THE WELL-TURNED PHRASE

 

Although it’s somewhat oxymoronic to notice the absence of something, regular readers will perhaps have noticed that I strive to avoid using clichés.  Therein lies a problem, though.  If, despite being worn out by overuse, the cliché is just right then one must use it and be damned.  As with my alertness to the wrong positioning of the word “only” in a sentence - the fetish I call only watching - so too my cliché watching fetish:  both were pointed out to me with such impact that they stuck like limpets.  My only watching was triggered by a university friend, not as a throwaway comment, but as a seriously-meant injunction.  As to clichés: my awareness of their prevalence, and the good sense of trying to avoid their use, came from my time of National Service training.  All the recruits destined for the subsequent embrace of the Melbourne University “officer training” Regiment were given instruction in public speaking – focussing on such matters as impromptu speech making, the elimination of ums and ahs by filling spaces with silence, and recognition and avoidance of clichés (1). 

 

The avoidance of the overuse of clichés is the result of training and experience.   The recognition and appreciation of a well-turned phrase, however, is more instinctive, a more personal predilection.

 

The beauty of the well-turned phrase was once again highlighted for me when I wrote recently about the depiction of the Battle of Hastings in the Bayeux Tapestry (2).  That portrayal was from an August 1968 National Geographic mega-article, The Norman Conquest. The article had resulted from a special assignment to commemorate the Tapestry’s 900^th anniversary.  The assignment was undertaken by three photographers, and Kenneth Sutton, writer.   As well as giving close attention to the Bayeux Tapestry, Sutton spent some time travelling in France.  

 

Professor Kenneth Sutton (1914 – 1995) was an historian of note, and an expert on the history of medieval Europe.  A graduate of Boston and Columbia Universities, he taught at the Universities of Manitoba, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and was a member of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton.  He was fluent in several languages, including – in addition to the usual suspects – classical Greek and Catalan.  So he was something of a big enchilada, not your typical choice for the wordsmith to accompany the photo-shoot assignment.

 

And in reading the National Geographic article I was conscious of some remarkable Sutton sentences – breathtaking to the point that further adjectives fail me.  And not glib, but wise.  So surprise, surprise, we arrive at the point of this Piece - to share some beautiful writing, some beautiful turns of phrase if you must, but with no other cliché in sight. 

 

So here are some of Kenneth Sutton’s observations and profundities.

 

On his road journey:

 

A grim cold lay over the landscape.

 

A discouraging rain renewed its steady patter on the windscreen. 

 

On history:

 

Great men, great cities, and great nations supply the themes for great history.

 

Time destroys the past as history seeks to preserve it.

 

He was engaged in the dangerous business of making history; we were merely writing it.

 

Sometimes we suspect that Clio, the muse of history, tries her hand at roulette.

 

Tourism has done history many a good turn.

 

Social comment:

 

The various grades of peasantry survived apparently unchanged, working their weary way through life.

 

Westminster Abbey:  Abode of dead royalty and departed genius.

 

One sees more old drunks than old physicians.

 

And echoes of U.S.A. 2020 to come:

 

When idiocy reaches the sublime it must command an incredulous awe. 

 

I hope that you, too, have been impressed by the insightfulness of Kenneth Sutton, and his turns of phrase.

 

(1)       I posted a Pieces to Share blog on 16 October 2011 about my National Service experience, titled Army Days.  

(2)        See the Pieces to Share blog Britain in Pictures - Number 4, under Battlefields of Britain, posted 15 September 2020. 

 

Gary Andrews

BRITAIN IN PICTURES - NUMBER 6

 

 

#1 The English Poets by David Cecil

 

David Cecil (1902 to 1986) was an English biographer and historian.  He was prodigiously prolific - some fifteen biographies and about as many more studies of literature and poetry.  I purposely put “biographer” before “historian” because in a quick review of Cecil’s publications, history seems to occupy a back seat behind literature. More accurate, perhaps, to describe him as a scholar.

 

Cecil was one who rose from the ranks of the aristocracy [did Oscar Wilde say that, or did I make it up?].  Born Edward Christian David Gascoyne-Cecil, Cecil was the younger son of a marquis and, through the quaint rules of the English gentry, accordingly carried the courtesy title of “Lord”.  At various times he was a professor of rhetoric in London, and Professor of English Literature at Oxford where he was also a Fellow of New College.  This latter position was one clearly designed to provide Cecil with time to think rather than time to work, that is, time to work as a teacher.  There is an anecdote involving the writer, Kingsley Amis, when a student at Oxford:  “Amis’s allocated supervisor was Lord David Cecil, who seemed disinclined to supervise anything at all; after a term and a half had passed without any contact between them, Amis decided to go in search of him at New College.  This caused much amusement at the porters’ lodge, as if he had asked for the Shah of Persia: ‘Oh no, sir.  Lord David?  Oh, you’d have to get up very early in the morning to get hold of him.  Oh dear.  Oh, dear.  Lord David in college, well I never did.’”  A clue, perhaps, to the extent of Cecil’s literary output; and a clue to his being chosen as the expert author of this study of The English Poets; and his ability to deliver.  Note that this volume is the first in the Britain in Pictures series.  

 

I did not set out to review Cecil’s observations poet by poet – a few words on each would simply do no justice.  Moreover, my lack of first-hand knowledge would be exposed.  However, as you will find, it didn’t quite turn out that way, and poet-by-poet proved to be the natural format.  And after some close attention this student is obliged to acknowledge that Cecil is one mightily informed gentleman.  Despite his scarce presence at New College Cecil was a heavyweight.  But first, I thought to hold some of Cecil’s more didactic observations up to the light. 

 

The thing about generalisations is that they are generally true.  The other thing about generalisations is that they are generally not true.  Thus, when Cecil asserts that: “The Italians are famous for their painting, the Germans for their music, the Russians for their novels.  England is distinguished for her poets,” we know what he means, we accept that there’s some truth in it, but feel in our water that it really can’t be true. It’s just a cute way of positing that English poets are better than all others.  How Cecil proves his point when he discusses no poets other than the English escaped me.

 

“Shakespeare, Milton, Byron are acknowledged to be among the supreme poets of the world.”  No prisoners taken with this statement; you’d better believe it.  Not only have I spoken, but I am speaking for you too.  But it seems the big three are only “among” the supreme poets; so the assertion isn’t much of an assertion at all.

 

“Seven or eight other English poets deserve world-wide fame.”  Here we go: there are worthy English poets other than the big three; but Cecil is starting to sound patronising now.

 

 “The greatness of English poetry has been astonishingly continuous……….German music and Italian painting flourished, at most, for two hundred years.  England has gone on producing great poets from the fourteenth century to to-day.”  Bold stuff.

 

“That the English should have chosen poetry as the chief channel for their artistic talent is the result partly of their circumstances, partly of their temperament.”  Here at last we have Cecil the scholar, not the publicist.  Hopefully, he will succeed in proving his point.

 

“English is a poet’s language.  It is ideally suited for description or for the expression of emotion.  It is flexible, it is varied, it has an enormous vocabulary; able to convey every subtle diverse shade, to make vivid before the mental eye any picture it wishes to conjure up.  Moreover, its very richness helps it to evoke those indefinite moods, those visionary flights of fancy which so much of the material of poetry is composed.  There is no better language in the world for touching the heart and setting the imagination aflame.”  Apart from the concluding generalisation, this analysis of the English language seems to nail it.

