Whilst sorting his family papers, Mr John Pym recently found the photograph below, which undoubtedly shows George Calderon on the right. It is a contact print of a photograph, obviously not in sharp focus, which Mr Pym and I believe was probably taken by his grandmother, Violet Pym (1881-1927), who was a keen photographer.
The back is inscribed as follows in the hand of either Violet’s husband Charles Evelyn Pym (1879-1971) or their son John Pym (1908-93): K. & G. Calderon about 1905. However, the woman sitting next to George is older, much fuller in the face, and less fashionably dressed than Kittie in another photo of 1905, reproduced on page 204 of my biography. Who, then, might this person be, and the lady on the far left?
The previously unknown photograph, c. 1905
John Pym believes that the seat is one from Foxwold that he now owns, but that the massive trunk behind it is not one of a tree at Foxwold; rather, perhaps, that of a cedar planted by Frederic Lubbock (1844-1927) at nearby Emmetts. The seat may originally have been at Emmetts, therefore, and the photograph taken there.
We know from Foxwold’s Visitors Book that there was only one occasion when George and Kittie stayed at Foxwold in 1905, and that was on 27 December in the company of an old friend of the Pyms, the humorous writer Anstey Guthrie. It would be perfectly normal for the Foxwold party to visit Emmetts on that occasion, as Charles Evelyn Pym had married Frederic and Catherine Lubbock’s daughter Violet earlier that year (although the couple were living in Sussex). The person to the left of George might therefore be the then-resident of Foxwold, C.E. Pym’s stepmother Jane Hannah Backhouse Pym (1852-1912). The person to the left of her bears some resembance to Catherine Lubbock (1850-1934).
All this is speculation, however, as the inscription says only ‘about 1905’, there looks to be more foliage on the trees than one would expect on 27 December, and surely it would be odd for George to be wearing a boater in winter? On the other hand, he does look slightly crumpled, and this would accord with his state of health at the time (see pages 202-7 of the biography). On 28 December 1905 Nina Corbet’s son Jim wrote to Kittie that he hoped ‘Uncle George’s’ health was better for having had a Christmas holiday. The alternative date for 1905 is 21 May, when George’s signature appears in the Foxwold Weigh-in Book, but not in the Visitors Book.
I am touched and immensely grateful to John Pym that he has added this photograph to his already generous donations to the Calderon archive. Together with other items of Calderoniana that I have bought or been given since 2019, it will eventually join George and Kittie’s papers at the Houghton Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
Related
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
George Calderon c.1901
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Captain of the 11
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George Calderon, 1912
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
A new photograph of George Calderon
Whilst sorting his family papers, Mr John Pym recently found the photograph below, which undoubtedly shows George Calderon on the right. It is a contact print of a photograph, obviously not in sharp focus, which Mr Pym and I believe was probably taken by his grandmother, Violet Pym (1881-1927), who was a keen photographer.
The back is inscribed as follows in the hand of either Violet’s husband Charles Evelyn Pym (1879-1971) or their son John Pym (1908-93): K. & G. Calderon about 1905. However, the woman sitting next to George is older, much fuller in the face, and less fashionably dressed than Kittie in another photo of 1905, reproduced on page 204 of my biography. Who, then, might this person be, and the lady on the far left?
The previously unknown photograph, c. 1905
John Pym believes that the seat is one from Foxwold that he now owns, but that the massive trunk behind it is not one of a tree at Foxwold; rather, perhaps, that of a cedar planted by Frederic Lubbock (1844-1927) at nearby Emmetts. The seat may originally have been at Emmetts, therefore, and the photograph taken there.
We know from Foxwold’s Visitors Book that there was only one occasion when George and Kittie stayed at Foxwold in 1905, and that was on 27 December in the company of an old friend of the Pyms, the humorous writer Anstey Guthrie. It would be perfectly normal for the Foxwold party to visit Emmetts on that occasion, as Charles Evelyn Pym had married Frederic and Catherine Lubbock’s daughter Violet earlier that year (although the couple were living in Sussex). The person to the left of George might therefore be the then-resident of Foxwold, C.E. Pym’s stepmother Jane Hannah Backhouse Pym (1852-1912). The person to the left of her bears some resembance to Catherine Lubbock (1850-1934).
All this is speculation, however, as the inscription says only ‘about 1905’, there looks to be more foliage on the trees than one would expect on 27 December, and surely it would be odd for George to be wearing a boater in winter? On the other hand, he does look slightly crumpled, and this would accord with his state of health at the time (see pages 202-7 of the biography). On 28 December 1905 Nina Corbet’s son Jim wrote to Kittie that he hoped ‘Uncle George’s’ health was better for having had a Christmas holiday. The alternative date for 1905 is 21 May, when George’s signature appears in the Foxwold Weigh-in Book, but not in the Visitors Book.
I am touched and immensely grateful to John Pym that he has added this photograph to his already generous donations to the Calderon archive. Together with other items of Calderoniana that I have bought or been given since 2019, it will eventually join George and Kittie’s papers at the Houghton Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
ADVERTISEMENT
SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS
‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement
‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine
‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian
‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’ Michael Pursglove, East-West Review
‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter
‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer
‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18
A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.
A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.
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