Re-discovered Ruskin letters at Croydon

John Ruskin Sixth Form College in South Croydon has a few letters of John Ruskin in its possession, acquired by a former headmaster of John Ruskin Grammar School, John Christopher Lowe. It was originally founded as a school in 1920 on a site near the house in Market Street occupied by Ruskin's Croydon relatives, the Richardsons. Lowe was headmaster from 1946 to 1973 and had built up a small collection of newspaper cuttings and photographs and of books and pamphlets by and about Ruskin.

A further two letters are to his cousin, William Ruskin Richardson, who, having returned from Australia, had been living since 1878 at Sydney Lodge, Norwood, though the house is now 210 Whitehorse Road, Selhurst, both districts being in the present-day borough of Croydon. These two letters are in a bound letter book, including a reproduction of the Richmond portrait, and were loaned to Lowe in 1957 but have only recently been returned to the Ruskin Library at the University of Lancaster. The first letter is written from Ambleside on January 12, 1885, and sends New Year greetings, ending with the sentiment '…and send me your Croydon news. How pretty the word always looks to me, and sounds!' The second is dated January 3, 1887, and covers three pages. Ruskin begins by apologising for having put Richardson's letter aside 'in a heap of unopened ones' and referring to his two illnesses of 1885 and 1886. The bulk of the letter is about 'providing for the discipline of my drawing school' and invites his cousin to consider donating £7000 towards the school, which, added to the £5000 Ruskin had already given to endow a Mastership in 1871 'for the elementary classes', would enable a second Mastership to be founded for the Upper School. It would be in memory of Ruskin's two aunts. In passing he recalls the 'first careful drawing I ever saw' being his father's in the little drawing room in Market Street. He concludes by promising not to be displeased or hurt if his cousin 'sees better use for your economies'. Indeed nothing became of the invitation. William Richardson died in 1887 but his will includes no such legacy.

Another William, Lowes Dickinson, was the recipient of a letter in February 1856, possibly the 8th as suggested by a partially obliterated postmark on the envelope. It seems to confirm an invitation to Herne Hill as he was expected to arrive to view Ruskin's Rossetti drawings but was warned not to ask to see them in his parents' presence as 'my father and mother don't like Pre-Raphaelites as much as I do - and I am obliged to keep my drawings to myself'.

Another letter, dated November 12, 1871, was written at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to an unidentified S. Holden. The superscription is to 'My dear Li' and the letter was written in reply to a 'kind wish to become a Companion of St George'. Ruskin seems to doubt if she is fully aware of its purposes and begs her to read the last number of Fors. 'They ask for much more than truth.' This letter was given to John Ruskin Grammar School by a descendant, Guy P. Holden, a retired probation officer, in 1968.

A further letter, from Brantwood on September 19, 1883, is to an unnamed lady who had loaned him her 'wonderful Cuvier drawings' which he suggests should be offered to the British Museum as the Guild at Sheffield 'cannot afford to offer for them'. He recommends her using his name to the Keeper of the Print Room, Professor Colvin. The drawings do not appear to have been acquired by the British Museum. It is also not clear whether these were drawings by or for Cuvier.

The final Ruskin letter is of less interest being a business letter, an autograph letter originally presented with the Library Edition, which was written at Brantwood on December 27, 1879, to George Allen and records three sums of money paid to or received by 'Pullen from Liverpool', Miss S. Beever and Thomas Guy. This letter was given to J. C. Lowe by Sir Stanley Unwin on March 15, 1957, in which he expresses his pleasure that 'that your school should have moved so close to Shirley Churchyard where Ruskin's parents are buried, and at the foot of the Shirley Hills which Ruskin recalls in PRAETERITA'. Another letter to the headmaster is from Alan Ward of A. B. Ward, booksellers in Sheffield, in which he regrets that the Guild has become an anachronism 'and it is rather difficult to know what to do with it'.

Brian Lancaster

[Quotations are included by permission of the Ruskin Literary Trustees and the Guild of St George.
Originally published in the Spring 2002 issue of the Friends of Ruskin's Brantwood Newsletter and republished by permission of the Editors]

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