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March, 2010:

The Murderess and the Mosaic

It is rare for a woman condemned to death for murder to leave behind any permanent mark in the form of a work of art. However, for about 130 years St Peter’s Church on the Isle of Portland has been the home of just such a labour of devotion to the Christian faith – or to atonement for a cardinal sin.

Set into the floor of the chancel in St Peters there is a mosaic pavement. Like all other parts of the building it is the work of a felon, a convict from the island’s prison, but one who’s criminal circumstances are more unusual than most others. For there has been a long-held tradition that the mosaic was laid by Constance Kent, who when just sixteen years of age stabbed her step-brother to death in a toilet at the family’s home at Rode, Wiltshire.

Constance Kent was born in 1846. Her father was Samuel Kent, said to have been an illegitimate son of the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, while her mother was the Duke’s first wife. On her mother’s death in 1854 Kent married Miss Pratt, governess to both Constance and her younger brother William. By 1860 another five children had arrived, and a sixth was expected.

When she was sixteen Constance told school-friends she was constantly unhappy at home. On the night of 29th to 30th of June 1860 Constance’s four-and-a-half year old brother was taken from his bed in the nursery to an outside privy, where he was stabbed in the back and had his throat cut. A blooded nightdress belonging to Constance was found and despite no apparent motive she was arrested, but later released due to lack of evidence.

When the Kents moved to Wales Constance entered a convent in France for three years, and then moved to another convent in Brighton. Voluntarily she approached Bow Street magistrates to confess to the murder, but it is suggested that a minister, a Reverend Wagner at the convent, put pressure on her to confess. As a doctor had judged her mental state to be normal, it is likely that Constance’s motive for the murder was jealousy of the children of her father’s second marriage.

Constance was tried at the assizes at Salisbury, found guilty and initially sentenced to death, though this was commuted to life imprisonment on Portland. Between her arrival in 1864 and her release in 1885, she laid the mosaic to be seen in St Peters Church.

John Pouncy

Although beginning his working life as a house decorator, John Pouncy became a pioneer in the development of photography, a creative but somewhat immodest genius who had to contend with rivalry over the inventor-ship of the process he was convinced he could rightly lay claim to. He also had a sympathetic and philanthropic side to his character that was once put to good use when he lent nursing assistance at the local hospital during an epidemic of cholera. John Pouncy’s was a fascinating and innovative nature, at first somewhat restrained in the full potential of its expression by his first mundane occupation, but the course of his life was first to take a drastic turn.

Pouncy was born in Dorchester on July 16th 1818, the son of William Pouncy, a Piddletrenthide labourer and his wife Mary. In 1843 he married Mary Ann Sprackley, the mother of his first child Walter, though she died in 1846. Just four years later Pouncy met and married Mary Catherine Wills, who presented him with another son and four daughters who all apparently died young or before reaching adulthood.

Until 1854 Pouncy was painting and decorating houses, glazing windows, gilding and carving, but then the new science of photography so gripped his imagination that he resolved to dedicate the rest of his life to it. From then on, and for the next four years, he had to support his new occupation with the earnings from his first one. As late as 1859 the Dorset County Chronicle carried a report “…Mr Pouncy’s proper profession is that of a house painter.”  Three years earlier Pouncy announced through the Chronicle that he intended to publish a photo-illustrated gazetteer of Dorset featuring pictures captioned with historic commentaries.

But John Pouncy had another aim: to resolve through experimentation a major drawback of early photography: that of fading. At the time photographic prints were produced by the salts of silver process, an emulsion notoriously susceptible to fading, and which would hinder Pouncy’s intention to produce permanent visual records of Dorset. To circumvent the shortcoming, Pouncy resorted to photo-lithography, itself a still very imperfect process. Yet Pouncy’s attempt to unite lithography with photography met with some success with the publication in 1857 of his book “Dorsetshire Photographically Illustrated” – the first English publication ever to feature photo litho-graphic illustrations.

