sir frederic madden and the battle of the brass · pdf filesir frederic madden and the battle...

1 eBLJ 2003,Article 1

Sir Frederic Madden and the Battle of the Brass Rubbings C. J.Wright

On 1 April 1839 Sir Frederic Madden, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum,received distressing news.1 Mr McDonald, a surgeon at Bristol, wrote to inform him thatthe previous morning his brother, Lewis Pryse Madden, had, after a brief illness, expired ofapoplexy at Clifton aged fifty-six.2 A week later, on Monday the 8th, Lewis was laid to restin the crypt of Clifton Parish Church. Unlike his two other surviving brothers, Charles andHenry, Sir Frederic was unable to be present at the ceremony as his second wife, Emily, wasexpecting their first child, a son, Frederick William, who was born the next day. Such amelancholy occurrence would usually only affect the bereaved family but Lewis’s demisewas to have unexpected ramifications. It must, after all, be rare for the domestic afflictionsof one of the Museum’s Keepers to throw light on the development of its collections.Tounderstand why it should be so in this particular case, it is necessary first to say somethingabout Lewis Madden himself.

The history of Sir Frederic’s eldest brother was typical of that of many of his generation.Lewis Pryse Madden had been born at Rochester on 15 October 1782, the second childbut eldest son of Captain William John Madden. Like his father before him he joined theRoyal Marines, though only rising to the rank of Lieutenant. His memorial tablet3 inClifton parish church proudly records that he served for almost twenty years in the FrenchRevolutionary Wars in many parts of the globe under, amongst others, Nelson and SirHome Popham.4 After the defeat of Napoleon, the armed forces were cut back and Maddenretired. He had married, first, on 10 March 1811, at Bath, Caroline, daughter of John Marshof Woodhouse, Gloucestershire. Their two children, Caroline Lucy and Lewis PowellMadden, were born at Bath Easton (on 7 May 1819 and 5 March 1822 respectively).

1 A version of this paper was read at a meeting of the Madden Society at the British Library on 5 September2002. Most scholarship is a collaborative effort and this article is more a fruit of such collaboration thanmost. It is a particular pleasure here to acknowledge A. J. Spence. He it was who, in his transcription ofMadden’s Journal for 1843, first raised the question as to the fate of Lewis Madden’s brass rubbings whichthis article seeks to answer. In generously making available extracts from his transcripts of the 1843 Journalhe has also provided much of the evidence on which that answer is based. I would also like to express mygratitude to all those others who have so greatly assisted with its preparation: Jean Rankine; Antony Griffiths,Keeper of Prints & Drawings, British Museum; Professor Andrew Prescott; Christopher Date, the BritishMuseum Archivist; Gary Thorn of the British Museum Archives; and John Hopson, the British LibraryArchivist, to name but a few.

2 Madden’s Journal, 1 April 1839. The Journal [hereafter, MJ] is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. hist. c.140-182. A copy is BL, MS. Facs. *1012/1-44. Extracts are printed by permission of Mrs P. Scowen and ofthe Bodleian Library.

3 By H.Wood of Bristol.4 MJ, 25 July 1843.

Sir Frederic Madden and the Battle of the Brass Rubbings


Caroline died at Clifton on 14 July 1835 but was buried at Bath Easton. Lewis remained awidower for under a year. On 5 May 1836, at St Martin’s in the Fields, London, he marriedhis first cousin Margaret Jordan, the widow of the Reverend Wilfrid Carter. Though thesecond Mrs Madden lived until 1861, this union was cut short by his own death just underthree years later.5

How Lewis Madden occupied himself during his retirement emerges from his brother’sjournal.Thus, when Sir Frederic called at Clifton during his honeymoon tour of the westof England in the late autumn of 1837, Lewis was away in Berkshire shooting on the estateof his friend,William Congreve of Aldermaston House.6 However, he also shared some ofthe antiquarian interests that made his younger brother famous. On 1 July 1843 Lewis’swidow told Sir Frederic that Evans, the printseller, had failed to sell the rubbings ofmonumental brasses at Bristol and elsewhere which Lewis had made, possibly because theywere valued at a guinea each, which Madden thought too high. Evans had advised her tosend them to John Nichols of Parliament St,‘that stingy hound’, as Madden referred to him.‘These rubbings are 25 in number, most of them the size of life, beautifully executed, andmounted on tinted paper. The expenses of the paper, heel-ball, journeys. etc. cost Lewisabove 6£. 6s.0d. [i.e. six guineas] yet this miserable screw Nichols, in a letter to Mrs. M.while admitting the beauty of the rubbings, and the labor of execution, has had themeanness to offer two guineas for the whole! I was excessively indignant, & told Mrs. M.to take them out of Nichols’s hand immediately.’7 A few days later she called at the Museumwith a couple of the rubbings to show him.8 He had already suggested to her that theymight well find a home in the Museum and he spoke twice about it to Henry Josi, theKeeper of Prints & Drawings.9 Madden had a low opinion of Josi - ‘I never thought him agentleman’ - and was horrified to discover after his death in 1845 that as well as a being aformer printseller he had also once kept a ham and beef shop.10 On the question of therubbings, however, Josi proved obliging - even Madden conceded he was ‘genial’ and‘inoffensive’11 - agreeing to pay the asking price of seven guineas.

Though not among the pioneers of brass-rubbing, Lewis Pryse Madden belonged to thegrowing band of enthusiasts for this new pursuit. Whereas in France monumental brasseshad been systematically destroyed at the Revolution, in England a significant number hadsurvived the ravages of the Reformation12 and formed a major resource for the antiquary.Scattered illustrations of brasses can be found in the early numbers of the Gentleman’sMagazine.The need for a more accurate means of recording them than by drawing them

5 The biographical information in this paragraph is based, with their kind permission, on two printed tables inthe possession of Mr and Mrs R. Scowen: Pedigree of the Madden Family, As entered in the Office Books of theCollege of Arms at Dublin and in London in the year 1839, with later additions and corrections, single sheet (aft. 1873),and Schedule of the descendants of William Carter, of Guildford, and Elizabeth, his wife, single sheet (aft. 1873).

