Beatrix Potter

by Linda Lear

  35. Last will and testament of Harriet Burton, 2 April 1904. Probated estate of Harriet Burton, 10 June 1905, Principal Probate Registry, London. The net value of Harriet’s personal property was £31,170, a large sum for a married woman. Although Beatrix is not named as a specific legatee, private bequests were the privilege of Harriet’s husband and their two sons as executors. After reviewing the Potter-Leech family wills, I am convinced that Harriet Leech Burton of Gwaynynog either left instructions for a private bequest to her niece, or Frederick Burton (Uncle Fred) took it upon himself to make it. Beatrix subsequently used this legacy as part of the purchase price of Hill Top Farm. Lane also identifies ‘Aunt Burton’ as the source of the ‘legacy from an Aunt’ (MY, 140).

  10 Stories

  1. Potter’s purchase of Hill Top Farm has been disputed both as to date and source of the monies used.

  2. It has been assumed that Potter’s parents disapproved of her purchase of Hill Top. There is little evidence to support this. The fact that the legacy came through her mother’s sister and that her father’s solicitors acted as agents suggests that she was encouraged to invest in land. While they were not prepared for her spending much time in Lancashire, the Potters knew she was making this purchase before Norman Warne’s death.

  3. Property deeds and conveyance, Hill Top Farm, 15 November 1905; conveyance to Frederic Fowkes, 25 September 1905; John Howson, vendor, Frederic Fowkes, purchaser. Fowkes’s signature was witnessed in Sawrey. Arnold Greenwood & Sons of Kendal acted for both Fowkes and Howson. Fowkes signed the deed in Sawrey; Potter received her deeds from her father’s solicitors, Braikenridge & Edwards, in London following completion on 25 November 1905. There is no indication of who witnessed for Potter. There is no evidence that any other solicitors were involved in the sale or purchase. Pertinent documents are from BPG and CRO/K.

  4. Hand-drawn plans of Buckle Yeat Croft copied by BP from deed and conveyance of 11 December 1905, BPG. Her notes on these drawings indicate those boundaries which were not clearly defined and about which she was justly concerned. Contracts for sale and purchase had been exchanged and became binding on 30 October. Potter was thus allowed access to the farmhouse and was contracting for its management, alteration and improvement; J. R. Cawood to the author, 6 February 2002. Fowkes had made a profit of £1,430 ($6,964) on the sale of Hill Top Farm to Potter. The Croft conveyance was also arranged through Braikenridge & Edwards in London; J. R. Cawood to the author, 27 March 2003. The purchase united the two fields, but Potter never owned a tiny parcel that ran along the road, shown on the deed plans as ‘Winfell’ and owned by J. Wright.

  5. Cannon was most likely appointed by Henry Preston’s executors to manage the farm until a new buyer was found, and had been there since February 1905. BP to HW, 2 October 1905, FWA.

  6. BP to ALW, 14 October 1905, Letters, 134. Her hope that Millie could visit her at Hill Top illustrates how vital their friendship was to her. Millie made at least one visit to Hill Top before April 1906.

  7. Ibid. Susan Denyer, At Home with Beatrix Potter: The Creator of Peter Rabbit (2000), 26–9, 48, 89–91; Judy Taylor, Beatrix Potter and Hill Top (1989), 6–7. Henry B. Preston and his family had farmed Hill Top since 1855 at least. Preston died on 16 February 1905 and the farm then came up for sale. Kendal Library, newspaper files, Census records and Cumbria Genealogical Society suggest he owned the farm and was not a tenant and that his family had owned the farm for several generations; Susan Wittig Albert to the author, 10 December 2003.

  8. ASC, 107–8. Denyer, At Home, 29.

  9. Ibid. Sketch of Hill Top by Beatrix Potter, c. 1905, BPG.

  10. Probated will of Clara Potter, 6 January 1906, Principal Probate Registry. BP to ALW, 14 February 1906, CCP.

  11. BP to ALW, 5 April 1906, Letters, 140. The style of ‘cottage gardening’ practised by Gertrude Jekyll was immensely popular at this time and her influence is seen at Hill Top.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Ibid. BP to ALW, ? April (Thursday evening) 1906, FWA; BP to Winifred Warne, 14 April 1906, CCP.