 

Turning to the specifics, can I find among Cecil’s brief analyses of those poets he chooses to profile an even briefer snippet or bon mot?  As what follows will show, many of my words are simply direct quotes from Cecil: it would be presumptuous to try to improve on them!  I trust that my admiration for his scholarship shines through.

 

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 – 1400):  It was the genius of Chaucer that first turned the medieval language of the day into a language suitable for versification.  And Chaucer was a consummate storyteller.

 

Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593):  Marlowe was a “dramatic poet of genius”, with his plays expressing “line after line of triumphant eloquence”.

 

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616):  “It was he alone who had the capacity to impose order on the brilliant chaos of Elizabethan drama.”  Cecil makes no specific reference to Shakespeare’s sonnets (although Sonnet 29 “When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes” is reproduced), but regards the plays as poetry  in a broader sense.  I venture that his two page analysis of Shakespeare’s achievement is equal to many a 400-page tome on the same.

 

John Donne (1573 – 1631):  Fuelled by a restless intelligence, occasionally his “passion and intellect fuse together to attain a white heat of sensual or spiritual ecstasy unique in English poetry”.  Donne’s “rhythms are complex, his imagery audacious and grotesque”.  After pages of “harsh and puzzling riddles….suddenly comes a passage whose every word quivers, shining and transparent as a living flame”.  Who’s the poet here?

 

John Milton (1608 – 1674):  “A scholar, a philosopher and a puritan” Milton, considered that the only type of poetry worth writing should be elevated, and should “enshrine in imperishable words the highest truths known to man”.  This description shouts “boring”, but Cecil’s praise is unstinting.  In contrast to Shakespeare, Milton exudes “refined and disciplined taste.  His style is all marble and precious stones.”

 

Cecil tells us that Milton marked the end of an era - the end of civil and religious wars, and the end of the English Renaissance. The poetry that followed lacked the former “sensual and spiritual splendour”, and lacked also “its confusion and its extravagance”.  The society of the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century displayed “civilised equilibrium, untroubled by fundamental issues”, where manners, good sense and good taste prevailed.  This was reflected in the poetry of the times, predominantly social poetry, but not inferior.  Not with “the elemental passions of man, nor with his solitary dreams and visions”, but “the poetry of home and town and fashionable life, of friendship, flirtation and worldly wisdom”. Hence –

 

John Dryden (1631 – 1700) seems stimulated “by his pleasure in practising the craft of letters” and whose “most commonplace thoughts are warmed into poetry by the sheer virile accomplishment of his writing and snap of his superb versification”. [Could Dryden have ever written so brilliant a sentence as that?]

 

Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744) represents elegance versus Dryden’s strength, with a “delicate sense of style which he polished to the last degree of gleaming finish”. “Pope set the standard of taste for his age”, and – Cecil tells us – none of his early successors equalled him.

 

William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850):  A mystic of nature, the spirit of the Universe communicated to him through still waters and wooded silences [I am paraphrasing Cecil].  “His work is ludicrously unequal…..but now and then inspiration seizes him: and he rises to a height of serene, spiritual sublimity (sic) unparalleled in English poetry.” 

 

John Keats (1795 – 1821) said that he “loved the principle of beauty in all things”, and Cecil asserts that the object of Keats’ poetry “was to express this love”; and “he was equipped to do it”.  And although “some of his work is marred by a youthful floridity, he had a gift for the right word, for the exact visualising phrase, that can only be compared to Shakespeare’s”.  

 

Percy Shelley (1792 – 1822):  “Take it all in all, he is the most wonderful lyrical poet England has ever produced.”

 

George Byron (1788 -1824):  “A dynamic, theatrical personality, ruthlessly observant of other people and morbidly sensitive to their opinion of himself he both lived and wrote with one eye fixed upon his audience.  They returned his gaze.  He was a brilliant and eloquent commentator on the active life of man.”

 

Alfred Tennyson (1809 – 1892):  Cecil says that Tennyson had a “natural gift for the lovely evocative phrase” and a similar sensibility to Keats.  But he “was a more accomplished craftsman, and his best work is a miracle of finished art. Only, he lacked Keats’s divine fire”. “The Victorian age, strenuous and puritanical, took the view that poetry should teach a moral lesson, and Tennyson yielded to the pressure of his age.”  “All the same, Tennyson is a great poet.”

 

Robert Browning (1812 – 1889):  His individualistic style is “conversational, slap-dash, and freaked all over with the grotesque quips of Browning’s fancy” and “often obscure and ugly”.  But he is “most exciting reading: bursting with life and passion and possessed of a subtle insight into the processes of men’s minds”.

 

Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888):  Arnold was a “serious-minded academic person, learned in the literature of the past”. “In words of restrained and poignant eloquence, Arnold voices the profound melancholy which was beginning to permeate the more thoughtful minds of his time.”

 

Cecil’s survey doesn’t end there, but he has exhausted the big guns, and his remaining poets are – I venture – merely included for completeness.  The claims to greatness that might have touched some of them when Cecil was writing in 1942 had not yet been validated by history.  Indeed, at the risk of being accused of lazy list-making, query how many of the following are today “household names”, or even recognised as poets at all:  Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 – 1882), William Morris (1834 – 1896), Algernon Swinburne (1837 – 1909); Edward Fitzgerald (1809 – 1883); A.E. Housman (1859 – 1936); Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928); Robert Bridges (1844 – 1930); and more, concluding with T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965).

 

At the outset, Cecil set out to evaluate ten or eleven English poets who deserve world-wide fame.  In the event, luckily for us, he ranged much wider.  I found his dissertation to be beyond insightful. 

 

 Let me, in conclusion, lower the bar a little.  On my shelf is a small cloth-bound paperback (?) I received as a boy, about 1948 I would guess.  I have scrawled my name on the flyleaf – in a fairer hand, I confess, than I have been able to manage later in adult life.  Two Hundred Poems for Boys and Girls. One poem is by Austin Dobson (1840 – 1921), a writer known principally as a literary biographer, but a prolific poet too.  Dobson’s poem, The Child Musician, is a sentimental piece verging on the mawkish, but it so appealed that I learnt it as a boy; and I remember it still:

 

He had played for his lordship’s levee,

   He had played for her ladyship’s whim,

Till the poor little head was heavy,

   And the poor little brain would swim.

 

And the face grew peaked and eerie,

   And the large eyes strange and bright,

And they said – too late – “He is weary!

   He shall rest for, at least, tonight!”

 

But at dawn, when the birds were waking,

   As they watched in the silent room,

With a sound of a strained cord breaking,

   A something snapped in the room.

 

‘Twas a string of his violincello,

   And they heard him stir in his bed:-

“Make room for a tired little fellow,

   Kind God!” – was the last he said.

 

 

#66 The English Bible by Sir Herbert Grierson

 

This volume,The English Bible, was published in 1943 and thus pre-dated the significant Biblical developments of the 20^th Century’s second half. Here I hasten to interject a caveat about my use of the word significant.  I am using it in the everyday sense of important, rather than tied to a 5% probability as statisticians might. I ascribe to the growth in Biblical scholarship since 1943 a considerably greater than 5% significance.  The Revised Standard Version, an updated-language version produced by the American Churches of Christ (New Testament 1946, Old Testament 1953) was the go-to version of my youth.  With its scholarly severance from three hundred and fifty years of the King James version, the RSV is a version no longer in the language of old.  But even by the 1960s it was still not happily accepted by all sects and congregations.  Then came the New English Bible (New Testament 1961, Old Testament 1970) [revised and rebadged as the Revised English Bible in 1989], produced by multiple committees of translators and advisers - the high water mark of its time.