6 MJ, 6 Oct. 1837. There is a small illustration of Aldermaston House in Peacock’s Polite Repository or PocketCompanion [for 1820] (London, 1819?), at the beginning of March.

7 MJ, 1 July 1843.8 MJ, 5 July 1843.9 MJ, 6, 11 July 43. Prints & Drawings had been established as a separate department in 1836, though there

had been a Keeper of Prints since the beginning of the century; see Edward Miller, That Noble Cabinet, AHistory of the British Museum (London, 1973), p. 294.

10 MJ, 15 Mar. 1845; cited by Miller, p. 294. On the vexed question of whether a post at the Museum was aproper occupation for a gentleman, see A.W. Franks,‘The Apology of my Life’, in Marjorie Caygill and JohnCherry (eds.), A.W. Franks: nineteenth-century collecting and the British Museum (London, 1997), p. 319.

11 MJ, 15 Mar. 1845.12 Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (New Haven and London, 1992), pp. 332-4, 494-5.



freehand is graphically demonstrated by the grotesquely inadequate sketches of the brasses ofJohn Cosowarthe and Sir John Arundell of Trerice at Colan and Stratton in Cornwall in‘Imagines seu Figuræ...’, two volumes (Stowe MSS. 1023, 1024) compiled for the herald JohnAnstis and afterwards owned by Thomas Astle.13 The scholarly study of brasses is usuallytraced back to the antiquary Richard Gough,14 whose Sepulchral monuments in Great Britainapplied to illustrate the history of families, manners, habits, and arts, at the different periods from theNorman Conquest to the seventeenth century was published in two volumes in 1786 and 1796.Even then, it took a little while for the standard method of rubbing with a heelball, a mixtureof hard wax and lampblack originally used by shoemakers, to be accepted. Craven Ord, ‘myfriend and fellow labourer’, whose ‘indefatigable assiduity’ Gough was happy toacknowledge,15 for the most part inked the brasses themselves, a practice which not onlyproduced ‘reversed’ images but had potential for damaging the artefact and its surroundings.16The Camden Society’s Illustrations of the Monumental Brasses of Great Britain did not beginappearing until the year after Lewis Madden’s death.17 C. R. Manning’s A List of themonumental brasses remaining in England. Arranged according to counties dates from 1846.The firstedition of Herbert Haines’s A Manual of Monumental Brasses was only published in 1848.18

In some ways Lewis Madden seems atypical of the brass enthusiasts of the period, manyof whom developed or extended their interest in the subject while undergraduates at thetwo ancient universities.19 Such evidence as there is suggests that it may have been anactivity of his later years. Certainly, his second wife was remarkably well-informed on thesubject.When, in 1842, Sir Frederic himself decided to experiment with brass-rubbing, itwas she to whom he applied for advice and who was able to provide him with the mostdetailed information. ‘She tells me that the proper paper to use in making rubbings fromchurch brasses is the paper with which walls are lined, before the printed paper is put on.It should be a good colored white, and not too thick. A piece of 12 yards white, of amedium thickness, will be about 2s. but the price depends on the width.A very good sortis called crown demi, and also double crown printing, which is sold in large sheets. Theprincipal qualities requisite, are not to stretch and not to be too thick.’20 Armed with herinstructions, Sir Frederic set out on 1 September 1842 for a holiday on the Isle of Wight.

13 BL, Stowe MS. 1023, ff. 45, 50. Cf. the respective brasses illustrated in William Lack, H. Martin Stuchfield andPhilip Whittemore, The Monumental Brasses of Cornwall (London, 1997), pp. 21 and 158.The St Mawgan brassof John Tremain can be compared with its sketch (Stowe MS. 1023, f. 43) in Lack, Stuchfield and Whittemore,p. 134.

14 For Gough, see Sally F. Badham, ‘Richard Gough’s papers relating to monumental brasses in the BodleianLibrary, Oxford’, Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society, xiv, pt 6 (1991), pp. 467-512.

15 Sepulchral Monuments, vol. ii, p. 10.16 For Ord, see V. J.Torr, ‘A Guide to Craven Ord’, Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society, ix, pt. 2 (Oct.

1952), pp. 80-91. This cites, p. 84, the famous account of Ord’s method in a letter from J. C. Brooke toGough, 29 March 1780, printed in John Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century...(London, 1817-58), vol. vi, p. 393. For a brief history of methods of copying, see Herbert W. Macklin,Monumental Brasses (first published 1890), revised by Charles Oman (London, 1965), pp. 27-30.

17 Illustrations of Monumental Brasses, etc. [By various authors.With a preface signed: J. M. N., i.e. John M. Neale](J.T.Walters: Cambridge; F. & J. Rivington: London, 1846 [1840-6]).

18 H. H., A Manual for the study of Monumental Brasses (Oxford, 1848).The second enlarged edition appeared in1861.

19 I am indebted to John Cherry for this point.20 MJ, 20 Aug. 1842. I wish to thank Jean Rankine for drawing my attention to this and related passages in the

Journal for 1842 and for very generously providing me with extracts of them from her transcription of it.



He knew of a fourteenth-century brass in Calbourne church ‘on which I felt anxious to trymy skill by the rubbing process...There was no inscription on the monument, and as to anytradition of the personage represented, it was absurdly said by the Sexton to be the effigyof a “foreign Spaniard!”The figure is about 4 ft. in length, in armour, and in tolerably goodpreservation. I immediately set to work with my paper and heel ball, and in the course ofhalf an hour, had the satisfaction of obtaining a very good impression of the brass.’21 He alsorubbed brasses at Arreton22 and at Southwick on the mainland.23 On an expedition toWinchester he was particularly eager to obtain a rubbing at St Cross of the brass of Johnde Campeden, a late-fourteenth-century Master of the Hospital. This gave him muchtrouble, not least because he was interrupted by morning service, but he managed to ruboff or copy all the monumental inscriptions he could find in the church.24 It would beinteresting to know what became of these rubbings by a second member of the Maddenfamily.