  14. BP to Eric Moore, 5 September 1893, CCP. HWBP, 175–8.

  15. BP/AW, 126–9. Ruth K. MacDonald, Beatrix Potter (1986), 96–8.

  16. John R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (1969). Other sources show the name as ‘Sawrayes’ in the sixteenth century, meaning the ‘muddy place’, before becoming ‘Narr Sawrey’ in 1656. Moss Eccles was also known as ‘Moss Heckel’.

  17. Catherine J. Golden, ‘Beatrix Potter: Naturalist Artist’, Women’s Art Journal, 11/1 (1990), 16–20; ‘Natural Companions: Text and Illustration in the Work of Beatrix Potter’, BPS Studies, 8 (1999), 50–68; Humphrey Carpenter, ‘Excessively Impertinent Bunnies: The Subversive Element in Beatrix Potter’, in Gillian Avery and Julia Briggs (eds.), Children and Their Books (1989), 271–98. See also Susan Wittig Albert, The Tale of Hill Top Farm (2004).

  18. BP/AW, 129–30. BP to ALW, 18 July 1906, Letters, 141. MacDonald, Beatrix Potter, 50–52. HWBP, 183–4.

  19. BP to ALW, 18 July, 5 August (?) 1906, Letters, 141–3.

  20. BP to ALW, 5 August (?) 1906, Letters, 142–3; 17 August 1906, PC. In the extant correspondence Beatrix never refers to Fruing and Mary’s son, Norman, by his given name.

  21. BP to ALW, 27 August 1906, FLP.

  22. Ibid.; BP to ALW, 6, 30 September 1906, Letters, 143, 146.

  23. BP to ALW, n.d. (summer 1906), FLP; BP to ALW, 30 September, 4, 12 October 1906, Letters, 147–9; Denyer, At Home, 94–103. She also kept the mock orange bush that grew against the warm wall between Hill Top and Tower Bank Arms. Elizabeth Battrick, Beatrix Potter Gardener, exhibition text, Armitt Museum, Ambleside, 2004; Peter Parker, ‘The Gardens of Beatrix Potter’, Hortus, 30 (Summer 1994), 106–15, identifies many of the flowers that feature in Potter’s fictional gardens, many of which were planted at Hill Top.

  24. BP to ALW, 30 September 1906, Letters, 147.

  25. Ibid.; BP to ALW, 12 October 1906, Letters, 149.

  26. BP to ALW, 4 October 1906, Letters, 147–8.

  27. BP to ALW, 4, 12 October 1906, Letters, 148–9.

  28. BP to ALW, 26 December 1906, PC.

  29. The Roly-Poly Pudding was published in a larger format to provide greater opportunity for details of the house and garden. The book was reduced in size, and the title was changed to The Tale of Samuel Whiskers in 1926.

  30. Marcus Crouch, Beatrix Potter (1960), 36–8.

  31. MY, 153–5; BP/AW, 131–3; MacDonald, Beatrix Potter, 98–104; HWBP, 185–6.

  32. BP to Louie Warne, 8 July 1907, Letters, 152. HWBP, 268–9. BP to HW, 17 August 1908, 15 December 1908, Letters, 161, 165–6.

  33. BP to Louie Warne, 6 July 1907, LTC, 123; BP to ALW, 30 August 1907, PC.

  34. BP to ALW, 30 August 1907, PC; BP to ALW, 6 October 1907, Letters, 154–5.

  35. BP to ALW, 6 October 1907, Letters, 154–5; BP to Louie Warne, 8 July 1907, Letters, 152. Denyer, At Home, 30. BP to Louisa Ferguson, 26 February 1908, LTC, 132–5.

  36. BP to HW, 24 August, 13 September 1907, Letters, 153, 154.

  37. BP to ALW, 2 January 1908, Letters, 156; BP to HW, 18 January, 27 February 1908, Letters, 157–8; 22 April 1908, FWA.

  38. BP to ALW, 26 April 1908, FLP.

  39. Interview with Dr Mary Noble, 10, 16 April 2000. Potter was influenced by Blackburn’s painting, particularly admiring her young herring gull and the hoodie crow. Jemima Blackburn, Blackburn’s Birds, ed. Rob Farley (1993), 9–16. Blackburn died barely a year after the Potter book was published.