 

 It would be insightful to know what Sir Herbert Grierson thought of these later worthy versions of Holy Writ; and, indeed, his opinion of the 1982 Reader’s Digest Bible – which, consistent with the Digest’s penchant for pithiness, abbreviated the Revised Standard Version down to about 45% of the Old Testament and 75% of the New Testament.  Easy to read, presumably through omitting all the begats from the Old, and the duplicates of the miracles from the New.
 

As to what Grierson thought of the English Bible in his day:  I have chosen not to attempt a distillation, neither of Grierson’s commentary nor of the Bible itself!  For his part the study must have been salutary – Grierson lived for 94 years, from 1866 to 1960.  A son of Lerwick on Shetland, he was Professor of English Literature at Aberdeen for 21 years followed by a professorship of English Literature at Edinburgh for 20 years.  His special research field was 17^th Century English poets.  He was not, therefore, a theologian – not a practising one, at least.  “No living writer is better equipped…….to expound the fascinating history of the English Bible and its great influence on our language and literature”, so says the flap. Hence this is not to be an exposition of the theology of the Bible, or an apologia, but rather the Bible as literature.  Either way, I am ill equipped to offer a critique.

 

So there I leave it…..except to bemoan the gaping fissures that criss-cross the landscape of organised religion:  the silly insistence of some adherents that every word of scripture is “gospel truth”; the inability of some adherents to live comfortably with the different views (interpretations) of their co-religionists, let alone the views of those of other faiths; the sheer nastiness that so often spews from people of faith and so-called good will.  In so saying, I mean no ill will to those who wear their faiths lightly.

 

Footnote: When, in 1955, I went (by steamer) on the Sun Youth Travel tour of the United Kingdom it was suggested that each youthful traveller should take a Bible for private devotion.  I reneged at this somewhat ostentatious suggestion, but did agree to take with me Through the Bible by Theodora Wilson Wilson.  This book told the Bible story in language accessible to young people, with – notwithstanding its 602 pages – a suitable amount of simplification and bowdlerisation.  In travelling around Britain for seven weeks, and on the sea voyages to and fro, lugging this massive book with me, I doubt that I read half a page of it – but I sure as hell wore a lot of guilt for my apostasy.

 

 

#119 The British Theatre by Bernard Miles

 

Bernard Miles (1907 to 1991), the author of The British Theatre, was known to Australian audiences for numerous film appearances, but never as the star.  His “character actor” persona was enhanced by his rural/regional accent, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire we’re told. He capitalised on this bucolic flavour in a number of comic phonograph recordings.  His climb up the ladder of fame was slow – in 14 of his 19 earliest films, released from 1933 to 1940, he was uncredited.  Remember him, later, as gentle Joe Gargery in David Lean’s Great Expectations.

 

But, this man of the mild screen image, was the second actor only after Laurence Olivier to be awarded a life peerage.  A Commander of the British Empire from 1953, he was knighted in 1969, and created Baron Miles in 1979 (all life peers are barons).  Not for his film acting, that’s for sure.  It was his career in the theatre that did it, and not just his treading on the boards.  He had gone on the stage not long after Cambridge.  Years of provincial repertory followed, with the attendant jack-of-all-trades theatrical experience.  He stage managed, and directed productions, and in time he played Iago in the West End. But the trigger for his elevation to the peerage was his founding of the Mermaid Theatre.

 

Miles and his actress wife, Josephine Wilson, raised the funds and oversaw the construction of the Mermaid, opened in 1959. It was built in the docks area of London (not the West End), and was the first theatre built in that area since Shakespeare’s time.  Furthermore, it was the first London theatre to abandon the traditional stalls and gallery configuration, having instead a single auditorium level with stage on three sides.

 

Miles was also a student of the theatre, as this volume attests.  He had “a unique collection of theatrical books, portraits and autobiographical letters” which doubtless informed this survey of British theatre.  There is much of interest in the survey:  the early involvement of the Church in primitive drama; the passing of “theatre” into the hands of the mediaeval guilds; plays and pageants in the open air – at markets and on village greens; the evolution of elaborate costuming and special effects.  “Thus in the days when work, worship and recreation were inseparable, the theatre grew out of the everyday life of the English people, who were its first playwrights, actors, wardrobe mistresses, property masters and stage directors.”  “In fact, the whole thing was home-grown.”

 

In response to the decline of the trade guilds the actors took to the roads to support themselves, becoming the first “strolling players”.  In the sixteenth century companies of such players were formed to perform in the castles and country estates of “wealthy and cultured noblemen”.  In 1576 one of these companies was responsible for the building of the first theatre for public entertainment, modestly named The Theatre. (Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558; Shakespeare was born in 1564, and his first plays likely date from the early 1590s).   The Globe theatre was built in London by Shakespeare and five friends in 1599 – using recycled timber from the demolished The Theatre.  The Globe was said to have housed a little over two thousand people.  One of the early actors to play the stage of the Globe was Richard Burbage (1567 – 1619), son of one of the syndicate of owners. Burbidge created many of Shakespeare’s greatest characters.  Miles bravely asserts it likely that Burbage “was vocally superior to any actor before or since”, and quotes from an elegy on Burbage’s death:

         “……………..……every thought and mood

          Might thoroughly from his face be understood.

          And his whole action he could change with ease,

          From ancient Leare to youthful Pericles.”.

 

Miles continues: “We don’t know how much the actors earned, because the companies were run on a commonwealth system, all profits being shared after working expenses had been deducted.   They gave only two public performances a week, but were doing shows almost every evening at Court or in private houses - in return for food and drink and a whip around.  Thus payment was by results, and a stake in the show was part of each actor’s birthright…….later this birthright was stolen, and the art of the theatre was slowly but surely dragged into the realm of commerce….”.

 

That dragging was a little delayed by the Puritans, and the closure of the theatres in 1642.  The Civil War period (1642 – 1651), and some years beyond, provided no employment for the theatrical community, but with the return of the monarchy in 1660 there was “a period of intense theatrical activity”, the principal feature being the erection of theatres that for the first time featured the picture-frame stage.  The “playhouse became a combination of two separate rooms, one containing the audience and the other containing the actors….”.  In referencing Duke’s Theatre, which opened in1671 with a 1200-person house, Miles writes rather bitterly:  “Armed guards were posted in the vestibule and on the stage itself, to see that no one cheated the box office, and to restore order in the event of a brawl.  For the audience were mostly well-to-do and mostly vicious, and as the men usually wore swords and came not to see and hear but to be seen and heard, and to show off their fine clothes and their quick wits and to solicit the women, it is no wonder that there were frequent quarrels or that some of them ended fatally.”

 

Fair to say that Miles expends most of his effort in portraying the great actors of earlier times.  My survey is less comprehensive.  My earlier thumbnail sketches of long-gone poets [earlier in this Blog] could each be used as a prompt for seeking out the author’s works, but the work of a long-dead actor is ephemeral – it is anchored in the time of the performance and cannot be revisited today.  Nevertheless, it would be churlish not at least to mention briefly some of the stars of Miles’s survey; so now a quick run–through.