Dorset Photographically Illustrated is a remarkable achievement for the time. It is original in technique and so not at all what would be expected from one who semi-abandoned the painting and decorating trade for a discipline in which he had no prior training. The book features 80 illustrations, each with two or more pages of historical narrative and 200 double-panel 8” x 11” pages. The text is peppered with erudite classical quotations from nature poets such as Cowper, Thomson and Wordsworth, and the writing is that of one trying to impress the reader with his learning. What comes across is the mind of an intelligent, practical autodidact who clearly shows an overriding preoccupation with landscapes. Indeed, Pouncy was only concerned with photography for professional reasons; he nurtured no desire to undertake commissioned work for illustrating the publications of others.

Despite the success of the book Pouncy was sufficiently dissatisfied with the quality of the prints to attempt further improvement through experimentation. Spurned on by the offer of an award from the Photographic Society of London to anyone who could solve the problem of fading. Pouncy worked on a process, the basic principle of which had been discovered by Mungo Ponton in 1839. Ponton had noticed that paper coated with potassium bichromate became photo-reactive. Pouncy then coated paper with bichromate, but added gum Arabic and vegetable carbon to it. Having reported his results to the Photographic society in 1858, Pouncy then patented his process. He then continued to perfect the process over the next four or five years, and in 1863 he took out another patent, though acrimony was following not far behind as the question of who had truly been the inventor of carbon printing arose.

Pouncy did however receive some recognition for his pains from Thomas Sutton, editor of the journal “Photographic Notes,” and in 1859 he was finally awarded the French silver Duc de Luynes Medal. It is probable that John Pouncy did have a legitimate claim as the inventor of carbon printing, and he himself certainly thought so, even believing that he could rightly lay claim to the gold Duc de Luynes medal, awarded to a French rival, Alphonse Poitevin eight years later.

Besides the Duc de Luynes prize Pouncy was awarded medals from Scotland (1863), Prussia (1865) and Edinburgh (1867); furthermore his studio received patronage from the Prince Consort, Albert, and the Prince of Wales. It is widely suspected that a photograph of Thomas Hardy as a boy of 16 in the author’s archive was taken by Pouncy – not by any means the sole connection between the two men, as will presently be noted.

But the dispute over rival claims of inventor-ship and bickering within the profession that Pouncy experienced, diminished his ardour for the new art soon after the 1863 patent was granted. Throughout the 1860’s he was still ‘moonlighting’ as a decorator, but the premature deaths of his sons by his second wife left Pouncy with only Walter to inherit his photography business. And in September 1872 the transition from father to son was done and dusted.

What Hardy did in writing to exteriorise Dorset, Pouncy did likewise in his photographs. And it is through this common life-mission that the two men’s paths inevitably converged. Consequently there exist several firm pieces of evidence that Hardy knew of Pouncy’s work and book, even if the latter had never taken that teenage portrait of the famous writer. These points can be summarised as follows:

(1) In Hardy’s novel “A Laodicean,” the central character William Dare is a photographic inventor seemingly modelled directly upon John Pouncy. In his carrying about of camera, tripod and equipment, Dare appears to be doing precisely what Pouncy would have done in preparing for his book on Dorset.

(2) When compiling Dorsetshire, Pouncy was in consultation with the architect John Hicks over matters of style and restoration. At exactly this time (July 1856) Hardy became apprenticed to Hicks for his architectural training.

(3) In 1881 Hardy was contemplating producing a book of his own on Dorset, very much along the lines of Pouncy’s, though in collaboration with Henry Moule.

