ford madox brown - eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

After Surtees' edition of Brown's diary no major biographical publication about him
appeared until the early 1990s when Teresa Newman and Raymond Watkinson
published Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelite Circle. 18 In order to produce
this biography Newman and Watkinson undertook a vast amount of new research.
The most startling result of their work concerned Brown's relationship with his second
wife Emma. According to Hueffer, Emma was a country girl and the couple met in
1848 when Brown visited Stratford-on-Avon for research. 19 He believed that they
married soon afterwards, honeymooning in Pegwell Bay. However, from the research
of Newman and Watkinson it appears that they met when she modelled for Brown in
1848 and that they married in 1853, three years after the birth of their daughter Cathy
(1850-1927). 20 They also strongly suggest that Emma was significantly older than
she led Brown to believe. She kept up the myth all her life that she was fifteen when
she met him but it appears she was in fact twenty. 21 The book remains the most up-
to-date reference work for the facts about Brown's life but due to its biographical
approach much of the research is not referenced making it a frustrating aid for
academic work. It also contains many illustrations, some very rare, but mistakes in
numbering and a reluctance to state the current location of a number of the works add
to scholarly frustration. In 2010 Angela Thirlwell will publish a biography of the
women in Brown's life, adding further insight into the private life of the artist and
investigating two late love affairs at which Newman and Watkinson were only able to
hint.
18 Teresa Newman and Raymond Watkinson, Ford Madox Brown and the Pre-Raphaelite Circle,
London, 1991.
19 Op. cit. at note 9, p. 59.
20 Op. cit. at note 18, pp. 45-46
21 Ibid., p. 46.
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