 

David Garrick (1717  - 1779) is introduced by Miles as the one “still accepted as our greatest actor”. Utterly unprovable, but we get the idea. Garrick dominated the London stage, not only as actor but also as manager of the Drury Lane Theatre. His greatest claim to genius, so says Miles, was his filling-in of “looks, action and deportment” between the lines.  “He first grasped that the core of acting lies in the pause, during which the actor loosens or tightens the cords of suspense and raises that expectation which is the life and soul of the theatre.”  And Garrick abjured the then practice of dropping out of character when not central to the action – as a contemporary writes:  “When three or four are on the stage with him, he is attentive to whatever is spoke, and never drops his character when he has finished a speech, by either looking contemptuously on an inferior performer, unnecessary spitting, or suffering his eyes to wander through the whole circle of spectators.” 

 

Sarah Siddons (1755 – 1831) was from the theatrical Kemble family, and was on the stage as soon as she could walk.  She played with Garrick in her early twenties, but was overcome with nervousness, retiring to the provinces until her triumphal return in 1782 – when “she knocked London flat”.  Thereafter her career “was one long triumph”.  “She was gifted with great intelligence, a tall and splendid figure, fine features, wonderful eyes and a magnificent voice.”  There is a story that in one performance, where her lover is strangled before her eyes, the reality of her agony and convulsive words as she sank lifeless to the floor caused the audience first to hush, and then to clamour for the curtain to be dropped in the belief that she had died.  Even though the manager gave assurance that the actor was alive “the audience would not suffer the performance to be resumed”.

 

Another member of the Kemble family was John Kemble (1757 – 1823), Sarah Siddons’ younger brother.  “Cold, dignified, cultured and correct, he looked ‘like a man about to sneeze’.”  He once repeated 1500 lines from Homer by heart, without a mistake.

 

The ascendancy of Sarah Siddons and John Kemble on the London stage continued until 1814, until eclipsed by Edmund Kean (1787 – 1833), of whom it was said he read Shakespeare as if “reading it by flashes of lightning”.  “Of uncertain parentage, born and bred in the gutter, subjected until the very hour of his London triumph to every kind of misery, privation and disappointment, he had all the actor’s gifts except pure inches – the penetrating eye, the stirring and heartbreaking voice, tigerish grace of movement, and a mixture of fiery and melancholy temperament……..He could dance and sing and tumble, and was one of the best swordsmen of his day……..the greatest actor since Garrick.”

 

A seventeen-year-old actor was offered employment in a London theatre but chose the provinces instead.; and – some 600 roles and 16 years later – emerged in London as Henry Irving (1838 – 1905), and became the leader of the London stage.  Irving lacked the physical apparatus that should accompany a great actor, and his vocal deficiencies should have disqualified him from playing Shakespeare’s great tragic heroes, but he had will and imagination, strong personality and acute dramatic sense.   Thus he was able “to substitute values of personal magnetism and stagecraft for the gifts which he lacked, and the result was a series of the most thrilling performances since the death of Kean”.

 

Partnering Irving through much of his career was Ellen Terry (1847 – 1928).  Miles describes Terry as “a unique commingling of emotion and intelligence with a glorious face and lovely figure” and is probably not alone in thinking her “one of the most entrancing women ever born”.  And with a 64-year stage career she could probably act too!  Terry was the leading lady in Irving’s Lyceum Theatre production company from 1878; and it is appropriate, I think, to conclude this survey with some Terry comments on her colleague Irving.  On Irving’s ability to portray dying:  “He did really almost die – he imagined death with such horrible intensity.  His eyes would disappear upwards, his face grow grey, his limbs cold.”  On Irving’s ability to subsume himself into a character:  “It seems to me some nights as if I were watching Napoleon trying to imitate Henry Irving”.

 

Miles tells us numerous stories of the theatre and of actors, too many to cover here.  As one might expect, natural modesty prevents him from saying anything about his own contributions to the theatre.  Indeed the half of the twentieth century before he was writing in 1948 occupies a mere page-and-a-half.  In what is virtually a postscript to the main game Miles focuses on the Old Vic theatre under the management of Lilian Baylis [and gives her an additional “s”, which the editors failed to notice].  What was subsequently to become the Old Vic Theatre dated from1818, and had endured numerous changes of name and fortunes, including doubling as a temperance coffee tavern, and a centre for adult education lectures.  But in 1914 Baylis instituted a series of Shakespeare productions, and a policy of classical drama at popular prices.  By 1921 the whole Shakespeare canon had been produced, along with contributions from other classical playwrights, including European. The Old Vic of that era gave the public Peggy Ashcroft, John Gielgud, Sybil Thorndike, Edith Evans and more. In 1929 Gielgud was one of the founders of the Old Vic production company…….which, in later years, morphed into the National Theatre, with Laurence Olivier as its head.

 

The Old Vic, and British theatre, survived the Second World War, partly because the Government – through Arts Council funding – decreed that it should; and partly through significant relocation to the provinces.  The director, Tyrone Guthrie, kept two or three Old Vic productions on tour throughout the early days of the War, although returning defiantly to the capital in 1942 and re-establishing the company – with Olivier and Ralph Richardson as its leading players.  

 

Miles finishes with an apology for not dealing at greater length with the actors of the earlier twentieth century: “As I look back over these pages I realise how many shades will cut me dead in the Green Rooms of the Elysian Fields where the endless and unresolved debates are continued in an undimmable afterglow”, his consolation being that many of the greats have written about themselves, or “other people have written most delightfully” about them.   “The second-hand bookshops are still overflowing with theatrical treasures at knock-down prices.”  As to his contemporaries, Miles is less contrite.  “Them you can still see and hear.  Them you can still laugh and cry with.  Them you can still love in the flesh.”  Alas, no longer!

 

 

Gary Andrews

 

 

 

THE 1881 TRAVEL DIARY OF JOHN McBEAN

 

In an old trunk of family memorabilia, untouched for years, we found a travel diary written by John McBean, my wife, Annie’s, great-great maternal grandfather.  The diary covers the period March 30 to September 21, 1881, when McBean sailed around the world.  The stamp inside the back cover indicates that the diary was supplied by Dunn & Collins, Booksellers and Stationers, Arcade, Smith Street, Collingwood.

 

I suppose such items are not all that scarce, but McBean’s diary impressed me for a couple of reasons.  First, it was lucidly written.  McBean narrates an interesting story.  Sure there are spelling and grammatical errors, but McBean while possibly not “educated” had certainly had schooling, and possessed a fine hand and a natural and inviting style.  Second, McBean’s journey from Melbourne took nearly six months – not the journey of an explorer seeking to visit unknown places, but a journey with specific business purpose, and with the licence to circumnavigate the globe in the process.  Was such a journey common for Melbournians in 1881?

 

So here are some extracts, plus what I hope are helpful annotations.  McBean’s habit when at sea was to record the steamer’s daily mileage, and latitude and longitude.  I have not included all of these.  And I have, with great respect, tidied up the grammar and spelling although retaining some of the forms that we no longer use today.  The diary is a lined exercise book with marbled covers, initially kept in black ink, later blue.  McBean’s cursive script is sloping and easy to read, with the nib pressed stylishly hard on the downstroke.  The pickings are a bit slim early on, but McBean really opens up when he reaches the United States.

Nowhere in the diary does McBean indicate his occupation.  The McBean family were owners of a boot-making factory in Collingwood.  At the time of McBean’s trip there were a number of grown sons, and we can assume that John McBean, at least, was in the family business - his excursion to the boot-manufacturing plant in Boston and his keen interest in the boot-making trade is consistent with that.  His noting of the latest labour-saving machinery suggests an intention to secure some for the family business.