(4) Even more compelling evidence that Dorsetshire was known to Hardy comes from the book itself. In its description of Kingston House, Pouncy explains how the brick building came to be faced in Portland stone: “…on one occasion before the notion had even entered the worthy owner’s head that Portland stone might be used advantageously to veil the brick walls of his mansion he was conversing with his illustrious visitor about the house.. The King [George III] however, did nothing but utter the words “Brick Mr Pitt, Brick…..” Hardy appears to be reproducing the same incident in almost identical wording in “The Hand of Ethelbert:”  “…to a stone mask worn by a brick face a story naturally appertained…one which has since done service in other quarters. When the vast addition [i.e. the modern manor house]…had just been completed, King George visited Enchworth. The owner pointed out the features of his grand architectural attempt and waited for commendation. “Brick, brick, brick, said the King…Thin freestone slabs were affixed to the whole series of fronts by copper cramps and dowels.”

John Pouncy died in March 1894, aged 75, after contracting a cold that developed into bronchitis. In its obituary the Dorset Chronicle & Somerset Gazette stated that he was a successful worker whose long study of his subject and its intricacies imparted much valuable information to the younger generation. Even in his last weeks of illness he was not content to stay indoors but would set out in the winter cold that probably hastened his untimely end.

Walter Pouncy, John Pouncy’s only surviving son and business heir, was born in Fordington in 1845. The 1891 census for Dorchester records that he married Eliza Rudduck, a Reading woman, at Leeds in December 1881, and lists his occupation as that of “Photographic Artist.” By the time of the census Walter would have had full control of his father’s business (thereafter renamed W. Pouncy’s Photographic Institution) for 19 years.

Walter seems not to have possessed either his father’s inventiveness or his flair for controversy; he therefore did not cut a noticeable dash in Dorchester society. Nevertheless he maintained and built upon John’s archive of Dorset landscapes over another four decades and, perhaps like his father, personally knew and took studio portraits of Hardy.

Pouncy also made slides for illustrated lectures given by Harry Pouncy, a distant relative and namesake, on the subject of Wessex. When in 1914 the Dorset County Chronicle published a large landscape panorama of Maiden Castle taken by Walter (his chef d’oeuvre) it credited him with being simply “the doyen of Dorchester photographers.” A large collection of his pictures is in the possession of the County Museum. Walter Pouncy died in 1918, exactly a century after the birth of his father.

The Shaftesbury Byzant

The military significance of Shaston would not have been lost on Alfred the Great when he built the town in 880 AD; perched on a hilltop 700 feet above the plain approaching enemies could be seen while they were still miles away. There was, however, one major drawback: Shaston had no natural water supply.

Alfred was king of Wessex from 871 to 899 but no record exists of how this problem was overcome in the early days of the town. The existing wells were not adequate for the task and the sandstone rock being very porous possibly rainwater would have been collected and stored. Shaston’s demand for water increased as it grew in importance and became a place of pilgrimage attracting medieval tourists from far and wide. At some point the Corporation came to an agreement with the Lord of the Manor of Gillingham to draw water from the springs at Enmore Green, and carting water up to the town became a source of employment for many people.

Records dating back to 1518 tell how it was the custom on the Sunday after Holy Roode Day in May for the Mayor and Burgesses to lead the people of every parish within the borough of Shaston down to Enmore Green at one o’clock in the afternoon. There followed an hour of dancing led by a couple married during the year who were born and had lived all their days in the borough of Shaston.

At 2 o’clock the dancing ceased and the serious business of the afternoon got under way. Shaston’s greatest treasure in those days was its prize Besom, the Byzant. Made by a craftsman the Byzant looked somewhat like an umbrella gilded and mounted on a tall pedestal and decorated in the style of a May garland with valuable jewels lent for the occasion by some of Shaston’s better off citizens.

The precious Byzant was offered by the Mayor to the Lord of the Manor of Gillingham who accepted it as payment for the right to draw water from the spring. So valuable was the Byzant to the people of Shaston they had no intention of giving it away even for the right to draw water and they would take with them gifts with which to buy it back.

