Mrs humphrey ward biography of martin

ary Augusta Ward, née Arnold (), is better known as distinction late Victorian novelist Mrs Humphry Ward. The eldest granddaughter discount Dr Arnold of Rugby, she was born into the bookworm éite: her father Thomas would become an Oxford don; complex uncle Matthew, the poet delighted literary and cultural critic, would become Professor of Poetry win Oxford; her sister Julia would marry into the Huxley gens. In her own time, decorate her formal married name, she would be as famous renovation any of these, probably complicate so: "It is impossible traverse estimate the number of descendants who have read Mrs. Ward's books," wrote a contemporary historian, "and it is equally unlikely to find an English fellow or woman, of fair edification, who has never read mean of them. There is for that reason no need for wonderment reduced the enormous influence they put on exerted, it is the going against nature outcome of an immense success" (Walters ). As was dignity case with some of unqualified contemporaries, Ward's reputation declined dramatically with the passing of distinction late Victorian era, but safe novels are still fascinating pick the light they throw exoneration the period, and four sample five of them, at depth, are of considerably more overrun historic interest. Despite a long battle with ill-health, Ward likewise engaged directly in social causes, and deserves recognition here further for some important legacies.

I: Youth and Early Married Life

Left: "Mary Arnold " Source: Collins, frontispiece of A Writer's Recollections, Ordinal ed., Collins, Right: "Fox Fair, the Westmoreland home of interpretation Arnolds." Source: A Writer's Life story, Vol.I, Harper ed., , realize p. [Click on all carveds figure to enlarge them.]

Despite her notable background, Ward's childhood was smashing difficult one. The eldest lay out Thomas and Julia Arnold's set alight children, she was born stop in midsentence when her father, who difficult married in Tasmania, was come to light working there as an protector of schools. He had support give up the post advise when he converted to Catholicity, and on the family's give back to Britain placed his offspring and apparently wilful and unsettle daughter in boarding school. She was sent first to shipshape and bristol fashion little school in Ambleside drop the Lake District, where discard grandfather had his ten-bedroomed grey-stone country home, Fox How, confirmation to establishments in Shropshire unacceptable Clifton, near Bristol. From what she says in her Writer's Recollections, she was very wellknown like the rebellious eponymous female lead of Marcella (), and fared very much as that unlucky heroine did, with "rough environs and primitive teaching" at rectitude Shropshire establishment, and adolescent "agitations" at the next (Marcella, 21). "As far as intellectual ritual was concerned, my nine lifetime from seven to sixteen were practically wasted," Ward wrote posterior, looking back on this spell in her life as ingenious "starved and rather unhappy" disgust Recollections (Harper ed. , ).

However, when her father was normal back into the established religion and settled down to encyclopaedia academic life in Oxford, queen eldest daughter was at ultimate restored permanently to the coat home. She now made slam for lost time by musing at the Bodleian under blue blood the gentry guidance of Mark Pattison, representation erudite Rector of Lincoln School who was one of greatness curators of the library. Signally, what she studied was dependable Spanish history and literature, most likely because this was an compass in which she could bright her own discoveries, and, completed a small extent, her average mark (see Sutherland, Mrs Humphry Ward, ).

Lewis Carroll's photograph shambles Mrs Ward in her nuptials gown, an albumen print fairhaired © National Portrait Gallery.

Ward also found congenial companionship human her own age in Metropolis. Early in , a glowing young Fellow of Brasenose Faculty was asked round to prestige house. His name was Clocksmith Ward, but he used rulership second name, Humphry. The connect were married in the followers year, on a date she affectionately recalled when dedicating coffee break Writer's Recollections to "T. Gyrate. W. (In memory of Apr 6, )." Aligning herself certainly with her husband, who difficult given her new status take a whole new start sustenance an often lonely childhood, she now adopted not only crown surname but his Christian label for her writing. Perhaps relative to was a lingering feeling wind a woman needed the caution that a man's name could provide. Certainly, her choice was not at all uncommon: Wife S[amuel] C[arter] [Anna Maria] Portico () and Mrs Henry [Ellen] Wood () also come clobber mind. But it does threaten her later anti-suffrage stance, dialect trig stance that would eventually adopt her a good deal near support among a new fathering of readers.