 

There is no-one living who remembers John McBean, or his son also John McBean, and Annie’s mother died more than a decade ago, so the diary may just as easily have been written by someone quite unrelated…….but that’s not the way it feels.

 

Wednesday March 30^th1881.  S.S. Cotopaxi.  4025 tons.  Captain R. Studdert.  Said goodbye to Mr. Hickman, Fraser and Greenan, and sailed away at 12 o’clock sharp.  Feel quite lonely.  Made the acquaintance of two fellow passengers, one from Fitzroy the other from Hotham.  They are very sociable.  

 

Hotham is today’s North Melbourne.  The Cotopaxi was built in Glasgow in 1873.  She was wrecked on May 15^th1889.  All on board were saved by the German steamer, Setos.   A photograph of an engraving put loosely into McBean’s diary by some later reader shows a foundering ship, with laden lifeboats pulling away, and the caption: “Sinking of the Steam-Ship Cotopaxi in the Straits of Magellan”.  

Had dinner at one o’clock and they gave us a first class dinner.  Passed through the Heads at half-past-three, pilot left us at four.  Passed the Cape Otway at nine o’clock.  Ship going along beautiful.  So far escaped sea sickness.

 

Thursday March 31^st.  Had a good night’s rest, got up at six o’clock, had my first bath.  Very high sea running.  Ship rolling very much, a good many of the passengers sick, myself included.

 

Friday April 1^st.  We arrived at the Semaphore at nine o’clock – went up by rail to Adelaide, about nine miles.  Met a friend and went to see the Botanical Gardens, they are very beautiful gardens, better than we have in Melbourne.  We also went to the Museum and Public Library.  At night we went to the theatre and saw the play Blow for Blow. Stayed at the Coffee Tavern.

 

Did the terms of passage require the passengers to find accommodation on shore while the ship was in port, or was this McBean’s choice?

 

Saturday April 2^nd.  After breakfast had a walk through the town. It is a very fine town, built mostly of white sandstone, and the buildings not too high, which gives it a light appearance.  Took a car and went down to a place called Kensington.  It is a pretty place, at the bottom of a range of hills, with gardens and vineyards on the slope of the hills.  Fruit is very cheap, beautiful grapes at a penny and tuppence a pound. Went on board at one o’clock and the ship started on her journey again at four.  Met with a loss that rather annoyed me.  An old gentleman who left us at Adelaide took away my overcoat by mistake, and left his own.  The worst part of it was that my Bible was in the pocket.

 

Sunday April 3^rd.  Went to church this morning.  Captain read from Church of England service.   They gave us a very good dinner – fowls, roast meat, pudding and fruit.  Latitude at noon 35 degrees 20 south, 133 degrees 20 east.  Distance run 260 miles.  

 

Monday April 4^th.  Had our first game of quoits.  Weather warm and sultry.

 

Wednesday April 6^th.  Passed Cape Leeuwin, the last land we see of Australia. Weather rough.  Ship rolling very much.  Passed the mail steamer.  She left Adelaide 24 hours before us.

 

Friday April 8^th. Passed large sailing ship, the first we have seen.

 

Saturday April 9^th.  We expect to be in tropics tomorrow.  Weather sultry.  We have had a good shower of rain.

 

Tuesday April 12^th.  One of the ladies in the First cabins gave birth to a daughter this morning.  So far they are both doing well.  It must be very uncomfortable for her as the weather is excessively hot.

 

Wednesday April 13^th.  Weather very warm, occasional showers, just like living in a vapour bath, everything feels damp.

 

Thursday April 14^th.  First cabin invited Second cabin passengers to a concert. It passed off very well.  We have some first class musical talent on board, amongst them the leader of the Australian Band.

 

Monday April 18^th.  We have this day crossed the Line and it is raining heavily. We were to have Easter sports to-day but owing to the rainy weather we have postponed them.  Latitude at noon 0 degrees 44 north, 62 degrees 6 east. Distance run 300 miles.

 

Tuesday April 19^th.  We had Easter Sports day to-day and spent a very enjoyable day’s fun, Second class passengers carrying off most of the prizes.

 

Thursday April 21^st.  Sighted land this morning, Cape Guardafui.  It is a wild looking coast and the cliffs stand very high.  It is a headland of Central Africa, and near the country that Livingstone explored.

 

David Livingstone, Scottish physician, Christian missionary, and explorer, spent years searching for the source of the Nile River, believing that the fame that would result would give him enough influence to abolish the East-African slave trade.  He was a national hero in Victorian times, and his life - and death in the jungle in 1873 - would have been well known to McBean. 

 

Friday April 22^nd.  We passed Aden today, a very ancient town.  There are two large wells cut out of the solid rock and supposed to date back as far as the times of King Solomon.  We passed through the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, the Gate of Tears, or as it is called by the sailors, Hell’s Gate, owing to so many ships being wrecked there. 

 

The Strait is the narrow opening to the Red Sea, Africa on the port side and the Arabian Peninsula on the starboard.

 

Saturday April 23^rd.  We are now in the Red Sea and the heat is something unbearable.  I slept on deck last night, but did not get  more than four hours’ sleep.  We passed by two steamers that had been wrecked on this coast, one of them a very large ship lying on a sandbank with her hull under water.  The land that we now see is part of the coast of Abyssinia. We also passed a large troop ship supposed to be taking soldiers home from India.  We passed close by her and gave her three cheers.  She is called the Jumna.

 

The inadequate Wikipedia entry says Jumna, a 1048-ton iron sailing ship, was launched in 1867, and transported Indian indentured labour to Trinidad and Fiji.  There is no mention of her role as a troop carrier, or of her fate.

 

Tuesday April 26^th.  Weather much cooler.  Saw a high mountain in the distance, supposed to be Mt. Sinai. Arrived at Suez at half past 10 o’clock. Anchored there all night.

 

Wednesday April 27^th.  Several small boats came alongside the ship this morning with Arabs selling curios.  They are a strange-looking people and they are worse than Jews in making a bargain.  [Were these sentiments typical of the times?  Was McBean prejudiced, or merely being observant?]   We started on our journeying again at half past seven a.m. We are now in the Canal with a lot of Arab boys and girls running along the bank, following the ship, asking for pennies.  We have some fine sport with them.  It is a barren desert country without any vegetation.  Passed the P & O mail boat Pekin.  We had to put into one side so as to let her pass.  Arrived at the Isthmus of Suez.  Passed by the Palace of the Khedive of Egypt.  It is a large square building with a flat roof.

 

Thursday April 28^th.  Passed droves of camels travelling over the desert. The ship ran on to a sandbank but we soon got off again.  The country that we are travelling through is sandy desert as far as we can see.  There is nothing but sand.  Arrived at Port Said at one o’clock.  Went on shore and had a walk through town.  A miserable looking place, houses mostly built of wood and so small that you could not swing a cat in them.  They are a mixed lot of people that live here  - Turks, Arabs and Egyptians, and the place is full of beggars.  The streets are lined with stalls.  If you buy anything from them they generally ask double what they will take.  We visited some singing and dancing salons, and during all the time we were there we were followed by droves of beggars. Three of us got on Jerusalem donkeys and galloped through the town, which caused great amusement to ourselves and those that were looking at us.  The ship started on her journey at seven p.m.

 

The Nubian donkey, also called the Jerusalem donkey, has a black mane and a black line running from that mane down its back, and a black line across its shoulders to complete the cross.  Legend says that such a donkey carried Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

 

Sunday May 1^st.  Weather very rough, several of our passengers sick myself included.  We are now on the coast of  Italy and Sicily, see Mt. Etna smoking in the distance.