Tradition has it that the Mayor presented the Lord of the Manor with a pair of white gloves, two wheaten loaves, a calf’s head and a gallon of ale all for his own use. The Lord of the Manor would then hand the treasured Byzant back to the Mayor and invite him and all the people of Shaston to stay awhile. There followed a further hour of dancing before the Mayor and Burgesses led a procession of townsfolk back up Tout Hill to the town where the rest of the day was spent dancing and making merry.

After over four hundred years the ceremony ceased in May 1830, a time when many of the townsfolk were living in poverty and it was felt the considerable cost of staging the ceremony, with large sums being spent on feasting and drinking could not be justified. The minutes of a meeting on the 3rd of May 1830 read, “The Corporation resolved to approach Lord Grosvenor to dispense with the ceremony.” Lord Grosvenor (created Marquess of Westminster in 1831) was then the Lord of the Manor of Gillingham and he agreed to abolish the ceremony but he kept the borough’s Byzant.

The ceremony was briefly re-introduced in 1972 and by all accounts was an attraction that was a great success.

The Byzant found its way back to Shaston (nowadays known as Shaftesbury) in 1924 after the death of Lady Theodora Guest, daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Westminster. Her daughter, Miss Augusta Guest, presented it to the Shaftesbury Town Council. For many years it resided in the Mayor’s parlour but more recently its home has been the Shaftesbury Town Museum where it is on permanent display.

All Saints – Hilton

The heart of this place is a quintessential sleepy Dorset village tucked up on all sides by surrounding hills. Arthur Mee spoke of it “gladdening the traveller’s heart,” but that was long before the local authority built an estate of modern housing here in the seventies. Nevertheless this is a quiet and peaceful part of the county and the surrounding woodland is an ideal setting for the nearby Nature Reserve run by the Dorset Wildlife Trust.

What we see today of All Saints Church at Hilton is of the 15th and 16th century but the 12th century font, fragments of 12th century architectural ornament and the quirky position of the south porch reveal that there was an earlier church on the site.
 
The church is built of partly squared rubble and flint, the roofs covered with slate and lead. Consisting of west tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles to the east of each and structurally undivided from the aisles are north and south chapels entered from the chancel through side arches; to the north of the tower is the vestry.

The west tower and the south porch are of the 15th century and the anomalous position of the south porch extending more than four feet into the south aisle suggests that at some time the aisle has been widened, probably when the nave, with its north and south arcades, and chancel were rebuilt and the north aisle added: the north arcade probably rests on the foundations of the original north wall. The windows in the north wall are from nearby Milton Abbey as are some of the gargoyles found on the north wall including one of a man playing the bagpipes.

The tower has three stages topped off with an embattled parapet and pinnacles rising from gargoyles at the corners. The top stage has a belfry window on each side and there is a smaller similar east window in the second stage. There are six bells dating from 1626 to 1684.

More hand-me-downs from Milton Abbey can be found hanging on the north and south walls of the lower stage of the tower just above the 12th century font. The two large modern frames each carrying six 15th century panels depicting the apostles. Each panel is 7’3” x 1’3” and they come from a screen in Milton Abbey. About these Pevsner brusquely comments “badly done” but the parishioners of Hilton seem to like them well enough and prominently display them.

Chesil Churches

Dorset’s Chesil Bank is a 15-mile (25-km) shingle bar, which has impounded a coastal lagoon, The Fleet. This geographical feature has a long tradition as a beachhead for smuggling and as a danger to walkers and shipping. The belt of coastal country up to about 5km inland encompasses a number of parishes, which have been protected from the sea by the Chesil. The churches of five of these parishes are described here. From north-west to south-east these are Puncknowle, Abbotsbury, Portesham, Langton Herring and Fleet.

Puncknowle lies about 1km east of Swyre and possesses a predominantly Norman parish church dedicated to St. Mary. The church stands on raised ground beside the manor overlooking the one-sided Village Street and the Crown Inn. St. Mary’s incorporates the Bexington Chapel in the south aisle. This commemorates St. Giles, the original chapel of the Saxon village, which was sacked and raised to the ground by French pirates in 1440.

