FRAGMENTS FROM THE PAST I BROXBOURNE WAS born in London, in Cadogan Place, on 13th December, 1832. My father was then incumbent of Belgrave Chapel, but on 30th March, 1833, he came to the Vicarage of Broxbourne, where, as curate, he had sole charge of the parish. I had been privately baptized, and was admitted into the congregation on 15th July, 1833. From a MS. diary written by my father, I see that before I had completed my third year I was taken by my parents, in July, 1835, with them on a carriage expedition lasting six weeks, to the west of England. They visited the Bathursts at Lydney, and my uncle, Arthur Shakespear, at Boxwell, and there are interesting notes on the Crusaders at Aldworth and Dorchester, the Almshouse at Ewelme, and the Glass Windows at Fairford. Of those earliest days at Broxbourne, I can recall nothing. "The haunts of memory echo not." But I know the exact spot on the road where I heard people talking of the death of William IV, in 1837, and my impression is that they were speaking of a recent event. I also dimly recollect my father giving B me a Prayer Book as a birthday present in that year, and can recall more than one visit to my Aunt Ritchie in Albany Street. The drive to town (about sixteen miles) was a great amusement, and special points on the way, e.g., " Mother Red Cap," the sign of an inn in the suburbs, was eagerly looked for. Very distinctly can I see the crowd in St. James's Street on 10th February, 1840, where I stood holding my father's hand, and heard the cries of "Card of the Ceremony" on the occasion of the late Queen's wedding. In the following year we took a long tour to South Wales, staying with several of the Margam Talbot family, cousins of the Talbots of Lacock Abbey. To the latter we were closely related, my grandmother on my mother's side being Mary Davenport, whose brother, William Davenport (father of Fox Talbot, the inventor of photography in EngTalbot land), took the name of Davenport on succeeding to the estate, under the provision of his uncle Talbot's will. In a MS. family book, my mother speaks of my grandmother as "distinguished for her piety and virtue as well as for her loveliness of mind and person." My sister was two years older than I. After the birth of my brother (now Sir Edward Thackeray) in 1836, we were four children in the vicarage, as Augusta Dick for some time lived with us. Her mother, my first cousin, Mrs. Dick, was in India with her husband. In my most distant memories India has a place, from so many of our family having gone there. Both my grandfathers, and most of my numerous' uncles, as well as their families, were in the Indian Army or in the East India Company's service. Prints of the old Indiamen tossing about like tubs or boxes, coloured pictures on talc, sandal-wood boxes and other ornaments from the East were among my earliest associations. 2 I remember Richmond (afterwards Sir Richmond) Shakespear suddenly turning up one evening with his native servant, carrying a long rifle, and crying out to my mother, "What! don't you remember Richmond?" In consequence of this absence from England, though there were many branches of the family, we did not see much of each other, and our first cousins were most of them grown up, owing to the fact that both my parents were younger children, my mother (née Mary Ann Shakespear) being the young 1 Besides Mrs. Ritchie, I remember among my aunts on my father's side, Mrs. Halliday, who gave me a silver watch. Mrs. Dick's mother, Emily, was a sister of my father, and her father, John Shakespear, was my mother's eldest brother. Of my ten uncles (one of whom, Richmond, was the father of the novelist) I remember none. Six of them died before I was born. Partly from this, and perhaps also from unfavourable samples in storybooks, the title of uncle for a long time connoted to me something (if not actually unattractive) nebulous and remote. 2 He was sent to the Khan of Khiva to negotiate for the surrender of Russian prisoners, whom he conducted to Russia For this he was knighted. |