 

Monday May 2^nd.  We are now entering the Bay of Naples.  A beautiful bay, said to be one of the finest in the world. We anchored at Naples but had not time to go ashore and were much disappointed, it is a fine looking city. It lies at the bottom of Mount Vesuvius, and we saw thick clouds of smoke coming out.

 

Thursday May 5^th.  We are now off the coast of Spain.  We see the snow-capped mountains of Sierra Nevada, the first snow I have seen since I left home.  It is a beautiful sight.  We passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, but it was too dark to see the fortification.

 

Sunday May 8^th.  Still in the Bay of Biscay, expected to be in Plymouth tomorrow. Latitude at noon 46 degrees 53 north. Longitude 6 degrees 49 west. Distance run 286 miles.

 

Monday May 9^th.  Arrived at Plymouth at six o’clock and stayed there two hours.  Several of our passengers left us.  We are now on our way to London and expect to be there tomorrow.

 

Here McBean discontinues his diary for 65 days, resuming as he is about to leave Glasgow.  I assume that during these two months McBean stayed with family, most likely Scottish. I also assume that he did not venture to the Continent, otherwise he would have taken his diary.

 

Thursday July 14^th.   Said goodbye to Cousin Jeanie at St. Enoch Station, Glasgow. Took train to Greenock.  Went on board ship Ethiopia, Archibald Campbell captain. Sailed away from Greenock at eight p.m. 

 

Greenock is downstream from Glasgow, near the mouth of the Clyde River.  The S.S. Ethiopia, of 4004 gross tons and launched 1873, was operated by the Norwegian Anchor Line.  It plied the Glasgow/New York service until 1898 and was scrapped in 1907. 

 

Friday July 15^th.  Arrived at Moville, Ireland, five o’clock a.m.  A very pretty little town.  Sailed from there at three o’clock p.m.  As usual my troubles began – was very sick, went to bed early.

 

Moville is near the north-east corner of Ireland, beyond Belfast.  The route to New York was around the north of Ireland.

 

Sunday July 17^th.  Sea still running high, and blowing very hard.  It is the roughest sea that ever I was in. Still sick.  Distance run 282 miles.

 

Monday July 18^th.  Weather still rough.  Lady passengers all sick, and a good many of the gentlemen.  Made very short run to-day.

 

Wednesday July 20^th.  We have got about half of our journey over.  Weather fine.

 

Thursday July 21^st.  Weather very cold.  We are in the vicinity of icebergs and are passing through thick fogs.

 

Friday July 22^nd.  Weather still foggy.  We had a fire on board ship.  It broke out down among the coals.  Fortunately it was discovered before much damage was done.  It caused great excitement among the lady passengers, several of them fainted.  Before going to bed everything was restored to order.  Distance run 280 miles.

 

Saturday July 23^rd.  We are now in better weather.  We had a mock trial on board to-day.  Two of our passengers made a bet with reference to the distance that we would run, and through some misunderstanding each thought that he had won. So we formed ourselves into a court. We elected a judge and six jurymen, and we had some fine sport.  The plaintiff was nonsuited and had to pay for nine bottles of ale.

 

Sunday July 24^th.  Had a service on board to-day by a missionary from Japan who gave a very interesting lecture about that country.  Took the pilot on board and expect to be in New York tomorrow night.

 

Monday July 25^th.  We are in very fine weather and are anxiously looking for the land.  We had a concert and dancing on deck.  Ten o’clock p.m. sighted Fire Island Lighthouse.  Distance run 298 miles.

 

Tuesday July 26^th.  Arrived at quarantine.  Doctor came on board and passed the emigrants.  I very near got myself into trouble with the Customs House officers.  They found some presents in my trunk and I thought I was going to lose them.  We landed in New York at 8 o’clock p.m.  [Surely McBean means a.m.]  I posted my letter and then went sight-seeing.  New York is a fine city but I would not care to live in it.  [New York population 1880 1207000.  Melbourne population 1881 293000.]  We went down the harbour to a place called Coney Island.  First we went to the beach where we saw men and women all bathing together.  Then we went up an elevator 300 feet high and had a beautiful view all over the Island. Next we went to a pavilion where there was singing in one part and dancing in the other, and there were thousands of people all over the Island.  And they tell me it is like this all the summer months.  They like to have everything on a large scale.  This whole Island is covered with shows, merry-go-rounds and dancing salons.  We returned to the city.  At night we wandered through the town.  There is a lot of drinking here.  There are large pavilions where you can go in and have a glass of beer and listen to music played by women, and in some of them there are very fine bands.  I am writing this before going to bed and it is very warm. It was 97 degrees in the shade to-day

 

Wednesday July 27^th.  Took a bus this morning and rode a distance of about six miles for five cents, to a place called Central Park.  It is a large fine park with Museum and wild beasts.  I was a little disappointed with the Museum. It is not near so good as the one we have in Melbourne.  It is a fine park.  They have an obelisk supposed to be three thousand years old, brought from Egypt. There is a fine lake in the centre of the park where you may have a boat.  New York is a great place for large buildings, there are some of the largest buildings here that ever I saw and some of them are very fine.  They have also Elevator Railways.  They are raised about 30 feet above the road and made of light ironwork.  Trains run on top, and the road traffic is underneath.  They are very convenient, but they spoil the look of the city.

 

The 200 tons Cleopatra’s Needle obelisk was a gift to the United States from the Khedive of Egypt, and was erected on January 22, 1881, a mere six months prior to McBean’s visit. The illustration (which wrongly claims that the obelisk was in Central Park in the 1870s) vividly shows that the damage caused by New York pollution in 130 years has been far greater than that caused by harsh Egyptian conditions in over three millennia.

 

Thursday July 28^th.  Sailed for Boston on board Palace steamer Bristol. It has five decks beautifully fitted up and carries a splendid band.  We are sailing down what you would think was a river but is an arm of the sea with little bays all the way down, something like Sydney Harbour.  Studded with gentlemen’s villas, and as we are sailing down I count about 50 boats going out with us, mostly sailing boats.  They tell me that it is about 120 miles before we get to the open sea.

 

Bristol was a side-wheel paddle steamer of 2962 gross tons, launched April 4, 1866.  It was destroyed by fire at the Newport dockside, on December 30, 1888.  Its luxurious accommodation had earned it the title “Palace”.

 

Friday July 29^th.  After a very pleasant sail we arrived at a place called Fall River.  At 4 o’clock in the morning took train from there to Boston.  Arrived at Boston 7 a.m.  Had a look through the town, it is a very fine town with a population of over 300000.  Took coach to Lynn which is about eleven miles from Boston.  Saw Mr. Colbath’s brother.  He first took me through the town.  This is the Paradise of shoe makers.   There are large blocks of buildings six and seven storeys high, and there are about 100 of them manufacturing boots.  They will turn out over 100000 pairs per day.  He took me through one of them, and it is wonderful how they get through them. It takes about twelve men to make one pair of boots.  They work in teams.  I have made a few notes of some of the machines I thought useful.    Kays Sole Tacker which tacks the sole after it has been lasted in a few seconds price 4 pounds, Bencells Patent Trimmer for trimming round the edges which is also done in a few seconds price 60 pounds, Fitifeila and Dodges edge setter price 50 pounds, Swain and Fuller sand paper buffer price 20 pounds.  Came back to Boston and wound up this day’s amusement going to Oakland Gardens, a fine garden lit up by electric light, with different kinds of amusement.  There was one very large pavilion with a good negro and comedy entertainment.