Since the 8th of September 1451, Puncknowle has been unified with neighbouring Bexington, a move carried out by the Bishop at the behest of patrons. The chapel was built for the use of visitors and for some time before the Dissolution it had been in the possession of Bindon Abbey. Following unification with Bexington it was decreed that the Rectors should celebrate in the chancel of Bexington once a week and on St. Giles Day. The chapel was restored in 1660 and later presented to Puncknowle as the Bexington Chapel (or Aisle.) Since 1966 it has been in use as the church’s vestry.

The nave of St. Mary’s is modern, and the memorials to be seen here and elsewhere are mainly those of the local manorial family. The north aisle in particular features many Napier memorials, such as a helmet, gauntlet and spurs of the early 17th century, and tablets dated to 1616 and 1620. There is also an undated tablet, which is thought by some to date from when Sir Robert Napier, a former High Sheriff of Dorset, died in 1615. An unusual feature of this inscription is that it consists only of initials in English, Latin and Greek. It could refer to Robert Napier of Puncknoll (1617-1686,) Sir Robert’s grandson, or his son Robert Napier (1642-1700.) There is a further undated memorial to William Napier in the Bexington Aisle. The north aisle of St. Mary’s was added in 1891. Outside, there is a moss-covered slab at the foot of the tower, believed to be the lid of a stone coffin dating from the 14th century. Near the back of the burial ground an iron gate leads to a turreted and gabled early Jacobean manor in grey weathered stone, widely regarded, as the county’s most charming. Chestnuts; popular with rooks enclose the churchyard.

The village of Abbotsbury is noted for the large swannery, which the Fleet lagoon has naturally created, and is the largest of the five occupying the coastal hinterland described here. The Church of St. Nicholas is built of local buff sandstone with Portland dressings. It is mainly 15th century, but was rebuilt in Perpendicular style in the 16th century with portions of the older building incorporated. The church was restored in 1885. There is a fine embattled tower with six bells. The lintel of the west tower doorway bears an emblem of the Trinity.

On the hill to the south west and situated 700 yards seaward of the church is the chapel of St.Catherine. St. Nicholas was defended for the King during the Civil War, and to this day the fine panelled Jacobean pulpit bears two bullet holes it sustained during the conflict. Standing in the porch is an effigy in Purbeck marble, (actually a grave slab from the earlier Abbey church) of a late 12th century abbot, possibly a general representation of the ecclesiastical figure after whose title the village takes its name. Two stone coffins can be seen against the wall opposite the north porch. The 15th century stained-glasswork is a notable feature of this church and the panes in the north and south aisle windows are noted for their subtlety of colour. Of special interest is the second window in the south aisle which shows the delicate face of a woman thought by some to represent St. Catherine, but is more likely to be the Virgin Mary from a Crucifixion window. The Chapel of St. Catherine, although it is only 45 feet by 15 feet, has walls 4 feet thick. Every part, including the panelled ceiling and roof, is of stone.

Portesham is a parish with a rich historical background, and further has responsibility for the hamlets and manors of Corton, Shilvinghampton and the Waddons. The Church of St. Peter already existed at the time of Domesday, though the Norman structure dates from the 12th century. Originally the chancel and nave may have been shorter, and the aisles further west than today. The chancel is 13th century and these are two blocked 12th century windows above the chancel arch. St. Peters was largely re-built in the 15th century. Indeed, it is the oldest building in the village. The lower part of the tower is Saxon, though traces of Norman work remain to be seen in the north wall of the nave and in the 13th century font. There is a 13th century piscina in the south aisle. The church is built in a limestone reflecting almost white in sunlight, with a well built, typically ‘Dorset’ tower incorporating the remains of an earlier tower on the north side.