As to those by Lewis Madden, if they were acquired by the Museum, the question arises,where are they now? The accession records and catalogues of neither the British Museumnor the British Library make any reference to Lewis Madden.The searcher is thrown backon the information about the rubbings given by Madden in his Journal: there were twenty-five of them, on tinted paper, and some of the impressions were taken in Bristol. One of thelocations there, which might have been inferred, is confirmed by Madden, who during avisit to Bristol and Clifton in late July and August 1843 visited St Mary Redcliffe,‘the finestparish church in the kingdom’ as he called it, and remarked ‘there are three or fourmonumental brasses of the 15th cent[ur]y, all of which were rubbed off by Lewis Madden’.25

Almost certainly Lewis Madden’s rubbings are now British Library, Add. MS. 32480 A-X(listed in Appendix I below; see also fig. 1).These are of brasses at Bristol and locations inGloucestershire south of the Severn estuary,Wiltshire and Somerset, within a twenty-mileradius of the city, from Wotton-under-Edge in the north, to Bradford-on-Avon in the eastand Axbridge in the south-west.Ten (A-K) were taken in Bristol itself, at the Churches ofSt James, St John, St Mary Redcliffe, St Peter, and the Temple Church, as well as TrinityAlmshouses. The only Bristol brasses listed by Macklin which are absent are those at StWerburgh and the Grammar School.26 They are for the most part on elegantly tinted blue-grey paper.Their exact number depends on the method of counting.The Trustees, whenapproving Josi’s purchase, described them as twenty-four.27 The Print Room AccessionsRegister gives no number.28 The highest Museum accession number now visible is ‘26’ (onthe dorse of 32480 G. However, S comprises Museum accession numbers 17 and 18).TheManuscripts Catalogue allots them twenty-three Letters (A to X, excluding J), though T andU both consist of two parts.

21 MJ, 12 Sept. 1842.22 MJ, 22 Sept. 1842.23 MJ, 14 Sept. 1842.24 MJ, 28 Sept. 1842. He was so stiff as a result of his exertions that the next day he had to take a warm bath.25 MJ, 3 Aug. 1843. For the brasses here, see Martin Lee, Medieval Monumental Brasses in St. Mary Redcliffe

([Bristol, 1996]). I am indebted for the reference to this pamphlet to John Hopson.26 Macklin, op. cit., p. 157.27 British Museum, Central Archives [hereafter BM/CA],Trustees Minutes,Vol. XXI, c. 6427 (23 Mar. 1844);

cf. Josi’s Report to the Trustees, 22 Mar. 1844. Extracts from the Museum archives are printed by kindpermission of the Trustees of the British Museum.

28 It merely gives the date (year/month/day) and description ‘1844 4 29 [ ] Impressions from MonumentalBrasses’. I am indebted to the kindness of Antony Griffiths for this information.



The brasses from which they were taken range in date from circa 1370 (32480 V) to 1638(32840 R).They cover the social spectrum from the great local noble family of Berkeley,through gentry to the clergy. However, as might be expected, the largest number relate tothe prominent merchant families of Bristol and its locality.They include Thomas Rowley,Sheriff of Bristol (32480 I), whose brass at St John’s was the inspiration for ThomasChatterton’s famous ‘Rowley’ forgeries, ‘Rowley’ being supposedly a fifteenth-centurypriest at St John’s,29 and Judge John Brook and his wife Johanna Amerike (32840 G), whosefamily is asserted, albeit unconvincingly, by supporters of Cabot’s claim to be discoverer ofAmerica, to have lent its name to the new continent.30 Some of these brasses had already

29 William Barrett claimed that he first called him ‘Ronley’, the assumption being that he had misread the brass:E. H. W. Meyerstein, A Life of Thomas Chatterton (London, 1930), p. 59. This was a mistake of which, as ithappens, Barrett himself was quite capable: see n. 33 below.

30 See, for example, Rodney Broome, Amerike:The Briton who Gave America its Name (Stroud, 2002).

Fig. 1. Brass of Sir Walter and Morys Denys, rubbed by Lewis Madden.Add. MS. 32480 W



attracted notice.That of John Jay and his wife in St Mary Redcliffe (32840 E) is recordedboth by Gough31 and the local historian William Barrett.32 Barrett also refers to the brassesof John Brook and Sir John Juyn in the same church33 as well as to the brasses of JohnBarstaple and his wife at Trinity Almshouses which they founded.34

The story of how Lewis Madden’s as well as the Museum’s other collections of brass-rubbings came to rest in the Department of Manuscripts is a complicated one and goessome way to explaining how their provenance was lost.The first collection of rubbings toreach the Museum was bequeathed by Francis Douce in 1834. Douce had been one ofMadden’s predecessors as Keeper of Manuscripts, resigning in 1812 in exasperation atexcessive bureaucracy. His marvellous collection of printed books, manuscripts, and prints,he left to the Bodleian Library. However, the Museum received a volume of the works ofAlbrecht Durer, which he himself had been left by Joseph Nollekens,35 annotated copies ofWhitaker’s accounts of Manchester and the ancient Cornish cathedral,36 his private papers(now in Bodley), and ‘his large Volumes and unbound Rolls of Impressions fromMonumental Brasses’.37 In view of their future history, it is interesting that Douce himselfdistinguished between these rubbings and his collection of prints.When he wrote his willDouce had only owned them for seven months. His opportunity had been provided by thedispersal in three sales (25 June 1829, 25 January 1830, 9 May 1832) of the collections ofnone other than Craven Ord. The importance of these sales was not in dispute. Indeed,before the first, Josiah Forshall, Madden’s predecessor as Keeper of Manuscripts, had beenauthorized by the Museum Trustees to spend up to £500 on the purchase of items,38 andmany valuable manuscripts were added to the national collection. Ord’s rubbings were lots1102 and 1103 on the fifth day of the second Ord sale.39 Evans described the first lot as ‘InTwo volumes, about six feet in height,with a stand to hold them’.The second was unbound.There was also (Lot 1107) an actual brass, four foot high, in two compartments ‘representinga whole length Figure in Armour’. Madden’s copy of the sale catalogue records that it waspurchased by ‘Gage’ ‘in order to restore it to the Church from which it had been taken’.40