  40. Jane Gardam, ‘Some Wasps in the Marmalade’, reprinted in Judy Taylor, ‘So I Shall Tell You a Story…’: Encounters with Beatrix Potter (1993), 82. A pudding at this period could mean a meat dish rather than a dessert.

  41. HWBP, 191–4. MacDonald, Beatrix Potter, 104–10.

  42. BP to HW, 18 November 1908, Letters, 164; BP to William Warner, 11 August 1908, PC.

  43. BP to HW, 17 November, 15 December 1908, 9 January 1909,
Letters, 164, 166, 168; 5 January, 10 March 1909, FWA.

  44. BP to HW, 22, 23 April, 30 June, 15 July 1910, Letters, 179–80, 182.

  45. HWBP/AW, 139–40; HWBP, 195–6, 350–59; Tim Longville, ‘Return to Mr McGregor’s Garden’, Country Life (5 September 2002), 144–5. ‘Llewellyn’s Well’ in HWPB, 357. On the manuscript Potter wrote, ‘Made and part written at Gwaynynog, Denbigh.’

  46. Beatrix was at Gwaynynog in early June and again in late July 1911. ‘The Fairy in the Oak’, written about the same time, begins with the description of the kitchen garden at Gwaynynog. HWBP, 350–56.

  47. BP to ALW, 8 (?) April 1909, FWA.

  11 Diversions

  1. BP to HW, 14 June 1909, FWA. Records of Beatrix Potter merchandise, 1903–28, compiled by Elizabeth Booth, FWA. Brian Alderson, ‘ “All the Little Side Shows”: Beatrix Potter Among the Tradesmen’, in Judy Taylor (ed.), So Shall I Tell You A Story…: Encounters with Beatrix Potter (1993), 154–67.

  2. William Hopes Heelis, the senior partner and father of William Dickenson, died in 1900; TMH, 32–4. ASC, 128–30. From John and Thomas Rigg, 22 acres of pasture and woodland, 1 December 1908: Schedule of Beatrix Heelis’s land conveyances, 15 November 1905–11 November 1943, BPS.

  3. Deed to Castle Farm, NT. Potter bought Castle Farm from Mary Ann Hawkrigg, Richard Hartley and a mortgagee, William Long. Hartley was related to the Revd Samuel Hartley, who had once had an ownership stake in Buckle Yeat Croft: Schedule of Beatrix Heelis’s land conveyances, 15 November 1905–11 November 1943, BPS. TBP, 96. ASC, 127–30.

  4. The inscription in the exercise book reads, ‘Ginger and Pickles. With love to Louie from Aunt Beatrix, Christmas, 1908.’

  5. Broad Leys was owned by a wealthy Manchester merchant called Milne, one of the founders of Kendal, Milne & Company, retailers and clothiers with shops in the Lake District as well as Manchester.

  6. BP to ALW, 17 November 1909, Letters, 171–2. The Tale of Ginger and Pickles, reviewed in Bookman (Christmas 1909). BP to HW, 16 August, 11 September 1909, Letters, 169, 170; BP to Louisa Ferguson, 8 January 1910, LTC, 135.

  7. BP to Mrs Bunkle, 16 December 1909, BPS.

  8. BP to HW, 11 September, 9, 19 October 1909, FWA; BP to ALW, 16 September 1909, FWA. Bracken, a ubiquitous fern, now an invasive pest plant, was used as winter bedding for cattle.

  9. BP to ALW, 17 November 1909, Letters, 171–2; BP to ALW, 23 December 1909, PC.

  10. BP to HW, 20 December 1909, Letters, 172.

  11. BP to HW, 14 June 1909, FWA; BP to HW, 22 April 1910, Letters, 179. TBP, 94. The first general election began on 15 January. A second election was required in December 1910.

