,’ &c., 12mo, London, 1842; 2nd ed. 1843; reissued 1851. 5. ‘Geology, Mineralogy,’ &c., revised by Wright, 8vo, London, 1858. ‘An Essay on the German Language and Literature,’ by Richardson, is advertised in ‘A Descriptive Catalogue of the Objects … in the Museum attached to the Sussex Scientific and Literary Institute, 1836,’ which last he possibly also wrote. He also translated ‘The Life of C. T. Körner,’ 8vo, London, 1827; 2nd edit. 1845; and at his death he had completed a translation of Bouterwek’s ‘History of German Literature.’

[Athenæum, 1848, p. 704; Gent. Mag. 1849, p. 550; Introd. to Wonders of Geology, 3rd edit.; information kindly supplied by the authorities of the BritishMuseum and by the assistant secretary of the Geological Society; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

John Cooper, Keeper of Natural Sciences

The History of Brighton Museum and Library

Twentieth Century Art & Design Gallery at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, 2008, RG001116

Although the history of the Royal Pavilion has been thoroughly researched by several writers, the history of Brighton’s unique Museum and Library has rarely been explored in detail.

On 15 August 1872, the Brighton Gazette devoted its most lyrical sentiments to the new Museum and Public Library, labelling it “the pride of Brighton”: ‘No Acts of Parliament can so well shape, fashion, or restrain men’s minds and inclination as the beautiful and true in life – we have become wealthy in a few moments as it were – rich in art, in science, in the mysteries of the world…The old stables have disappeared, the court yard, where high-mettled royal steeds have pranced, is gone, and thereon stands the metamorphosed building which is now a fit sharer in which is justly called “the pride of Brighton”.’

The site selected for the Museum and Library was in Church Street, beside the Royal Stables and Riding House (now the Dome and Corn Exchange) which were completed in 1808 by William Porden. At the lower end of Church Street Porden had built only a screen wall, with no building behind it. A tennis court was intended for this space, but never built. Instead, Jospeh Good (the architect of the North Gate) built further stables and coach houses here for Queen Adelaide in 1831. After the purchase of the Royal Pavilion Estate by the town in 1850, this area was used by the Army until 1871, when the Council resolved that a new Library, Museum, and Picture Gallery should be built on the site.

1871-3 

Expanding Art Collections

Design by Philip Lockwood for the Picture Gallery, c.1871. The gallery as built corresponds with design in all respects except the roof, which was constructed in the form of a shallow barrel-vault. CAIL000011.36

Art exhibitions had been held in the Great Kitchen of the Royal Pavilion since 1852, and in 1859 rooms on the first floor of the Pavilion were adapted as a museum. However, as the collections increased it became obvious that new galleries were needed. The work was directed by the Borough Surveyor, Philip Lockwood, who created an entrance which led into a small hall, at the side of which was a Post Office. At the rear of this hall was the large Picture Gallery (now the Twentieth Century design gallery) which, as the Brighton Gazette commented on 15 August 1872, ‘is the room of the building in which “Art” takes its seat’. The gallery was originally top-lit through a double roof, the lower part being glazed with ground glass.

Moderate Moresque

The Church Street frontage remained much as it had been in 1808, but Lockwood altered the windows and the main entrance, which became an archway supported by columns with ‘Moresque’ capitals. The Brighton Gazette commented on 16 November 1871: ‘The style adopted of course could be no other than that in which the Pavilion was originally conceived, though forms of a more moderate and strictly Moresque character have been maintained.’ The work cost £6,289, and was executed by the well-known Brighton builders, Cheesman & Co. The Clerk of the Works was Maurice B. Adams, later to become editor of the Building News and a successful architect in his own right. The Art Gallery was opened to the public in January 1873, and the Museum and Library eight months later.

1901-2 

It soon became apparent that the accommodation created by Lockwood was too small – especially when the Lending Library was opened in October 1889. Remodelling was finally begun in 1901 under the direction of F.J.C.May, Borough Surveyor, and the total cost amounted to £50,000.

Paupers and Prisoners

May’s task was to develop the site to the west of the Museum, which had been occupied since 1856 by the Brighton Board of Guardians, who were responsible for providing poor relief. When the Guardians moved out in 1892, their quarters were used as a Magistrates’ Court. The Brighton Herald of 1 November 1902 observed that ‘Brighton’s Home of Art was freed from the weekly procession of applicants for poor relief and from the proximity of the parish bread van…[but] for a while the procession of paupers was only exchanged for a procession of prisoners.’