 

Not surprisingly after 139 years, I have found no reference on line to the boot-making machinery manufacturers Kays, Buncells, Fitifeila and Dodge, and Swain and Fuller. I have not probed deeply.  I expect that there are no longer any boot-makers in Boston, certainly not in the close-in suburb of Lynn.

 

Saturday July 30^th.  Went out to Hyde Park and saw Mr. Raymond’s brother. I shall never forget his kindness to me, both he and his wife could not have been more kind to me if I had been his brother.  I stayed with them all night.  The following day he spent with me showing me through the town.  One of the principal places he took me to was a bank where his son is at work.  It was built thoroughly fire proof, built of marble, and one of the finest buildings that ever I saw.  In the afternoon he took me to the Boston Museum where there was an Opera Company playing The Mascot.  It is a fine house and they had a very good company.  After spending a very pleasant day I said good-bye to Mr. Raymond and started on my journey for Chicago at six o’clock, July 30^th.  I have taken a sleeping car and they are very comfortable.

 

Sunday July 31^st.  After a good night’s rest we got up and had breakfast, there is a dining car travels along with us.  The country that we are now travelling through is nearly all under cultivation, principally oats, wheat, Indian corn and potatoes.  We are running along the side of a canal just now where they bring down large quantities of timber.  Stopped a short time at a large manufacturing town called Rochester, with a fine river running through it.  Here you see a fine fall of water called Genesee Falls.  Arrived at Buffalo, the American side of the Niagara Falls.  We stayed here for half an hour.  I went down and had a look at the Falls from the suspension bridge, but the finest view that we had was on the Canadian side and it was beautiful.  There was the river stretching away as far as the eye could see, and the Falls right in front of us shooting up clouds of spray, and the sun shining on it gave it a grand effect.  With my glasses I could see a small boat with two men in it just above the rapids. Thought they were almost too close to be safe, it would be sudden death to them if they came over the Falls, nothing could live in the whirlpool of water that is below the Falls.  The next place we arrived at was called Le Trout where there was a large river we had to cross.  They put the whole train on a large steamboat.  The river was about a mile across.

 

Monday August 1^st.  We arrived at Chicago at nine o’clock p.m.  Just before we got in we saw Lake Michigan, a very large lake, so large that we cannot see the other side.  First thing that I did on arrival at the hotel, which is a very large one, was to have a bath as you get very dirty travelling here by rail, and I felt very much better after it.  There is a bathroom off each bedroom.  Hotels in America are something grand.  The next thing that I did was to go and get my ticket for San Francisco. I could have bought it cheaper in Glasgow.  After, a ride through the city, and it is the finest city that I have yet seen in America. It is quite a new city, it was nearly all burned down in 1871, and now has a population of half a million.  At night I went to the theatre and saw the Sensational Drama of the World.  It was one of those blood and thunder pieces, and I did not think much of it.  Coming from Boston I made the acquaintance of a gentleman who had a flax mill in Kentucky.  We kept together while in Chicago and I spent the time very pleasantly. We exchanged cards, he said it was quite possible that he might visit me in Australia.

 

The Great Chicago Fire of October 8^thto 10^th1871 killed 300 people, left more than 100000 homeless, and devastated 3.3 square miles of the city destroying 17500 buildings including much of the central district. 

 

Tuesday August 2^nd.  Started again on my journey for San Francisco.  It takes five days from Chicago and if possible I will go straight through.  We are passing through some very rich agricultural country, large fields of Indian corn.  This is a fine part of the country, fine soil and large rivers.  We have just crossed the Mississippi at a place called Rock Island. A very large river, at this part it is about a mile wide.  

 

Wednesday August 3^rd.  After a good rest we reached a place called Council Bluffs where we changed carriages and stayed there three hours.  We have now crossed the Missouri River, another fine river, about half a mile wide.  Stopped forty minutes at Omaha.  It is very warm here and reminds me of towns you see in Queensland.  We are travelling over the Prairies, beautiful flat plains covered with natural grasses which grow abundantly.

 

Thursday August 4^th.  After another good night’s rest we arrived at a place called Sidney where we had breakfast.  It is a small town in the centre of large cattle stations.  Since we left Omaha we have been travelling uphill and are now 4073 feet above the level of the sea.  

 

We are now at the top of the Rocky Mountains at a place called Sherman, 8242 feet above the level of the sea.  A wild looking place, great rocks standing by themselves looking like monuments. We had a very heavy thunderstorm here passing over the Mountains.  I saw a prairie dog, very much like a possum only much larger.  We also saw an antelope, a very pretty animal something like a deer but not so large.  There were several shots fired at it from the train but it got away.

 

Friday August 5^th.  We are coming down the Rocky Mountains, a barren country and good for nothing.  It is all sand without any vegetation.  Along this part of the line they have snow sheds, wooden tunnels to keep the snow off the line.  In the distance we see high mountains covered with snow.  For some time we have been travelling through some wild looking country down a valley with high rocks on each side of us.  Some of them two and three hundred feet high, and at some places you would think they were hanging over the train.  They have different names, Hanging Rock, Finger Rock, and Castle Rocks.  We have just passed a place called The Devil’s Slide.  This rock runs to the top of the mountain with an opening up the centre. It is said that you can slide from the top to the bottom, but I do not think the devil himself would care about the slide.  We meet a lot of Indians here.  Their skin is a dark red and some of them dress in gay colours.  The women carry their children in a kind of cradle, and in their habits are something like our Australian natives and not over clean.

 

Saturday August 6^th.  We are now at Salt Lake City, the Mormons’ country. The train runs along the banks of the Lake for several miles.  Thirty-three years ago the whole of the country a thousand miles in any direction was uninhabitable and almost unknown to white people.  Now it is a very prosperous place.  Arrived at Carlin, sent telegram to Willie.  We are now within twenty-four hours ride of Dixon and I am glad it is near the end.  Railway travelling is very tiresome. We are now crossing the Nevada Mountains, a very wild country.  We follow the course of the river through a pass with mountains on each side of us covered with fine trees.  Snow falls very heavy here in winter and they have snow sheds 40 miles long to keep the snow from drifting on to the line.

 

Dixon is a city in California, 23 miles north-east of the State capital, Sacramento – which, in turn, is 88 miles inland from and to the north-east of San Francisco.

 

Sunday August 7^th.  We arrived at Dixon 7 p.m.  Willie was at the station waiting for me.  We recognised one another about the same time, and it was a very happy meeting.  Willie explained to me his reasons for not writing, he has a great many troubles. From the train we went to his home, and he introduced me to his wife, who is a very nice woman, such a woman as any man might feel proud of.  Her whole thought is to make him happy, and he is very fond of her.  I shall never forget her kindness to me.  We have some very pleasant evenings.  [This sentence is the first direct evidence that each day’s entry was not necessarily written by McBean contemporaneously.]  She plays the piano beautifully and Willie sings a very good song.

 

Here there is an unexplained break in the diary, which resumes on…………

 

Sunday August 14^th.  On the 14^thwent to San Francisco and were there for three days.  The first place we went to was Haverly’s United Mastodon Minstrels, the finest Negro group that ever I saw.  There were forty of them, amongst them Billy Emerton.  It was their last night and the house was full.