  12. At this period the labels Conservative, Tory and Unionist are used interchangeably. The term Unionist grew out of the split in the Liberal Party in 1886 over the issue of Irish Home Rule. In 1910 the term refers to those Conservatives owing their allegiance to Joseph Chamberlain. BP to Louisa Ferguson, 8 January 1910, LTC, 135. TBP, 91–4. BP, leaflet against free trade, March 1910, printed by Martin, Hood & Larkin, London, BPG.

  13. BP to Edmund Evans, 11 January 1910, V & A. A verse she had written was printed below the doll. See HWBP, 399. E. E. Williams had declared in his book Made in Germany (1896), ‘the Industrial Supremacy of Great Britain… is fast turning into a myth.’ It initiated a concerted anti-German campaign in Britain and increased protectionist sentiment ultimately reflected in the general elections. Andrew Marrison, British Business and Protection, 1903–1932 (1996), 19–46.

  14. BP, ‘The Shortage of Horses’, printed and published by Edmund Evans, Ltd., London. See HWBP, 401–7. BP to Messrs Edmund Evans, 28 February, 8 March 1910, Letters, 175–6. Miss Hammond, ‘Florrie’, lived with her niece Margaret, known as Daisy. Leslie Linder surmises that it was Daisy, not the elder Florrie, who helped with the campaign. One other leaflet concerned international copyright restrictions and elicited some responses from printers suffering from inadequate protection.

  15. General election 1910 (January): Liberals 275, Unionists, 273, Labour, 40, Irish Nationalists, 82, giving a majority for a Parliament Bill and Home Rule. Beatrix had been asked to address a meeting on the subject of tariff reform by a ‘leading Kendal tradesman’ but ‘had no difficulty resisting the temptation!’ BP to HW, 20 January 1910, Letters, 175.

  16. BP to ALW, 20 July 1910, FWA; BP to ALW, 23 August 1910, Letters, 183.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Rupert Potter to Miss Moore, 17 October 1910, CCP. A second printing of 10,000 copies was made in November 1910.

  19. BP to ALW, 9 October 1910, Letters, 185. TBP, 89.

  20. BP to ALW, 19 November 1910, FWA. William Rollinson, Life and Tradition in the Lake District (1974, revised 1981), 189–92. F. B. Smith, The People’s Health, 1830–1910 (1979), 195–226. Like thousands of others, Beatrix found it difficult to avoid germs, especially upper respiratory illness, in the soot, smog and poor hygienic conditions of London.

  21. BP to Mrs Carr, 1 January 1911, V & A.

  22. When Timmy Tiptoes was published the grey squirrel had not become a major pest to British agriculture, nor had it yet extended its range to drive out the native red squirrel.

  23. In 1907 Beatrix had described her farm animals at Hill Top in a letter to Louie Warne with the idea of making a painting book and planned one out following her letter. BP/AW, 144–5. BP to Louie Warne, 8 July 1907, LTC, 124. HWBP, 270–71. BP to HW, 12 July 1911, FWA.

  24. BP to FW, 9 August 1911, Letters, 188.

  25. BP to ALW, 4 February 1911, FWA.

  26. Bruce L. Thompson, typescript of deeds which later came into possession of the National Trust, 27 November 1947, NT. Conveyance, 28 February 1911, Baines to H. B. Potter.

  27. BP to ALW, 6 April 1911, FLP; BP to ALW, 18 June 1911, PC; BP to HW, 14 June 1911, FWA.

  28. BP to ALW, 3 September 1911, FLP.

  29. BP to Louie Warne, 12 August 1911, LTC, 128–9.

  30. BP, draft letter, ‘Grandmotherly legislation’, Letters, 190–91.

  31. BP to ALW, 13 December 1911, Letters, 192; BP to Robert Burn and to Barbara Ruxton, two letters, both 13 December 1911, LTC, 155–6.

  32. BP to ALW, 13 December 1911, Letters, 191.

  33. Beatrix Potter, ‘Letter to the Editor’, Country Life (13 January 1912), 74.

  34. H. D. Rawnsley, ‘Hydro-aeroplanes on Windermere’, The Times, 4 January 1912; BP, ‘A Further Protest’, The Times, 11 January 1912; ‘The Hydroplane on Windermere’, The Times, 12 January 1912; ‘The Question of the Ferry’, The Times, 19 January 1912; E. W. Wakefield, ‘Reply to Canon Rawnsley’, The Times, 11 January 1912.