Evans observed of lot 1102 that ‘this Collection of Impressions from antient MonumentalBrasses, is most probably matchless’, before remarking disingenuously,‘it is to be hoped that

31 Incorrectly as ‘Johan Jan’: op. cit., vol. ii, p. 269.32 The History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol (Bristol, [1789]), p. 586.33 Ibid., pp. 586-7, giving the latter the surname ‘Inyn’ and assigning the former a wife ‘Johanna…hæredum

Richardi Amenæ [sic]’.34 Ibid., pp. 536-7.35 Nollekens had also left Douce for his life a print of the Triumphal Arch of the Emperor Maximilian, with

reversion to the Museum, now P&D, E.2.334-353: see Antony Griffiths and Reginald Williams, TheDepartment of Prints & Drawings in the British Museum: User’s Guide (London, 1987), p. 111.

36 John Whitaker, The History of Manchester (London, 1821, 1825), now BL, C.28.l.6-7, and The Ancient Cathedralof Cornwall historically surveyed (London, 1804), now BL, C.28.l.8; see Douce’s presentation inscription to theMuseum facing the half title of the latter. Both works are full of disobliging annotations by Douce, explainedon one of the rear fly-leaves of the Cornish volume:‘I should never have taken the trouble of criticising thistiresome and chaotic work, if the author had not unwarrantedly attacked, and totally misconceived the designof my essay in the Archæologia on the names of the pieces used in the game of Chess’. On p. [435] of thesame volume, advertising other ‘Works, by the Reverend John Whitaker’ Douce has inserted ‘that irreverendcoxcomb, improperly intitled’ before ‘the Reverend John Whitaker’.

37 See the extract of Douce’s will, dated 22 Aug. 1830, in BM/CA,Trustees Minutes, vol. xiii, 12 Apr. 1834, c.3781.

38 BM/CA,Trustees Minutes, vol. xi, 20 June 1829, c. 3188; a letter from Mr Petrie in support.39 Catalogue of a valuable collection of books of a gentleman gone abroad; valuable collection of manuscripts of Craven Ord,

Esq.; and a curious collection of autographs...which will be sold by auction, by Mr. Evans, at his house, No. 93, Pall-Mall, on Monday January 25, and Four following Days. 1830, p. 53.

40 Ibid., p. 54; BL, Dept. of MSS, P.R.3. B.2.This is possibly the antiquary John Gage, afterwards Rokewode, ofSuffolk.



this Collection will be secured and deposited in some Public or Private Collection to whichthe Antiquary may have access. It forms a most valuable Supplement to Gough’s SepulchralMonuments’.41 It was duly secured by Thomas Thorpe for Douce and within a few yearsthe auctioneer’s pious wish had come about.

On its arrival in the Museum in 1834 Douce’s collection came to rest in the PrintRoom. Its Keeper, Ottley,42 thought it a valuable acquisition. The very next year herequested permission from the Trustees to prepare a descriptive catalogue of it, informingthem that it was a ‘Collection of the highest interest, and likely to furnish our Artists withsome details of costume at different periods on which they might place the firmest reliance.’The Trustees refused.They did not want his attention diverted from ‘the General Catalogueincluding the Drawings and more valuable Engravings upon which he has been some timeengaged’.43 In 1836 Ottley was succeeded by Josi. Over the following years a few extrarubbings came in. In 1839 the artist George Perfect Harding, who had in 1822-3 publishedportraits of the Deans of Westminster, gave rubbings from brasses in Westminster Abbey andCastle Ashby.44 A Mr Pulham gave five rubbings the same year and in 1841 Charles HenryHartshorne presented a lithograph of a brass at Higham Ferrers (see fig. 2).The next majoraddition was the collection of Lewis Madden. Given that the acquisition of theseimpressions was agreed in July 1843, there is a slight mystery in the fact that they were notfinally purchased from a Mr Powell until Spring 1844.45 No reference to Sir Frederic’sbrother appears in the records. However, one Museum officer had not forgotten him.TheKeeper of Manuscripts was biding his time.

41 Op. cit., p. 53.42 See J. A. Gere, ‘William Young Ottley as a collector of drawings’, British Museum Quarterly, xviii (1953), pp.

44-53.43 BM/CA:Trustees Minutes, vol. xiv, c. 4109, 21 Nov. 1835.44 See Appendix II.45 BM/CA: Officers Reports, c. 9868, 22 Mar. 1844;Trustees Minutes, vol. xxi, c. 6427, 23 Mar. 1844. They

were inscribed with the acquisition date 29 April 1844. The identity of Mr Powell presents problems. LewisMadden’s only male Powell relative, his cousin Henry Weyland Powell, had died in 1840.

Fig. 2. Rev. C. H. Hartshorne's presentation inscription to Henri Josi on Add. MS. 32486, f. 14



In spring 1845 Sir Frederic asked the Trustees for the transfer to Manuscripts of variousitems in the Print Room. He began by requesting the return of certain volumes ofLansdowne and Sloane Manuscripts, which had been deposited there at some stage, possiblyfor exhibition or because of shortage of space in Manuscripts. He emphasized that he didnot include in this request Sloane Manuscripts containing fine art, though he did regret thatsix of these (Add. MSS. 5215, 5216, 5225, 5235, 5248 and 5250) had been cut up anddispersed. He also asked for a volume of drawings of Mexican antiquities (Add. MS. 15502),a volume of ‘Hindoo’ drawings (possibly Add. MS. 15515) and the Abbé de Rive’sillustrations of manuscript miniatures (Add. MS. 15501). He pointed out, somewhatdisingenuously, that this would create more space for expansion in the Print Room.46 TheTrustees appear to have inspected all the volumes concerned at the Standing Committee on5 April. Indeed, Forshall, the Secretary to the Museum, had even included sometopographical volumes not mentioned in Sir Frederic’s report.47 Most, but not all, of hisrequests were acceded to.48 Meanwhile, Madden had looked at Josi’s manuscript list of thecontents of the Print Room. He noted that the only significant topographical itemsremaining in the Print Room were J. C. Crowle’s extra-illustrated copy of ThomasPennant,49 drawings by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm and the brass-rubbings.50 Greatlyencouraged by the Trustees’ previous decision, in May he went on to request the transfernot only of the Grimm drawings, as complementing those already in the Department’sBurrell Collections, but also all the brass rubbings on the grounds that they were ‘connectedintimately with the volumes preserved there [i.e. Manuscripts] and with topographicalresearch, and very little or not at all with Art’.51