As at Abbotsbury, the church and village suffered skirmishing during the Civil War, when some musket balls were discharged into the door of St. Peter’s, though these have since been removed. The interior is mainly re-ordered Victorian work. It displays the hatchment of Sir Andrew Riccard, a Portesham-born seaman and squire who was Lord of the Manor following the Restoration in 1660, and who granted many of his tenants 999 year leases. The inscription reads ‘Possum’ (I am able.) His father Walter Riccard is commemorated by a slab in the floor of the nave near the font. There are also memorial hatchments or plaques to members of the Mansfield and Thresher families, and to a former vicar, John Charles Molyneux.

Probably the most curious feature of the church is the grave of a local farmer, William Weare. Weare had the outlandish death wish of not wanting to be buried inside or outside the church. Accordingly he was buried beneath the wall of the south aisle in 1675, where a table-tomb and plaque mark the spot. The plaque bears an 8-line epitaph, which begins: “William Weare lies here in dust as thou and I and all men must…” There is a monument to Mary Weare inside the south aisle, abutting that of William. There is also a rough-hewn rock grave memorial to John Galpin, a former vicar, in the churchyard.

The principal commercial activity of the village of Langton Herring has been the production of lime, and the buildings are mainly constructed in the local yellow stone. The manor owns (or owned) a one-mile stretch of Chesil Beach. The Church of St. Peter is a building of local rubble with freestone dressings, possibly built or rebuilt in the 14th century. It is said to have been severely damaged in a fire in the 17th century, after which the west tower – one of the country’s smallest – was added in the 18th century. Major restoration also took place in 1827 & 1858. On these occasions the vestry and south aisle were added, and the nave was largely rebuilt with an arcade or two bays. The floor of the chancel features slab memorials to John Hazelwood, rector 1670 and his son Francis and William Sanford, rector in 1627. The font is an octagonal bowl with quatrefoil panel in each face, a stem with trefoil-headed panel in each face, and a stepped square base. In the chancel there is a stained glass window inscribed “In the Resurrection they are as the Angels of God.” There are memorials to Edward Cox Trenow (1851,) the son of a former rector who is buried with his wife in the churchyard, and to William Sparks who died in 1829 aged 70. The churchyard also contains the communal grave of four boys who were overcome by the fumes of a lime kiln they were playing near.

The original church of the small community of Fleet, only half a kilometre from The Fleet, is only one of the five to have just the chancel remaining after the rest of the church was severely damaged in a great storm in 1824. The manorial Lords were the Mohun’s, a family who came to England with William the Conqueror, and who are remembered in two brass plates in the chancel.

However, a new Holy Trinity with chancel, nave and west tower, was built a quarter of a mile further up the valley at the expense of the vicar George Gould, in memory of his son John who died in 1818. This church is built in the style of the 18th century Gothic Revival, though today the ashlars are reddened by lichen. In the tower there is a wall plaque recording the destruction of the first church and the building of the new. Its first stone was laid on the 25th of April 1827, and the Rev Robert Gray, the Bishop of Bristol consecrated the church, on the 25th of August 1829. Several beech trees grow in the grounds, which are fenced off by railings.

In the old church there is a brass memorial to John Meade Falkner, the author of Moonfleet. But it was in this churchyard, not Holy Trinity, that the John Trenchard of the story sat on a tombstone above the Mohun vault, where the smugglers hid their contraband.

John Gould – Dorset Birdman With a Dark Secret

Dorset can number many noted figures among its sons and daughters. Perhaps the most extraordinary character to emerge from the county in the 19th century was John Gould, though many would not have heard of him. Gould made a name for himself as an ornithologist of undeniable ability, and apparently he was also a gifted illustrator, who rose to become the toast of Victorian society.

John Gould was borne in Lyme Regis in 1804, the son of an estate gardener. Of his earliest years and education little or nothing is known, though his schooling appears to have been very elementary. His father’s own talents however, led him to secure a position as a gardener in a country estate and, ultimately, to a position of head gardener at the Royal Gardens at Windsor. But his son John’s real educator was the natural world. In the gardens, woods and fields of Dorset the boy’s future passion for ornithology was fostered.