The ‘west entrance’ to Brighton Library and Museum in 1905, CAIL000011.11

May completely remodelled the library in a style that the Brighton Herald called ‘Persian’. Windows were encrusted with Islamic ornament and the building was surmounted by two copper domes. Two new porches provided entrances to the Library and the Dome: they were highly elaborate and fitted with splendid wrought iron gates. All the wrought iron in the building, including the remodelled staircases, was designed by May and made by W. Saunders of Kemp Town. The entrances were filled with tiling designed by George Elphick and executed by Craven Dunhill & Co. from 1894 onwards. Inside the porch were panels ‘recalling the Moorish design on the Alhambra in Spain’. The staircase and walls were lined with a geometric dado in greens and blues crowned by a rich frieze. The walls of the entrance hall were also decorated with cool green scale-pattern tiles. The screen in front of the staircase, again in the words of the Brighton Herald, ‘must represent the highest degree that faience work has reached in its application to the constructive parts of a building.’

Poisoned Arrows and Poetry

May added several new galleries to the museum. One large room was devoted to ethnography. The Brighton Herald patronisingly commented that ‘it comprises a collection of the war clubs, poisoned arrows, and more peaceful implements of savages.’ Three new exhibition galleries upstairs were given ceilings of vaguely ‘Renaissance’ plasterwork and an advanced system of top-lighting through the sides of the roof.

The new Reference Library on the first floor was admired by the Herald for its ‘specially handsome ceiling, distinguished by three glass domes. The mouldings have that Elizabethan touch that the bookworm likes to see in a library along with old calf bindings and antique bookcases.’ The Lending Library was also praised. When the borrower presented a ticket, ‘the attendant presses a pedal; a wicket gate opens and admits him into a charmed circle, where he can roam at will up and down shelves marked “Theology”…”History”….”Poetry”.’

Critical responses 

Repellent?

The Church Street frontage of Brighton Library, Art Gallery and Museum, as it appeared c1905, CAIL000011.08

The new Library and Museum was opened on 5 November 1902, and although the Library has since switched venues, the design of the Museum in Church Street has remained substantially intact. Modern critics have questioned the building’s architectural worth: Goodhart-Rendel, writing in the Architect and Building News in 1933, remarked that ‘The eastern style…began by Porden, and luxuriated in by Nash…re-appeared, in a rather repellent form, to take possession of the Public Library and Art Gallery.’ Today, perhaps, we are better able to appreciate the architecture of the Museum and Library, and to declare, with the Brighton Herald of 1902, that ‘it adds yet another to the varieties of oriental architecture of which the Pavilion estate is in itself quite a museum.’

Gods with Feet of Clay

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Henry Willett was one of the founding fathers of Brighton Museum. Among the many things he gave to the Museum was a collection of popular pottery, the cups and plates and mantelpiece ornaments used by everyday people at the end of the 19th Century.

Henry Willett divided his pottery collection into 23 themes, one of which was Religion.

‘On the mantelpieces of many cottage homes …. [are figures] which the inmates admire and revere … an unconscious survival of the Lares and Penates [household gods] of the Ancients.’

Henry Willett

Gods and Mythology 

Scholars and artists in Renaissance Italy began the rediscovery of Classical Greece and Rome. Of course they had never been completely forgotten; there are numerous references to Roman gods in Boccaccio’s Decameron (1350) and Chaucer borrowed many of his stories for the Canterbury Tales (1370). Saturn, Mars, Venus and Diana all figure in The Knights Tale.

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From around 1450, as more people explored ancient history and literature they reacquainted themselves with the mythology of Antiquity.

These pieces inspired contemporary painters and sculptors and engravers, who copied them or used their poses and draperies for other subjects. There is a lead figure of Neptune in Bristol, based on a classical model, dating from the 16th century. Many classically-inspired lead statues were made in the 17th century and installed in gardens and parks. Classical figures were also carved in marble for country houses or civic and church monuments. The general population became familiar with them when they appeared in public spaces.

