ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{ Robert Buchanan: Some Account Of His Life, His Life’s Work And His Literary Friendships }

ROBERT BUCHANAN
 

SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE

HIS LIFE'S WORK AND HIS

LITERARY FRIENDSHIPS
 

BY
 

HARRIETT JAY
 

AUTHOR OF “THE QUEEN OF CONNAUGHT,” “THE DARK COLLEEN,”
“MADGE DUNRAVEN,” ETC., ETC.



LONDON

T. FISHER UNWIN

PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1903

vii

PREFACE

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     “Nobody could tell the story of his life so well as Robert Buchanan himself” (wrote Mr. T.P. O’Connor in M.A.P.), and I feel this statement to be so absolutely true that I have endeavoured in compiling these Memoirs, to allow the Poet as far as possible to speak for himself. With this object in view I have been most careful to gather together every scrap of reminiscence which he has published from time to time in various newspapers and magazines. He knew himself better than any man or woman could possibly know him, no matter how intimate their acquaintance with him might be, and so I have endeavoured to allow him to reveal himself to the world.
     I suppose no one knew him better than I did, and yet even I was debarred from the knowledge of some of his most sacred thoughts and feelings until after he had been laid to rest. A careful study of his diaries, and some of the private papers which he left behind him revealed to me certain phases of his character of which I had had no previous knowledge whatever.
^viii The task, though an arduous one, has been to me a labour of love, and if, after a perusal of this volume the heart of the reader is touched by the struggles of a man who fought so bravely for the good of Humanity, I shall have reaped my reward.
     I wish to tender my best thanks to my brother and sister artists who have so generously assisted me in my work. To Mr. G. R. Sims, Mr. R. E. Francillon, Mr. Henry S. Salt, and Mr. Henry Murray, I am specially indebted for certain pages of reminiscence which have been written for this work, and which I feel sure will be of exceptional interest to the public.
     I have also to acknowledge the courtesy of Mr. Walter Scott for permission to quote from a Preface written by Mr. Buchanan to the Poems (Canterbury Edition) of the Hon. Roden Noel; of Mr. T. P. O’Connor for permission to quote from “M.A.P.”; of Mr. Philip Welby for permission to quote from an article on Mr. Buchanan, written by Mr. Henry Murray and issued by Mr. Welby in book form, under the title, “Robert Buchanan and other Essays”; to Mr. William Freeland for permission to quote from the Glasgow Evening Times. I am also indebted to the Right Hon. W. E. H. Lecky, M.P., to Mr. Herbert Spencer, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Mr. William Canton, Mr. Alexander Strahan, Mr. Lionel Gowing, Mrs. Macanally, Dr. Harry Campbell, Dr. Gorham, Dr. Stodart Walker, and the Rev. T. Varney and Miss Wylie for permission to quote from letters, and I wish also to publicly acknowledge my indebtedness to my dear friend, Miss Edith Francillon, whose advice and help during the progress of this work have been of the utmost value to me. Though her name does not appear in the following pages, she was a constant visitor at our house, and was intimately ^ix acquainted with and much esteemed by both the Poet and his wife.
     My own association with Mr. Buchanan has been of so exceptional a character, that a word or so concerning the position which I held in his household may not be out of place here. In the eye of the law I was his sister-in-law, but that relationship could not possibly convey any idea of the tie which bound us together. Briefly told, the story is as follows: When my sister had been married some three or four years, and was still childless, she resolved to adopt me. In doing this she was anxious that any love which I might have to give should be given to herself and to her husband, so I was taken from my home at a very tender age and for many years was never allowed to revisit it. When at length I was permitted to see my mother I remember looking at her very much as little Paul Dombey looked at Miss Pipchin, wondering all the time whether she could possibly be my mother, or whether she was some “strange person” whom I was told to regard in that light. I turned away with a great sob and threw myself into my sister’s arms, clinging to her as the only mother whom I was thenceforth to know. As to the Poet, I was always taught both by his wife and his mother, to look up to him as a model of all the virtues, and my line of conduct was invariably determined by his approval or the reverse. If I proffered some childish request it was always met with, “Yes, if Robert says you may,” or “No, I don’t think Robert would like that,” and though I was sometimes wayward and wilful as children too often are, I never wavered, I trust, in that great love which it was my duty as well as my pleasure to give. His frown always made me wretched, his smile made me glad, and I was never so ^x happy as when I had earned his praise. When my sister died, it was her dying wish that I should remain with him, when his mother died the request was again whispered into my ear by lips which were fast growing cold. During his last sad, terrible illness my friends wrote to me praising me for what they called my “generosity and self-sacrifice,” when indeed there was neither generosity nor self-sacrifice to praise. The greatest pleasure in life, it seems to me, is to be able to minister to the wants of those we love, and I did what I did because in the doing of it lay my only chance of happiness. When at length my task was ended I felt only as if all the happiness had been taken out of my life, but for his sake I rejoiced that his pains were ended, and that he had gone to rejoin those whom he had so passionately loved.