The timing of these requests may have a simple explanation. Madden was probably takingadvantage of the death of Henry Josi on 7 February 1845. On 15 March, Forshall told himthat W. H. Carpenter had been appointed to succeed Josi.52 The period of the vacancy andthe first weeks of an inexperienced Keeper must have seemed the ideal time to advance hisclaims against the Print Room. However, in Carpenter Madden had misjudged hisadversary. The former protested vehemently to the Trustees that the rubbings were ‘mostespecially connected with the Department of Prints and Drawings; they being the onlypositive works by the hands of the Artists in England, at the period they were executed.’Contemporary artists frequently consulted them for details of mediaeval costume. He

46 Madden’s draft Report to the Trustees, 7 Mar. 1845;Add. MS. 62025, ff. 51-54. I am very grateful to AndrewPrescott for drawing my attention to this series of references in Madden’s draft Reports.

47 MJ, 15 Mar. 1845.48 Add. MSS. 5214, 5284 and 5285 were retained in the Print Room, but Lansd. MSS. 1242-1244 and Add.

MSS. 5219, 5221, 5234, 5253, 5275-5279, 5283, were ordered to be sent back to Manuscripts, together withsome other material. See the copy of the Standing Committee Minute, 5 Apr. 1845 and the accompanying‘List of MSS. transferred…’ in Dept of MSS., Minutes, Acquisitions, 1841-1845, ff. 428-430; cf. Add. MS.62025, ff. 52-54, and the related annotations in Dept of MSS., MS. Catalogue of Additions, 1817. Volumeswhich had not previously been in the Department were numbered Add. MSS. 15501-15515; Register ofAdditional MSS. 1843-Feb. 1851. Of these, Add. MS. 15504 had originally been part of the LansdowneCollection; Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the years MDCCCXLI-MDCCCXLV (London, 1850), p. 13.

49 For Crowle’s copy of Thomas Pennant, Some Account of London (1793), see Antony Griffiths and ReginaldWilliams, op. cit., p. 55.

50 MJ, 15 Mar. 1845.51 BM/CA:Trustees Minutes, vol. xxi, c. 6684, 24 May 1845; P. R. Harris, A History of the British Museum Library,

1753-1973 (London, 1998), p. 153.52 MJ, 15 Mar. 1845. Characteristically, Madden would have preferred either of the rival candidates,William

Brockedon and Lt.-Col. Robert Batty.



challenged Madden’s assertion that the Douce Collection had been bequeathed specificallyto the Department of Manuscripts53 and, unkindest cut of all, pointed out that in 1844 theTrustees had sanctioned the purchase out of the Prints & Drawings budget of the rubbingswhich it is now clear were made by Madden’s own brother. However, the Grimm drawings,as purely topographical, he was prepared to concede.54 His report was duly endorsed by theTrustees on 28 June.55

This remained the position for the next forty years and Madden does not seem to havechallenged it again.Thus, for example, after the Museum purchased the papers (Add. MSS.19077-19247) of the great Suffolk antiquary David Elisha Davy (d. 1851) from his sister,Lucy Elizabeth Davy on 13 November 1852, Madden discovered they contained two largeSolander cases of brass-rubbings.56 Despite the fact that one part of the main collectionconsisted, inter alia, of notes and plans of Suffolk brasses,57 he made no attempt to retain thebrass rubbings and they were duly transferred to Prints & Drawings (see Appendix II).58

Some rubbings did, of course, enter the Manuscripts Department at this period, althoughonly in small numbers and as an integral part of volumes from which it would have beeninjudicious to remove them. Specimens can be found, for example, in the historicalcollections for English counties (Add. MSS. 17456-17463) assembled by the Rev. D. T.Powell.59 Curiously, before entering the Church, Powell had, like Lewis Madden, served inthe Revolutionary Wars against the French, albeit briefly.60

Over the years the number of brass rubbings in Prints & Drawings grew inexorably,almost entirely by gift and bequest.61 Then, suddenly, in 1885, what Madden had argued forso eloquently many years before came to pass. On 11 June, Sidney Colvin, the Keeper ofPrints & Drawings, informed the Museum Trustees that the Principal Librarian, Bond, andMaunde Thompson, the Keeper of Manuscripts, had agreed he could transfer the rubbingsto that Department.What had occasioned this change of heart? Almost certainly it was thearrival in February of a substantial new acquisition. Colvin had only been appointed to theKeepership in 1883.62 He came from Cambridge where he had been Director of theFitzwilliam and Slade Professor of Fine Art. He was confronted after only a year in officewith organizing the removal of his Department from the north-west of the building to itsnew quarters in the White Wing facing Montague Street in the east.63 Even had he been anenthusiast for brass-rubbings the collection of the Reverend Henry Addington must surely

53 This was a view Madden had already expressed in his Journal; MJ, 15 Mar. 1845.54 BM/CA: Officers Reports, vol. xxxiii (June-Dec. 1845): 10728, 25 June 1845.55 BM/CA: Trustees Minutes, vol. xxi, c. 6727. The Grimm Drawings became Add. MSS. 15537-15548,

supplementing the earlier series 5670-5675, 5678.56 MJ, 3 Jan. 1854.57 Add. MSS. 19077-19113 passim; thus for brasses at Lavenham, see 19077, ff. 384v-391.58 The Davy Collection contained other material, topographical engravings and portraits, which was also

transferred to Prints & Drawings and still remains there: see Antony Griffiths and Reginald Williams, op. cit.,p. 107.