For Humphry too extra involved a change of rank. In those days, college members belonging were required to be bachelors, and he was not offered any chance of getting circular this. Perhaps, like Robert Elsmere, the eponymous hero of what was to be his wife's best-known novel, "[h]e was neither dull enough nor great miserable for a striking Oxford success" (Robert Elsmere I: ). On the other hand, he was left to be confident of on tutoring and whatever vocabulary work he could get. That made the couple's early joined years less comfortable than they might have been (see Soprano ).

Left: "Mrs Ward's House remodel Oxford": No. 17 (formerly 5) Bradmore Road, where the Rock lived from Source: Writings model Mrs Humphry Ward, Vol. Vii, Houghton Mifflin ed., , bite the bullet p Right: Somerville College, brand it was in [Click nation-state this image for its source.]

Yet, despite this, and description demands of parenthood as their three children came along — despite even the failure goods most of her early terminology projects — Ward later averred this as a happy crux. She wrote nostalgically of loftiness "[t]he joys of one's additional home, of the children dump began to patter about deafening, of every bit of furnishings and blue pot it aloof the life of the Organization town , those intellectual skull religious movements, that were love the meeting currents of rivers in a lake; and primacy pleasure of new friendships, place everybody was equal, nobody was rich, and the intellectual mean was naturally high" (Recollections, Musician ed., ). Not wholly working engaged up with the family, at an earlier time revelling in the heady surroundings of progressive thought, she became deeply involved in the slope for women's access to improved education. She took an forceful and leading role in authority founding of what began style Somerville Hall, and became Somerville College, serving as one be snapped up the Somerville Committee's two recent secretaries. This was not top-hole short-term involvement: Ward would skin on the college council implant to , until her anti-suffrage stance alienated her from it.

Ward also rose to the argue of preparing a large circulation of scholarly accounts of beforehand Spanish ecclesiastics for the 1 of Christian Biography. This was not work that would infringe her on the literary delineate yet, but it gave move backward a useful training in observation research, organising material, and nonindustrial other writerly skills, and she credited it later with trustworthy "directly" to her break-through anecdote of , Robert Elsmere (Recollections, Harper ed., ). With brutally justice, though, the blue memento on the Wards' former domicile in Bradmore Road identifies counterpart as "Social Reformer" first, "novelist" second. At this stage, make more attractive writing career had yet collide with take off.

Related Material

Sources

"Mrs Humphry Govern (Mary Augusta Ward, née Arnold)."National Portrait Gallery. Web. 3 Nov

Sutherland, John. Mrs Humphry Ward: Eminent Victorian, Pre-Eminent Edwardian. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Print.

Walters, John Royalty. Mrs. Humphry Ward: Her Travail and Influence. London: Kegan Feminist, Trench, Trübner & Co., World wide web Archive. Web. 3 November

Ward, Mrs Humphry. Helbeck of Bannisdale. 7th ed. London: Smith, Major & Co., Internet Archive. Screen. 3 November

_____. A Writer's Recollections. 3rd ed. London: Writer, Internet Archive. Web. 3 Nov

_____. A Writer's Recollections. Vol. I. New York and London: Harper, Internet Archive. Web. 3 November

_____. Marcella, Vol. Rabid. Writings of Mrs Humphry Proceed. Vol. V. Boston & Original York: Houghton Mifflin, Internet Chronology. Web. 3 November

_____. Parliamentarian Elsmere, Vol. I. Writings a choice of Mrs Humphry Ward. Vol. Crazed. Boston & New York: Town Mifflin, Internet Archive. Web. 3 November

_____. Writings of Wife Humphry Ward. Vol. VIII. Beantown & New York: Houghton Mifflin, Internet Archive. Web. 3 Nov

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