 

Monday August 15^th.  Willie got a buggy and pair and drove us out to the Cliff House, a distance of ten miles.  Most of the way was through a very fine park.  The Cliff House is on the seacoast, and from here you have a fine view of the Pacific.  We drove along the sea beach and from there to the hotel.  The hotel is built on a rock close to the water in front of which are two large rocks which were covered with sea lions, large brutes, something like seals.  Some of them are said to weigh over seven hundredweight.  They make a loud noise, like the barking of dogs.  It was a grand sight to see them swimming in the water. From there we drove back to town. San Francisco is very hilly.  We went to a place called Nob Hill where there are some fine gentlemen’s residences, and where you have a fine view all over the town.  The hills are so steep here that they have to draw the street cars by ropes driven by steam. In the evening we went to the Mechanic Fair and Exhibition, which is held annually, showing the different industries of San Francisco.  It was lit up by electric light and was altogether a fine show.

 

Cliff House has had a number of incarnations over its 157-year history.  The one visited by McBean in 1881 had been built in 1863.  A wing of the building was destroyed when a schooner ran aground nearby, then exploded.  It was re-built; and then burned down in 1894.  Its replacement, of extraordinary ornate architecture, survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake unscathed but was destroyed by fire in 1909. There have been three versions since.

 

Tuesday August 16^th.   The next day we went to a place called Woodward’s Gardens, a very fine place beautifully laid out with flowers, with an Aquarium, and all kinds of wild beasts.  Same day we visited the Chinese quarter.  They have a great hold here and are treated in what was once the best part of the town. There are about 40000 of them living here, and are employed in boot making, tailoring, and watch making, and they also do all the washing and ironing, and are used in private houses as servants instead of women.  They have a large boot factory of their own and are making the boot trade warm for Americans.  In the evening went to Tivoli Gardens Theatre.  They were playing the opera of Satinilla and they had a very good company.  Here you can drink and smoke while they are playing.

 

Wednesday August 17^th.  Willie spared no expense in showing me round, and would not allow me to pay for anything.  San Francisco is a gay town.  Theatres and all places of amusement are open on Sunday and it is the most immoral town that ever I was in.  After seeing all that was to be seen in San Francisco we came back to Dixon where I will now rest until I leave for Australia.

 

Thursday August 18^th.  Dixon is a small town with a population of about 1000.  Willie has a fine store with a good stock and is doing very well.  He is going to take the shop next door and going into groceries.

 

There is a further unexplained break in the diary, from August 19^thto August 27^th.

 

Sunday August 28^th.  I said good-bye to Willie.  I felt it very much leaving him, not knowing if we will ever see one another again.  I will always remember with pleasure the many kind friends that I made in Dixon, first among them Lilly, Willie’s wife, and her relations.  Their kindness and hospitality I will never forget.  We sailed away in the S.S. Zealandia 2730 tons, Henry Chevalier, Master, at half past 2 p.m.  Passed through the Golden Gate at half past 3 p.m., the entrance to San Francisco Harbour, and as we pass the Cliff House it makes me feel quite sad when I think it was only the other week Willie and I spent such a pleasant day together.  Pilot left us at 4 o’clock.  We are now in the Pacific Ocean and I shall be glad when we get to the end of our journey. I long to see the little ones at home. As usual before going to bed was sick.

 

The S.S. Zealandia, an American 4-masted sail-steamer, was launched 1875.  The manifest of McBean’s voyage lists 38 saloon passengers (of which McBean is one) and 23 steerage passengers – 61 passengers all up - with a total crew of 99, comprising 37 officers, able seamen and engineers, 27 stewards and “general servants”, all British, and 35 firemen, coal passers, and kitchen staff, all of whom were from China.  The Zealandia ran aground and was wrecked off Southport, England, on April 2^nd1917 on route from New York to Liverpool by which time she had become a carrier of general cargo with crew of 47.  Two of them perished. 

 

Monday August 29^th.  Weather fine.  We are out of the tracks of ships and not likely to see much between here and New Zealand.

 

Wednesday August 31^st.  We had a full table this morning.  There are 96 of us in the cabin [presumably meaning Class].  Amongst them are the Boston Quintette.  They are coming to Melbourne.  They are said to be very good.  Distance run 312 miles.

 

Thursday September 1^st.  Weather is getting warm.  Had our first sweep on the run the ship would make.  My number won it.

 

Sunday September 4^th.  Sighted Honolulu, a wild looking coast.  And as we pass along we see large groves of coca nut and banana trees.  We pass an extinct volcano, there are several of them on this island.  We landed at Honolulu, a very pretty little town, and with four of my ship mates went for a ramble through the town.  The inhabitants here are English and American.  There are also a great many Chinamen.  The buildings are mostly wood.  The King here has a very fine palace built of stone. The natives are called Kanakas. In features they resemble Chinamen but a much larger race of people.  There are some fine made men among them and they are very industrious and grow cotton and sugar.  Also bananas and dates, some of which we saw growing.  Dates grow in large bunches like grapes.  It is a very pretty island.  We gathered a lot of seeds of trees which I intend bringing home. After exploring the town we went up a mountain, about 300 feet high, on the top of which was an extinct volcano, and had a beautiful view all over the island.  There is always plenty of rain here, and the hills and valleys are green. I never saw anything where growth was so abundant.  After a ramble of six hours we returned to the ship.  We left Honolulu at 5 o’clock.  

 

Wednesday September 7^th.  Made a good run to-day.  Distance run 319 miles.

 

Friday September 9^th.  Crossed the line this morning.  Beautiful cool breeze.  Distance run 310 miles.

 

Monday September 12^th.  Passed the Navigator Island this morning at 4 o’clock. It is a small island.  It was too dark to see anything on it.  We have been shipping large quantities of water all night. The sea is very rough.

 

The Navigator Islands were later named Samoa.

 

Friday September 16^th.  On account of the ship crossing the 180 degrees of longitude we jump a day.  We passed the Island of Sunda, one of the group of Friendly Islands.

 

Saturday September 17^th.  We expect to get into Auckland to-morrow.  We had a theatrical performance on board.  It was called Little Toddlikins and went off very well.

 

Sunday September 18^th.  Arrived in Auckland at half past 6 p.m.  They have a fine harbour here.  Had a ramble through the city which is very hilly.  After a stay of six hours started on our journey.  We are now running north along the coast of New Zealand and expect to be within sight of land for another day.  As we sail along the coast we can see large clouds of steam rising from the hot springs.

 

Monday September 19^th.  Lost sight of New Zealand this morning.  Distance run 307 miles.

 

There you have it. The distance runs for the next two days were 314 miles and 296 miles respectively.  There is nothing further, and no mention of arrival in Melbourne.  

 

So the reason for McBean’s trip?  There is no specific diary reference to the purpose but I’ll buy that it was a business trip to Boston, with the opportunity taken to catch up with relatives along the way.  The long sojourn in Britain suggests that he was staying with family, and the embarkation ex Glasgow, seen off by cousin Jeanie, suggests that he had been staying in Scotland for much of the time.   The extended visit to Dixon near San Francisco with Willie also suggests a family connection.

 

But my sleuthing instincts are tweaked by McBean’s August 28^thdiary entry: “I long to see the little ones at home”.  An understandable entry when turning for home, but it’s the only diary reference to McBean’s domestic situation.  It highlights the question of why the trip was so extended.  If McBean was such a family man that he enjoyed catching up with remoter relatives – for 9 weeks in Britain and for 3 weeks based at Dixon, California - why was he so committed from the outset to spending, all up, 175 days away from his “little ones”?

 

Gary Andrews