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By the 18th century most educated middle and upper-class people spoke Latin and Greek and were familiar with illustrated editions of classical works such as Ovid’s History of the Gods. Many young aristocrats undertook a Grand Tour of Europe, visiting the important classical ruins and admiring the statuary. They bought volumes of engravings and souvenir statuettes in bronze, which they brought home to Britain. In Germany, from the 1740s, some of the best-known classical figures inspired innovative modellers, such as J.J. Kaendler, at the Meissen porcelain factory, outside Dresden. These Meissen figures were widely collected by the British upper classes. English porcelain factories, such as Bow, Chelsea and Derby then copied them, often casting exact replicas. In turn, the Staffordshire potters made their own copies of these figures from the English porcelain versions. They were usually issued in pairs such as Apollo and Diana or Minerva and Mars. Venus shared her favours with Neptune, Bacchus or Mars.

Elements and Allegories

Much of the ancient statuary so admired by Grand Tourists represented only minor gods and secular figures from mythology. Many of these came to be used to personify abstract concepts and moralities. Artists, and later the potters, were inspired by emblem books. The best known was the Italian, Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (1593), first published in English with illustrations in 1644. Ripa defined Virtues, Vices, Passions, Arts, Humours, Elements and Celestial Bodies.

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These illustrated books led to the production of many sets of paintings and sculptures of figures representing the Muses, the Continents, the Senses and the Seasons as well as the Vices and Virtues. By the mid 18th century groups were being produced at the Meissen factory and before long groups of such figures became popular products of the English porcelain factories and the potteries. They looked well ranged along a mantelpiece or in a display cabinet.

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Sets of the Continents closely followed the German prototypes but the sharply defined distinctions between the British Seasons led to more original designs for these pottery figures. They are modelled either as young women or children, warmly or scantily dressed, each bearing appropriate fruit or grain.  The taste for personifying moral qualities was peculiarly British. The trio of Theological Virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity, were more popular than the Cardinal Virtues, Prudence, Temperance, Courage and Justice. More obscure virtues, such as Purity were also produced.

Britannia

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Under the Romans, Britannia was the major part of that island off the northern shores of Europe, first invaded by Julius Caesar in 55 BC. It shared a northern border with Caledonia (Scotland) and lay adjacent to Hibernia (Ireland) to the west. The emperors Claudius and Anoninus Pius issued coins adorned with a female figure labelled Britannia. It was the first personification of the British Isles, developed, ironically, to characterise a conquered country.

Britannia then lay dormant until she was reawakened by Henry Peacham in his Minerva Britanna, (1612) the first English emblem book. Here she is described,

‘With haire disheveld, and in mournfull wise

Who spurns a shippe, with scepter in her hand

Thus BRITAINEs drawen in old Antiquities’

King Charles II had her likeness cast on the humble copper farthing, minted in 1672. Based on her Roman forbear, she sits in profile on a rock, swathed in draperies, holding an olive branch in one hand and a spear and shield in the other. The shield is adorned with the crosses of St George and St Andrew. Samuel Pepys believed that her appearance was a portrait of Frances Stewart, Duchess of Richmond, one of the King’s mistresses.

James Thomson wrote his famous poem, Rule Britannia! as the finale of his masque, Alfred,  commissioned by Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1740. It was set to music by Thomas Arne but became the prince’s funeral ode when he died suddenly in 1751. Some of the earliest English porcelain figures, issued by the Chelsea and the Girl-in-a-swing factories were of Britannia mourning the Prince. Soon afterwards, the Worcester factory used printed likenesses of Britannia to frame portraits of George III as she steadily gained popularity. Minerva had been a popular choice for early lead statues. Minerva, the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena, was goddess of both wisdom and warfare. Eventually, as the potters transformed her into Britannia, the head of the monstrous gorgon (a gift from her protégé, Perseus) impaled on the centre of her shield, was replaced with the crosses of the Union flag.

50p

Britannia has appeared consistently on British coins and banknotes since the time of Charles II. Christopher Ironside, designer of the 1971 heptagonal 50 pence piece, reinstated her olive branch, lost since the Napoleonic wars. Her appearance had been very similar to that of the war-like Minerva, championed by Napoleon, who menaced Britannia from across the English Channel. It is ironic that Britannia and Marianne (the personification of France who followed Minerva) symbolised the aspirations of modern, democratic nations at a time when citizenship remained a male monopoly.

This text originally accompanied the Gods with Feet of Clay exhibition at Brighton Musem & Art Gallery.