59 Powell’s collections were dispersed at auction on 31 July 1848, at which Add. MSS. 17433-17443 wereacquired; 17456-17463 were bought from the bookseller Rodd on 11 Sept. 1848; Register of AdditionalMSS. 1843-Feb. 1851.

60 Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses...1715-1886 (Oxford, 1888), vol. iii, p. 1136. He died 9 June 1848; seeGentleman’s Magazine, xxx, N.S. (July-Dec. 1848), pp. 438-9.

61 The collection is mentioned briefly in Louis Fagan, Handbook to the Department of Prints and Drawings in theBritish Museum (London, 1876), p. 204.

62 See Edward Miller, op. cit., pp. 296-7.63 Antony Griffiths and Reginald Williams, op. cit., p. 3; The Times, 18, 19, 20 and 26 Aug. 1885.



have proved the last straw. It consisted of 2,600 rubbings, in thirty-five bound volumes anda large quantity of loose sheets. By the time that these had been bound up, there were tobe fifty-four elephant-folios in all. It must have been with a sense of intense relief that hesaw these and all the other rubbings depart for Manuscripts. The brief listing, whichaccompanied his report to the Trustees, and which is printed as an Appendix II below, is theprobably the most revealing guide to the state of the collection at this time.

Ironically, the person in the Museum who probably knew most about mediaeval brasses,Augustus Wollaston Franks, appointed to the Antiquities side in 1851 and almost single-handed creator of the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities, had no directinvolvement with the collection.This was in many ways unfortunate. He had begun his ownextensive collection of rubbings before he went up to Cambridge and though his work atthe Museum allowed him little opportunity to pursue his enthusiasm, he managed to addto his own holdings those of such distinguished figures as Herbert Haines and J. G. Nichols,as well as some rubbings by C. H. Hartshorne.The bulk of this great collection he presentedin due course to the Society of Antiquaries. In fact, he described the Museum’s owncollection as ‘very fine’, containing most of the figured brasses, though with somedeficiencies as to inscriptions.64 These lacunae he sought to supply by offering in 1896 someof his duplicates to the Museum (now Add. MSS. 34891-34894)65 while making otherimportant gifts, not least of which was Henry Addington’s descriptive catalogue ofsepulchral brasses (Add. MS. 34897). However, his more active involvement with it mighthave led, for instance, to the identification of the Flemish brass, whose rubbings form Add.MS. 32486, ff. 15, 16, as that acquired for the Museum by Franks himself at the Pugin saleof 1853.66

In some respects, the brass rubbings posed as many problems for Manuscripts as they hadfor Prints & Drawings.Their arrangement and description as Add. MSS. 32478-32490 nowseem cavalier.67 In part this reflects changing attitudes to the collection. At the time it wasthe brasses themselves and their geographical distribution which were the sole object ofinterest. Today, the trends in antiquarian scholarship which produced the rubbings haveassumed equal importance. Here the Catalogue is unhelpful, giving little information onprovenance, even where, as in the cases of George Perfect Harding or Charles Boutell (seefig. 3), this is recorded on the rubbings themselves. Even the history of the Ord Collection(Add. MSS. 32478, 32479) as bequeathed by Douce is confused, the first volume beingarbitrarily assigned to Ord and the second to Douce.68 There is no indication, either, thatsome of the ‘volumes’ contain groups of rubbings by antiquaries as distinguished as AlbertWay (see fig. 4),69 as well as by others who cannot at present be identified.70

64 President’s Address, 23 April 1896, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 2nd Ser., xvi (1895-7), pp.149-51.

65 Add. MSS. 34891-34893 consist chiefly of inscriptions and shields,Add. MS. 34894 of figured brasses.This giftis acknowledged in the description but, unfortunately, is omitted from the index entry for Franks in Catalogueof Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the years 1894-1899 (London, 1901); see pp. 112 and 886.

66 John Cherry,‘Franks and the Medieval Collections’, in Marjorie Caygill and John Cherry (eds.), A.W. Franks,p. 188 and pl. 22.

67 Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years MDCCCLXXXII-MDCCCCLXXXVII (London, 1889), pp. 129-32.

68 See V. J.Torr, ‘A Guide to Craven Ord’, p. 81.69 For rubbings by Albert Way, many with his notes, see Appendix II.70 For example Add. MS. 32485 A 1: King’s College Chapel ‘June 1850’

Add. MS. 32485 A 2: " ‘June 1850 WPN’Add. MS. 32485 A 3: " ‘June 1850 WPN’Add. MS. 32485 A 6 (verso): ‘From a mutilated Brass in Great Shelford Church near Cambridge

W.P.N. June 1850’.



Once it had reached the Department of Manuscripts, the collection of rubbingscontinued to grow for the next fifty years.The last significant acquisition,Add. MS. 45877,was made in 1942.71 Given the problems involved in their storage, this may be just as well.Rubbings by their nature tend to be unwieldy. Many, such as those made by Lewis Madden,have always been kept in roll form. However, Ord’s rubbings had been partly mounted intwo huge volumes.72 By the time they were catalogued in the 1880s, only one of the twovolumes survived.The Addington Collection survived in volume form until the early 1960swhen part of it was displayed in a temporary Museum exhibition, occasioned by the closingof the Grenville Library while its ceiling was reconstructed.73 However, at sometime afterthat it was disbound and converted to paper rolls.The great majority of the rubbings, eventhose which originally were bound, are now stored in this fashion. It may save space but thepractice has not commended itself to all students.Torr remarked acidly of Add. MS. 32479:‘the rubbings are kept folded and tightly jammed in containers somewhat resemblingcoffins, which reach the student either on trolleys or with considerable physical exertion bythe departmental staff.’All in all, he found consulting them a depressing experience and hethought this discouraged their wider use by scholars.74

71 A summary list of brasses (relating solely to Britain) in the Department of Manuscripts is given by M.W.Barley, A Guide to British Topographical Collections (London, 1974), pp. 71-2.

