CALVERT-STANGER-MOORSOM LIBRARY

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Father of: Constantine Richard Moorsom (1792–1861) Vice-Admiral in the Royal Navy. He commanded HMS Fury in the Bombardment of Algiers, in August, 1816. ‘Moorsom's rule’ is in use to this day to determine the basis on which the gross tonnage of ships should be calculated. London and North Western Railway Company, Birmingham and Gloucester Railway, Chester and Holyhead Railway he was particularly concerned with steam navigation: he addressed two papers to the British Association and was appointed chairman of the steamship performance committee. He published The Principles of Naval Tactics privately in 1846. Married Mary Maude, Mary Calvert’s cousin, of whom Southey was fond. Father of: James Marshall Moorsom (1837-1916) Barrister & Liberal MP. Married Emma Catherine Browne of Tallantire Hall. Inherited Fieldside and its library (home of Mary Calvert/Stanger). Father of: Kenneth James Calvert Moorsom (1878-1907) Eton Exhibitioner. One of Forster’s set at Kings. One of the bright minds of his generation, he was found dead on the railway tracks at Seaford, Newhaven, on 5 th January 1907, aged 29. Jermyn Moorsom (1881-1951) Haileybury, Eton. One of Darling’s Kingsmen at Cambridge, one of Josie Low’s “Quartet”, friend of EM Forster etc. m. Pamela Milbourne- Swinnerton-Pilkington (1926). Became a sheep farmer at Hyndlee, Hawick, and later moved to Durrus, near Cork. Died March 1951, Durrus Court, Bantry, having changed his surname to ‘Moorson’. Raisley Stewart Moorsom (1892-1981). “Dilettante”. Bedales School, King's in 1911. Married Ann Thomson, a South African, in 1923. During the war went to live with Elliott Felkin in New York. “Too much love, truth and beauty” … The background to ‘A Passage to India’, ‘Maurice’, ‘Love in a Mist’… The Moorsoms: Jermyn, Kenneth and Raisley, Sir Malcolm Lyall Darling, Jessica (Josie) Low, Ernest Leisler Merz, Arthur Frederick Cole, Robin Quirk, Sir Charles Bruce Lockyer Tennyson, Arthur Gillett, Goldsworthy Lowes-Dickinson, John Tresider Sheppard, J M Keynes, EM Forster, Edward Hilton Young, Geoffrey Winthrop Young, Nicholas Bagenal, Catherine Marshall (the suffragette) and Hal, her brother, etc. etc. Jermyn Moorsom, Malcolm Darling, Ernest Merz (“The Platonist”), and Josie Low [Jessica Darling] were known as “The Quartet”. “Josie was in love with Jermyn”, but decided there were “serious insurmountable reasons” that Jermyn “ought never to marry”. Jermyn’s parents disapproved of Josie. She accepted Malcolm Darling’s proposal of marriage. Jessica Darling wrote a novel: Love in a Mist, published in 1921 (the copy from Jermyn Moorsom’s library bears the signature ‘Bagenal’). The Quartet’s ‘Manhunt’ became a Cambridge Kingsmen tradition, and a version of it continues to this day at Seatoller, in the Lake District. Moorsom’s set at King’s were “High spirited and high minded, vivacious and serious, in love with life and ideas.” ‘[Jermyn] Moorsom's arrival at a luncheon party turned a marvellous occasion into a success fou’: “He was on splendid form, and the young men exactly fired to appreciate him. One got that tingly soaring feeling which the best of anything, painters, music, conversation, gives” [Jessica Low] ... King’s was so absolutely perfect … The ‘tingly soaring feeling’ was addictive; once a man had tasted it, he could hardly bear to live without it.’ Clive Dewey. On the evening of 8th July 1909, shortly before his wedding to Jessica Low, Malcolm Darling, with his two groomsmen Ernest Merz and Jermyn Moorsom had dinner with E. M. Forster. Forster apparently accompanied Ernest Merz [“The Platonist”] back to his room. Arthur Cole and Merz then both lived at 62 Chester Terrace. Ernest Merz was discovered dead the following morning. “He was seen midday on Thursday the 8th by Edwin Waterhouse and dined in the evening with his friends 'Darling' and Moorsom”,