  35. ‘Hydro-Aeroplanes on Windermere’, The Times, 18 January 1912. BP to HW, 27 January 1912, Letters, 195. BP, ‘Hydroplanes on Windermere’, The Times, 29 August 1912. BP to ALW, 22 August 1912, Letters, 199. Only on letters published by Country Life did she sign as ‘Beatrix Potter’.

  36. BP to HW, 27 January, 3 February, 4 April 1912, Letters, 195–7.

  37. BP to HW, 3 February 1912, Letters, 196. Jack Bredbury, The Foundation of the Stalybridge Unitarian Church and Sunday School and the Connection of Their Origins with the Leech Family (2001). Inquirer (13 August 1966), 3.

  38. BP to HW, 20, 21 November 1911, Letters, 189–90; BP to FC, 11 December 1911, NT.

  39. BP to ALW, 1 April 1912, PC; BP to HW, 4 April 1912, Letters, 196; BP to HW, 11 July 1912, FWA. In November Beatrix was asked to judge at one of the local farm shows, this one, of ‘trussed poultry’, a further indication of her increased involvement in the community. BP to HW, 11 November 1912, PC. MY, 172.

  40. BP to HW, 11 June 1912, Letters, 197; BP to ALW, 19 June 1912, FWA.

  41. HWBP, 210. BP to HW, 14 July 1912, Letters, 198.

  42. It was not until after Beatrix wrote Mr. Tod that scientists came to believe that badgers seemed susceptible to bovine tuberculosis and could transmit the disease to cattle, making them unpopular with farmers. Potter later opposed badger digging and baiting.

&nb
sp; 43. BP to Harold Botcherby, 17 February 1913, Letters, 202. It was the fox who smelled and whose earth required the housekeeping.

  44. BP to ALW, 22 August 1912, Letters, 199. Either Rupert or Beatrix photographed Joan and Norah with the chicks at the farm; photograph, FWA.

  45. BP to ALW, 22 August 1912, Letters, 199.

  46. Ibid. MY, 173.

  12 Satisfactions

  1. There are no extant letters between William Heelis and Beatrix Potter during these years, though Margaret Lane had access to some immediately after Potter’s death; TBP, 96–101. ASC, 130–32. BP to ALW, 26 April 1908, FLP.

  2. TMH, 2, 14–42.

  3. BP to HW, 9 October 1912, Letters, 200.

  4. ASC, 130. TBP, 97–8. MY, 172. The clearest sense of the chronology of her engagement comes from Beatrix’s first extant letter to her Crompton cousin Fanny Cooper, 9 October 1913, NT.

  5. BP to HW, 3, 7 March 1913, Letters, 203.

  6. BP to HW, 7, 8, 19 April 1913, Letters, 203–5.

  7. BP to HW, 29 April 1913, Letters, 207.

  8. Sawrey House Estate conveyance documents, 30 December 1913, NT; Schedule of Beatrix Heelis’s land conveyances, 15 November 1905–11 November 1943, BPS.

  9. Clark is quoted in TBP, 98.

  10. BP to ALW, 17 May 1913, PC. In this letter, which is in private hands and has not been fully transcribed, Beatrix tells Millie how ill she has been, that Bertram is in London, and that she feels ‘now suddenly better’. Liz Taylor, ‘The Tale of Bertram Potter’, Weekend Scotsman (11 November 1978), 6, and ‘Bertram Potter and the Scottish Borders’, BPS Studies, 2 (1986), 43–6. ASC, 13. TBP, 97.

  11. In 1986 Mary Noble visited Mary Potter’s mother’s family in Hawick and learned that the Huttons of Hawick, whose niece Mary was, had a long connection with Birnam and Atholl, owned land there and had built the house the Potters rented in 1892; Mary Noble to John Clegg, 21 October 1986, PC. It is unclear if the proper terminology is ‘wine merchant’ or ‘tavern keeper’.