72 Catalogue (see n. 39), p. 53.73 ‘Addington Brass-Rubbings’, British Museum Quarterly, News Supplement (Jan. 1964), p. [9].74 V. J.Torr, ‘A Guide to Craven Ord’, p. 81.

Fig. 3. Rev. Charles Boutell's monogram and inscription on Add. MS. 32485 A 5 verso

Fig. 4. Albert Way's inscription on Add. MS. 32485 B 1



Is it the case, then, that the brass-rubbings have had their day? Are they akin to thecollections of skins and stuffed animals that have ceased to thrill visitors to museums ofnatural history?75 Like these, of course, the rubbings remain an invaluable referencecollection. In a few cases they are the only record of a brass now lost. However, they stillhave much to offer, especially to those who are as interested in the brass-rubbers as in thebrasses themselves. The recovery of the provenance of Add. MS. 32480 illustrates theirpotential. Lewis Madden would never have sought scholarly comparison with his illustrioussibling, but in his humble way he is as much a representative of nineteenth-centuryantiquarianism as the great Sir Frederic. For over a century and a half he has beenunacknowledged and forgotten. Sir Frederic, who succeeded in securing his brother’srubbings for the national collection, would surely be gratified that it is his own Journalwhich has proved the means of restoring to the historical record the name and contributionof Lewis Madden.

APPENDIX I

LEWIS MADDEN’S BRASS-RUBBINGS (Add. MS. 32480 A-X)

For each brass, the following information is given: British Museum Accession Number,where visible; subject; date; location; approximate distance from Bristol.

A. 44 4 29 9. John Barstaple and his wife, Sibilla, 1411. Trinity Almshouse Chapel, Bristol.

B. 44 4 29 14. A civilian. Temple Church, Bristol.

C. 44 4 29 6. A priest. Temple Church, Bristol.

D. 44 4 29 3. Sir John Juyn, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, 1439. St Mary Redcliff,Bristol.

E. 44 4 29 12. John Jay and his wife, Johanna, after 1472. St Mary Redcliff, Bristol.

F. 44 4 29 4. Philip Mede and his wives, circa 1475. St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol.

G. 44 4 29 26. John Brook, judge, and his wife, Johanna, 1522. St Mary Recliffe, Bristol.

H. 1. 44 4 29 2. Robert Lond, chaplain, 1462. St Peter’s, Bristol.

H. 2. 44 4 29 15. The same.

I. 44. 4 29 22. Thomas Rowley, Sheriff of Bristol, and his wife, Margaret, 1478. St John’s,Bristol.

K. 44 4 29 8. Henry Gibbes and his wife,Ann, 1636. St James’s, Bristol.

L. No visible accession number. Edmund Forde, 1440. Swainswick, E. of Bristol, N. ofBath - c. 13 miles

M. No visible accession number. Roger Harper and his wife, Johanna, 1493. Axbridge,W. of Cheddar - c. 15 miles.

N. No visible accession number. John Martok, 1503.Banwell, 5 miles E. of Weston-Super-Mare - c. 15 miles.

75 See Dame Miriam Rothschild, Dear Lord Rothschild: Birds, Butterflies and History (London, 1983), pp. 102, 118.



O. No visible accession number. Raphe Jenyns and his wife, Jhane, 1572. Churchill, SSW.of Bristol - c. 13 miles.

P. 44 4 29 5. John Blandon and his wife, Elizabeth, 1554. Banwell, 5 miles E. of Weston-Super-Mare - c. 15 miles.

Q. 44 4 29 25. John Cutte and his wife, Ioane, 1575. Burnett, ESE. of Bristol - c. 6 miles.

R. 44 4 29 24. Rice Davis and his wife, Dorothie, 1638. Backwell, WSW. of Bristol - c. 7 miles

S. 44 4 29 17-18. Anne Longe, wife of Gyfford Longe, 1602. Bradford-on-Avon, E. ofBristol - c. 20 miles.

T. 1. No visible accession number. Thomas Horton and his wife, Mary, 1530. Bradford-on-Avon, E. of Bristol - c. 20 miles.

T. 2. No visible accession number. Alexander Staples and his wives, Elizabeth and Ann,1590.Yate, ENE. of Bristol - c. 10 miles.

U. 1, 2. No visible accession number. Thomas, 4th Baron Berkeley, and his wife, 1417.Wotton-under-Edge, NNE. of Bristol - c. 17 miles.

V. 44 4 29 16. Full length female figure, circa 1370. Winterbourne, NE. of Bristol - c. 5 miles.

W. 44 4 29 20. Sir Walter and Morys Denys, 1505 (see fig. 1). Olveston, N. of Bristol - c. 8 miles.

X. 44 4 29 13. Full length female figure above a sepulchral inscription to Thomas Tyndall,1571.Thornbury, NNE. of Bristol - c. 11 miles.

APPENDIX II

THE COLVIN LIST

The Additional Manuscript numbers assigned to the brass-rubbings by the Department of Manuscripts,where identified, are supplied in square brackets, together with other relevant information.

BM/CA. Original Papers, 1885, p. 2151.

Rubbings from Monumental Brasses, transferredfrom the Department of Prints & Drawings

to the Department of MSS., June 1885.

38 parcels and 3 separate rubbings on rollers; in all 578 rubbings. Presented by RobertHutchison, Esq., as executor of the Rev.Aeneas Barkly Hutchison.(1867.12.14.972-1549) [Add. MS. 32489]

35 bound volumes, and a large quantity in loose sheets. Presented by J.A.Addington, Esq.(1885.2.14.112) [Add. MS. 32490]

1 tall volume and a parcel of the same size. Craven Ord Collection.(no inventory or register mark.) [Add. MSS. 32478, 32479]

2 parcels, one containing duplicates. Douce Collection.(no inventory or register mark) [See Craven Ord Collection above,Add. MSS. 32478, 32479]



1 parcel. Aldridge Collection.(no inventory or register mark.)