This led young Gould onto an almost obsessive desire to preserve birds and animals for posterity. From another gardener who was skilled in the practise he learnt taxidermy, and discovered in himself an ability to preserve birds using only their dehydrated skins and feathers. With this newly acquired skill John Gould set up a taxidermy business in Windsor, where his unusual eye for the natural stance of birds and animals won for him the recognition of many clients and even the patronage of George IV.

When in 1827 the newly formed London Zoological Society held a competition to fill the position of its first director and curator, Gould entered and won the competition. Three years later, following the acquisition by the Society of a large collection of Himalayan exotic bird skins, the first curator was fired with the desire to bring the specimens to life in a lavishly illustrated book. The subsequent publication proved to be the turning point in Gould’s life. It won such great acclaim from the scientific world that it was said of John Gould that his expertise even surpassed that of the great French artist Audubon. Other books of exotic bird illustrations followed including ‘Birds of Europe’ and the seven-volume ‘Birds of Australia,’ which has an estimated value of over £150,000 at auction today.

But Gould’s reputation didn’t stop at being a master-ornithologist and illustrator. He was also a producer, director, publishing magnate, and entrepreneur – even a bit-player in the emergence of evolutionary theory. For it was John Gould to whom Charles Darwin entrusted for identification the bird-skins he had collected in the Galapagos Islands during the famous voyage of The Beagle. He was able to classify the specimens as eleven new species of finch – the very birds, which through the subtle changes or adaptations to different niches they displayed, Darwin would later use as a pivotal piece of evidence for evolution by natural selection. Darwin, on later reviewing his notes for ‘The Origin of Species’ realised that the birds had come from different islands in the archipelago, but it was Gould’s eye for detail which played an important part in the conclusion the naturalist came to concerning evolution.

Though his Victorian public were awe-struck by the apparent skill he showed in the reproductions in his bird books the underlying truth about John Gould was rather different. The buyers of his books were led to believe that he was a gifted ornithologist and illustrator, but Gould was no artist. He was actually perpetuating a caddish deception upon his readers when he had absolutely no need to mislead them.

The myth was perpetuated partly through a crafty captioning of the pictures in a way that suggested that he and his wife Eliza were the co-illustrators responsible for them. Certainly Eliza Gould was responsible for some of the lithographs in the books. But the truth is that the brilliant hand-coloured pictures were mainly the work of others, and the main illustrator was not mentioned at all. Some of the lithographs featured were even the work of Edward Lear! Gould is said to have worked these illustrators unreasonably hard, though he had no need to resort to the pretence of being a competent artist; his genuine reputation as an ornithologist would have stood by itself, as his knowledge of birds was second-to-none.

Furthermore, John Gould was far more a shrewd businessman than an accomplished draftsman and one with a very mean streak. His avian knowledge assisted Darwin in conceiving the theory of evolution, yet he would brazenly lie to dealers to save himself the expense of a new specimen, borrowing it instead for an artist to draw before returning it unvalued. Gould seems to have believed that his books would have greater appeal if they were considered the work of his genius alone. And almost certainly he intended that the general public and the scientific establishment would believe he was as much bird artist as bird expert.

But if Gould was miserly and deceitful in business he was a genteel and affectionate father in his family life. After Eliza’s early death he reveals in a surviving letter to another correspondent a heartfelt concern for his offspring’s welfare, writing that he “wanted to do the best for my dear little children.” But to Edward Lear, himself riddled with insecurity he was “a queer fellow who meant well, though a more singularly offensive-mannered man hardly can be.”

Gould’s life is now well told in a biography by travel writer Isabella Tree. In ‘The Bird Man: the Extraordinary Story of John Gould’ the author suggests that it was insecurity about his lack of education which lay at the root of Gould’s predisposition to deceive and plagiarise.

But bird fanciers have him to thank for one more legacy: he was responsible for introducing the budgerigar into Britain.