(Alice Mary Merz does not mention Forster in her diary). Despite Nicola Beauman’s assertion that Merz was, 'we can be almost sure, miserably homosexual', letters and diaries point to the contrary: he “lived in a continual bubble of suppressed laughter”. The consequence of that evening, still shrouded in mystery, continued to haunt E M Forster throughout his life. Apart from Jermyn’s letter to Catherine Marshall of 11 July, it seems Forster’s is the only other (and unsatisfactory) first-hand account of the circumstances of the evening. Four days after Ernest’s death he wrote, “Where the dead have gone, we cannot expect to know, but the fact of their departure might strike us more. It is only when they have thrilled our blood that the sense of loss is sharpened”. 13 July 1909. Forster made a brief and last entry in his diary on the 13th. Following this he used a “Locked Diary” for his innermost thoughts for the rest of his life. A few months later he wrote, “The crime of suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind.” Here are the roots of his novel ‘Maurice’. Jermyn then abandoned the legal profession and bought a sheep farm in Hawick. Malcolm Darling eventually persuaded E M Forster out to India. “A Passage to India” resulted from the visit. The character of Fielding is based on Darling. Forster wrote to him in 1924, “The ‘King’s’ view over-simplified people: that I think was its defect. We are more complicated, also richer, than it knew, and affection grows more difficult than it used to be, and also more glorious”. Forster wrote ‘A Passage to India’ on his return to England while staying with Edward Hilton Young, who helped him overcome his writer’s block. E. M. Forster to Malcolm Darling, 6 August 1916: 'I saw from the Hospital Lists that an officer from Lovats Scouts was here, and went round at once to get news of Jermyn.’ Malcolm treasured “a mental picture of him [Jermyn] in perfectly fitting breeches, with stock exquisitely tied and pinned, walking at the head of his sheep…and stopping every now and then to flick one of them under the chin with a silk handkerchief, to improve its deportment”. Malcolm Darling eventually persuaded E M Forster out to India. “A Passage to India” resulted from the visit. Forster wrote to Malcolm Darling in 1924, “King’s stands for personal relationships, and these still seem to me the most real things on the surface of the earth, but I have acquired a feeling that people must go away from each other (spiritually) now and then, and improve themselves if the relationship is to develop or even endure. A Passage to India describes such a going away – preparatory to the next advance, which I am not capable of describing. It seems to me that individuals progress alternately by loneliness and intimacy, and that legend of the multiplied Krishna (…) serves as a symbol of a state where the two might be combined. The ‘King’s’ view over-simplified people: that I think was its defect. We are more complicated, also richer, than it knew, and affection grows more difficult than it used to be, and also more glorious”. Forster wrote ‘A Passage to India’ on his return to England while staying with Edward Hilton Young, who helped him overcome his writer’s block. Arthur Frederick Cole 1883-1968 was a barrister, a collector of books; a good friend of Malcolm Darling, Jermyn Moorsom Ernest Merz and E M Forster. “Cole rivalled Keynes as a book collector. He presented his specialist collections to grateful libraries: a set of texts illustrating the evolution of Greek types went to Yale; his Irish printed books were added to the Bradshaw Bequest in the University Library; King’s got the most munificent gift of all: his unique collection of printed music” ... “Malcolm carried Homer around in his pocket”. Dewey, Clive. ODNB. Vellacott, Jo. Liberal to Labour with Women's Suffrage: The Story of Catherine Marshall. Dewey, Clive. Anglo-Indian Attitudes: Mind of the Indian Civil Service. Heath, Jeffrey M. (ed) The Creator as Critic and Other Writings by E.M. Forster. Darling Papers, Cambridge. Van Biervliet Papers, Oxford (Jessica Darling). Papers of Raisley Stewart Moorsom. King's/PP/RSM. WLMS Moorsom. The Wordsworth Trust. D MAR 2 Catherine E Marshall Correspondence and Personal Records. JMK/PP/45/13 1916-1945. Correspondence between J.M. Keynes and Barbara Bagenal Ref: D/HH 2/6/170. 1825. Durham County Record Office. Waldegrave, K. The Poet’s Daughters. 2013.
Page 1 and 2: PAUL HAYNES RARE BOOKS www.paulhayn
Page 3: William Calvert (1770-1829) of Wind
Page 7 and 8: Southey, Robert The life of Wesley;
Page 9 and 10: Morris, the Rev. F. O. A history of
Page 11 and 12: Camões, Luis de Os Luciadas. Poema
Page 13 and 14: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth The Poe
Page 15 and 16: Darling, Jessica Love in a Mist. Me
Page 17 and 18: “There appeared, high on a hill t
Page 19 and 20: Monro, D. B. Homeri opera et reliqu
Page 21 and 22: Jacks, L. P. Mad shepherds and othe
Page 23 and 24: Ruskin, John Seven lamps of archite
Page 25 and 26: Wood, Rev. J. G. The new illustrate

CALVERT-STANGER-MOORSOM LIBRARY

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?