2 solander cases, containing 490 rubbings. Davy Collection for Suffolk.Transferred from Dept. of MSS. (1853.1.12.847-1336) [Add. MSS. 32483, 32484]

2 parcels. Presented by Albert Way, Esq.(no inventory or register mark.)[Includes:Add. MS. 32485 B 1: ‘Aug.11.1837’ (fig. 4)Add. MS. 32485 B 2: ‘Aug. 1837’Add. MS. 32485 C: ‘Nov 29.1837’Add. MS. 32485 D 3&4: UndatedAdd. MS. 32485 D 5&6: ‘Apr 17/37’Add. MS. 32485 E 2: ‘April 1837’Add. MS. 32485 E 3: UndatedAdd. MS. 32485 F 1: ‘April 1837’Add. MS. 32485 F 2: ‘Apr 25/37’Add. MS. 32485 F 3: UndatedAdd. MS. 32485 H 5: ‘16 March 1837’Add. MS. 32485 H 6: UndatedAdd. MS. 32485 I 1&2: Undated]

2 parcels. Purchased from Mr. Powell.(1844.4.29.1- ) [Add. MS. 32480]

24 rubbings, mounted on linen with rollers. (?) Faulkner Collection.(no inventory or register mark.)

1 parcel. Presented by Lieut. Newnham, R.N.(no register or inventory mark. Presentation Book, I, p. 99.)

1 parcel containing 5 rubbings presented by Mr. Pulham in 1839, and 3 presented by Lieut.Newnham in 1845.(no register mark.)

1 small roll inscribed “Dulau & Co.”(no register mark.)

1 parcel containing rubbings from brasses in Castle Ashby Church and Westminster Abbey.Presented by G. P. Harding, Esq.(1839.1.26.3&4) [Add. MS. 32485 H 2, I 3-11: 1839.1.26.3 = H 2; 1839.1.26.4 = I 3, 6,7, 9; I 4, 5, 8, 10, 11 = Unmarked, but similar.]

1 rubbing from brass of Sir Arthur Gorges, Chelsea. Presented by Mr. Faulkner.(no inventory or register mark) [Add. MS. 32486, f. 12; presented by Faulkner, 23 Nov.1832; see entry below for f. 11.]

1 rubbing from brass of Richard Thaseburgh. Purchased from Mrs. Curtis.(1871.6.10.708) [Add. MS. 32486, f. 13]

1 rubbing from brass of Bishop Goodrich, Ely. Presented by Rev. C. Boutell.(1848.4.15.2) [Add. MS. 32485 A 5; with Boutell’s monogram, the date 1847 and itslocation on the verso; see fig. 3.]



1 roll containing 4 rubbings (Grevel, Walley, Lethenard & Tybbys [sic]). Presented by W.Hawes, Esq. (1849.8.11.28-31) [Add. MS. 32488 B 1-4; B 1 is inscribed ‘Presented August1849 by Mr.W. Hawes, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire.’1849.8.11.28 = William Grevel, wool merchant, of Chipping Camden (Add. MS. 32488 B 1)1849.8.11.29 = William Welley (Add. MS. 32488 B 2)1849.8.11.30 = John Lethenard (Add. MS. 32488 B 3)1849.8.11.31 = William Gybbys (Add. MS. 32488 B 4)]

1 parcel containing 145 rubbings. Presented by Mrs. Rowe.[Add. MS. 32481]

2 impressions, with counterproofs, from brasses of Henry [Airay?] and Henry Robinson.Presented by the Provost [sic] & Fellows of Queen’s [sic] College, Cambridge.(1847.8.11.12-15)

1 impression, with counterproof, of inscription of brass of J. Humfre, Great Berkhampstead.Presented by A.W. Franks, Esq.(1859.2.12.121 & 122) [Add. MS. 32486, ff. 9, 10]

1 impression from brass of Sir Arthur Gorges, Chelsea. Presented by Mr. Faulkner.(1850.3.9.29) [Add. MS. 32486, f. 11; Faulkner’s presentation inscription, 1 Mar. 1850, ison the verso; f. 12a (fig. 5) is a letter from Faulkner to Sir Henry Ellis, 1 Mar. 1850,presenting f. 11; see entry above for f. 12.]

1 lithograph of brass in Higham Ferrers Church. Presented by Mr. Hartshorne.(1841.7.10.5) [Add. MS. 32486, f. 14; gold lithograph with Hartshorne’s presentationinscription to Henry Josi; see fig. 2.]

Fig. 5. Letter of Thomas Faulkner to Sir Henry Ellis, 1 March 1850, presenting a rubbing of a brass atChelsea:Add. MS. 32486, f. 12a



1 parcel containing eight rubbings, seven mounted on card and one on linen.(Origin not known; no inventory or register mark.) [Add. MS. 32486, ff. 1-8]

1 parcel of rubbings much injured.(Origin not known; no inventory or register mark.)

1 rubbing fitted in an oak box, with spring.(Origin not known; no inventory or register mark.)

4 large rubbings (Braunche, Bramstone, and two ecclesiastics), mounted on linen and tiedwith ribbons; and 1 smaller ‘bronzed and shaded’, on linen, but without ribbons.(Origin not known; no inventory or register mark.) [Add. MS. 32488 A 1, 2; C, D 2, E.Add. MS. 32488 A 1 (Bramstone), 2; C and D 2 (Braunche) are identifiable by the use ofthe same purple ribbon; Add. MS. 32488 E is annotated ‘Copy of No. 4 Bronzed &Shaded’.]

1 impression for a portion of a Flemish brass.(Origin not known; no inventory or register mark.) [Add. MS. 32486, ff. 15, 16. Inscriptionon f. 16v:‘Quaere if this be not the flemish brass mentioned by Boutell at page 10...[in] thepossession of Pugin...Boutell suggests the possibility of it being the effigy of Michael deMentmore, Abbot of St Albans who was buried 1342’. This brass was purchased at thePugin sale by the British Museum.]

S.C.

sir frederic madden and the battle of the brass · pdf filesir frederic madden and the battle...

Documents