Memories of the Tennysons (Glasgow, 1900)

For many years there had been strong links between the Rawnsley and Tennyson families.  As vicars in neighbouring Lincolnshire parishes, Hardwicke’s grandfather and Alfred Tennyson’s father knew each other well.  Hardwicke’s father, Robert, and Alfred Tennysons were also close friends with Robert officiating at Alfred’s wedding in his parish church at Shiplake.  In fact, Alfred Tennyson spent the night before his wedding with the Rawnsleys in Shiplake Vicarage.  In addition, Hardwicke’s mother, Catherine, was a first cousin of Alfred’s wife, Emily Sellwood.  Hardwicke and his siblings grew up with constant interactions with the Tennyson families and friends.

Hardwicke begins Memories of the Tennysons:

Born at the “Vicarage by the quarry,” from whence the late Poet Laureate had led his bride; and going, each year of one’s life, away from the cedared lawn and the terraced garden, the flowery meadows, and the silver Thames below the chalk cliff, to the sand hills of the Lincoln coast, the levels of the Lincoln marsh, the windmills of the Lincoln wold, and the cornfields in the shining fen, which Tennyson, in his boyhood, had known—it was inevitable that one who had been brought up on so much of his poems as a child could understand, should associate the scene of those annual holidays with thoughts of the Poet.

Each year my father paid a visit to the Poet at Farringford, and one heard talk of Tennyson when he returned.  Each time a volume of poems was given to the world, a presentation copy came to my father’s hands, and we, as children, gathered in the eventide to hear the poems read in our ears with such deep feeling, that we were impressed by them even when we could not realise their beauty of thought and diction. (pp. vii-viii)   

Hardwicke was a prodigious writer and lecturer on Tennyson.  A list of some of his writings is given at the end of this document.

 

Contents

Somersby and Its Neighbourhood (pp. 1-26)

Folk-Lore at Somersby. Reminiscences Among the Villagers (pp. 27-61)

Boyhood’s Friends in Lincolnshire (pp. 62-75)

Tennyson at the English Lakes (pp. 76-91)

Memories of Farringford (pp. 92-118)

†Reminiscences (pp. 119-149)

From Aldworth to the Abbey (pp. 150-184)

††Lincolnshire Scenery and Characters as Illustrated by Mr. Tennyson (pp. 185-200)

††Virgil and Tennyson (pp. 201-220)

Charles Tennyson Turner: A Memory of Grasby (pp. 221-247)

(† Chapter written by Hardwicke’s brother, Willingham)

(†† Chapters written by Hardwicke’s father, Robert)

Articles and Poems on Tennyson by Rawnsley (excludes the above chapters)

Tennyson at Clevedon (A Book of Bristol Sonnets, p. 142)

To Alfred Lord Tennyson (Sonnets Round the Coast, p. 6)

Farringford, Isle of Wight (Sonnets Round the Coast, p. 7)

On Hearing Lord Tennyson Read His Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (Sonnets Round the Coast, p. 8)

After the Epilogue. To the Charge of the Light Brigade (Sonnets Round the Coast, p. 9)

On Leaving Farringford (Sonnets Round the Coast, p. 12)

At Mablethorpe (Sonnets Round the Coast, p. 218)

‘To Lord Tennyson: On His Eightieth Birthday, August 6th, 1889’, Macmillan’s Magazine, 60 (August 1889), 293. [Poem]
‘To Lord Tennyson: On His Eightieth Birthday’, St. James’s Gazette, 6 August 1889, p. 12. [Poem]
To Lord Tennyson: On His Eightieth Birthday, August 6th, 1889’, Westmorland Gazette, 17 August 1889, p. 3. [Poem]
‘To Lord Tennyson: On His Eightieth Birthday, August 6th, 1889’, Crosthwaite Parish Magazine, (September 1889). [Poem]

‘Leaving Aldworth: Oct. 11, 1892’, Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, 152 (November 1892), 768. [Poem]

‘The Laureate Dead’, Academy, (November 1892). [Poem]
‘The Laureate Dead’, Crosthwaite Parish Magazine, (November 1892). [Poem]
‘The Laureate Dead’, Living Age, 195 (17 December 1892), 706. [Poem]

Tennyson. Obiit, Aldworth, October 6th, 1892 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 3)

Somersby (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 15)

Clevedon (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 16)

Farringford. 1883 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 17)

On Leaving Farringford (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 18)To Alfred, Lord Tennyson. January 18th, 1884 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 19)

To Lord Tennyson. On His 80th Birthday, August 6th, 1889 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 20)

A Story from the “Arabian Nights.” 1889 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 21)

A Farewell to the “Sunbeam.” 1889 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 22)

On Hearing Lord Tennyson Read His Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 23)

After the Epilogue to the Charge of the Heavy Brigade (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 24)

Death and Fame (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 25)

“I have Opened the Book.” At Aldworth, October 5th, 1892 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 26)

The Poet’s Death-Chamber (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 27)

The Laureate Dead (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 28)

Tennyson’s Home-Going (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 29)

Leaving Aldworth. October 11th, 1892 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 30)

The Two Poets (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 31)

Christmas Without the Laureate (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 32)

At Mablethorpe; An Episode in the Publication of the “Poems by Two Brothers,” 1827 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 34)

To a Portrait of the Mother of the Poets (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 35)

The Poet’s ‘Lilian.’ In Memory of S. E. Shawell, October 14th, 1889 (Valete: Tennyson and other Memorial Poems, p. 132)

Literary Associations of the English Lakes, Vol. I – Chapter 6.
Literary Associations of the English Lakes, Vol. II – Chapter 4.

‘Tennyson a South Country Man?’ Spectator, 92 (23 April 1904), 639. [Letter]

‘Tennyson’, Homes and Haunts of Famous Authors (London, 1906), 137-51.

At the Unveiling of the Tennyson Statue, Lincoln (A Sonnet Chronicle, p. 75)

‘The Tennyson Centenary’, Times, 3 August 1909, p. 11. [Letter]

‘In Memory of the Tennyson Centenary at Somersby, August 5th, 1909’, Crosthwaite Parish Magazine, (September 1909). [Poem]

‘The Tennyson Centenary Memorial’, Times, 16 December 1909, p. 7. [Letter]

‘The Tennyson Centenary Memorial’, Times, 2 September 1910, p. 9. [Letter]

‘Tennyson as a Religious Teacher’, Church Family Newspaper, 18 (11 August 1911), 604.

‘The Tennyson Memorial Meetings at Somersby’, Spectator, 107 (12 August 1911), 241-2.

‘Memories of the Tennysons at Somersby’, Cornhill Magazine, 32 (February 1912), 170-9.