                                                                                                                                           HARRIETT JAY.   
     SOUTHEND-ON-SEA.

CONTENTS
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ILLUSTRATIONS

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PORTRAIT OF ROBERT BUCHANAN                                                  Frontispiece

SPECIMEN OF ROBERT BUCHANAN’S HANDWRITING                  Page v 

ROBERT BUCHANAN (THE POET’S FATHER)                                     To face page   8  

66 STAMFORD STREET                                                                               „          „     50

MARY BUCHANAN (THE POET’S WIFE)                                                   „         „    100

HARRIETT JAY                                                                                               „         „    234

MARGARET BUCHANAN (THE POET’S MOTHER)                                 „          „    278

ROBERT BUCHANAN AND “BETSY” (Last Portrait)                                 „           „     308

THE POET’S GRAVE                                                                                     „          „    312

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[Notes:
Although not included in the ‘Contents’, there is an account of Robert Buchanan’s funeral by Henry Murray, “At The Graveside” in the final chapter, and the book concludes with a “Chronological List of the Poetical and Prose Writings of Robert Buchanan”.

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I have made one change to the original text. In the opening sentence of the first chapter, Miss Jay places Caverswall in Lancashire. Since the origin of this site was my interest in authors born in the Stoke-on-Trent area I thought she wouldn’t mind if I corrected her. The same mistake also caught the eye of at least one journalist:

The Guardian (2 February, 1903 - p.4)

     I notice that the first sentence of the biography of Robert Buchanan, just published, and written by Miss Harriet Jay, contains a mistake as to Buchanan’s birthplace. “Robert Buchanan,” the sentence runs, “poet, novelist, dramatist, was born at Caverswall, in Lancashire, on the 18th of August, 1841.” There may be a Caverswall in Lancashire—though I never heard of one,—but the Caverswall where he was born is in Staffordshire, a few miles from Stoke-on-Trent. It boasts a moated castle, and is altogether a pretty place. Robert Buchanan’s father was a Socialist who came to the Potteries from Glasgow. He was one of the early disciples of Robert Owen, and one of the most prominent figures upon the side of the working potters in the great strike of 1836. He married the daughter of a solicitor named Williams, who was one of those who induced Robert Owen to make his second visit to the Potteries, in 1840, and who protected Owen from the mob at Burslem. Robert Owen was at the wedding of Miss Williams and Buchanan at a registry, and gave the bride away.

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And in regard to Harriett Jay’s account of her’adoption’ by her sister Mary and Robert Buchanan in the Preface, I feel I should point out that in the 1901 census she gave her age as 38, when in fact she was 47. Although I haven’t been able to confirm the date of Buchanan’s wedding to Mary Jay, if it did occur in September 1861, he would have been 20, Mary would have been 16, and Harriett Jay would have been 8 years old. ]

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Robert Buchanan: Some Account of His Life, His Life’s Work and His Literary Friendships can be downloaded as a zipped rtf file. It is also available at the Internet Archive in a variety of formats.

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