The Real Beatrix Potter

by Nadia Cohen

  Beatrix jumped at the chance to absorb details of the décor inside the country cottages and farmhouses they visited, too. She found herself quite enchanted by the tiniest crack on flagstone floors, the mismatched crockery hanging on wooden dressers, gleaming doorknobs, woven rugs and even the smell of dough rising by the hearth. She visited these nearby farms as often as she was allowed, and delighted in being able to help with collecting fresh eggs from the hens in the morning, scattering grain for the chickens or even feeding newborn ducklings from a spoon if the farmers would let her.

  Despite her sheltered childhood, Beatrix found she was not remotely afraid of livestock; on the contrary, cows and pigs seemed to respond well to her, perhaps sensing her lack of fear.

  Fascinated by all she saw around her, Beatrix realised how much she still had left to learn and desperately wanted to immerse herself in the natural world, in the hope of absorbing every detail as best she could – drawing and making copious notes in her journal – so she would not forget any of what she had seen when the holidays were over. As the holidays drew to a close, her clever imagination flew busily into overdrive and she would invent magical, alternative worlds full of fairies and talking creatures as another way of remembering it all: ‘I do not remember a time when I did not try to invent pictures and make for myself a fairyland amongst the wild flowers, the animals, fungi, mosses, woods and streams, all the thousand objects of the countryside; that pleasant unchanging world of realism and romance,’ she recalled many years later.

  Returning to London at the end of those idyllic summers in the countryside, Beatrix could never quite bear to leave all her new animal friends behind, so she would often somehow manage to smuggle a startling menagerie of small pets back home with her, always without her parents’ knowledge. Rupert and Helen rarely ventured up the stairs to the third floor, preferring to leave all childcare to a succession of nannies and governesses, who would bring the children down to the drawing room on the rare occasions that their presence was required. Had the Potters actually taken the time to familiarise themselves with life up in their children’s bedrooms, they would have discovered that Beatrix was secretly keeping a collection of pet rabbits, a hedgehog called Tiggy who drank from a tiny dolls teacup, as well as numerous snails, beetles, frogs, butterflies, toadstools, birds eggs, caterpillars, moths and a host of other insect specimens which she dissected with a remarkable lack of squeamishness and studied closely at every opportunity.

  For months following one holiday she kept a pair of mice housed in a box, while bats hung upside down in a birdcage. Beatrix stole milk and bread from her supper tray to feed to her animals, and even after they died she would study their corpses and even their skeletons. She and her brother routinely gassed and then skinned dead animals they found, such as foxes, and boiled their bodies to expose the skeletons in order to study the bones.

  Writing in her journal, Beatrix attempted to explain their dark fascination and somewhat startling lack of squeamishness: ‘I see no reason why common sense should not foster a healthier appreciation of beauty than morbid sentimentality.’

  Over time the children were officially permitted to have pets, and then Beatrix would travel everywhere she went with her rabbit Hunca Munca in a hutch and her hedgehog Mrs Tiggy carefully concealed in a basket, while Bertram had a pet owl, a falcon, a jackdaw and a dog who went everywhere with him too.

  Every creature, plant and object from the natural world that the children could lay their hands on was hoarded and drawn meticulously, with each diagram featuring neat and copious annotations. When they were finally happy with the information they had amassed, Beatrix would sometimes sew the sheets of paper together to make little drawing books, and they would fill any empty pages with pressed flowers or wildlife sketches.

  At one stage the siblings came across an old printing press, managed to carve out a selection of simple woodcuts and even attempted to create their own ink from soot and oil, but their early efforts at publishing had rather limited success. Beatrix recalled: ‘A sticky black mess, always either too thick or too thin, mixed on a board and applied to the type with a small roller. I can hear it squeak, and always the type wrenched sideways.’

  Needless to say, any activities that involved making a mess or could cause any potential physical harm to the children were strictly forbidden at Bolton Gardens, and their more complicated experiments always had to be carried out in the strictest secret.

  Beatrix was supposedly being supervised by governess Miss Hammond in her early years, but when she retired Beatrix was left to her own devices for quite some time until a replacement could be found – meaning she had even more time alone than ever before. Miss Hammond’s position turned out not to be a very easy vacancy to fill, perhaps the prospect of schooling one sullen girl was not a particularly appealing prospect to the aspiring teachers of Kensington. From time to time two different teachers made visits to the house to give Beatrix basic French and German lessons, but apart from those few hours of lessons the child had no companions at all. Nobody took any notice of Beatrix and she became increasingly shy, dreading having to make conversation on the rare occasions she did happen to encounter anyone. As time wore on she grew almost silent and usually appeared nervous, or even scared.

  There were times when her parents decided it would be the appropriate thing to do to show off their daughter to their friends or some influential person or other, and so they forced her to participate in whatever social engagement they had arranged. Beatrix was inevitably reluctant to play along with their charade. If she really was faced with no choice but to attend, she would usually be found skulking silently in a corner fervently hoping not to be noticed. Other children found Beatrix strange too, and tended to give her a wide berth.

  She longed for more independence and searched for academic activities to stimulate her mind in the hope that one day she might be able to earn some money of her own and break free from her parents’ clutches.

  As Beatrix’s artistic and intellectual interests started to mature, so too did her extraordinary ability to observe nature and to describe, and the content of the journals developed accordingly.

  Many years later when the first diaries were painstakingly decoded and transcribed there were no surprising or intimate revelations to be found, but it was, and still is now, widely considered to be a valuable historical document, shining light on a particular strand of British society in the late nineteenth century.

  A running theme throughout her private diaries is how Beatrix felt obliged to dutifully obey the constant barrage of demands she received from her parents, especially her demanding mother who seemed to struggle with the household and insisted it was Beatrix’s duty to help her deal with difficult maids and awkward staffing matters.

  She hated being told what to do, and craved freedom more than anything, but even in her late teens and early twenties she was not allowed to go anywhere alone, except occasionally to an art gallery or museum, as long as she did not stay out too long. If her parents had their way, Beatrix had to be accompanied by a maid, which meant she could not linger as long as she would have wished.

  There were occasional breaks from the long lonely hours when the family would visit relatives, including aunts in Putney and Hastings or an uncle in Wales. These outings were a chance for her to indulge her passion for the countryside, a longing that deepened dramatically when the Potters came to book their annual summer holiday in 1882 and discovered to their horror that their favourite estate in Scotland had already been taken by another family.

  Instead Rupert hastily found a back-up plan and arranged accommodation for the family at Wray Castle in the Lake District. What should have been just another family vacation turned out to be a trip that would alter the entire course of Beatrix’s life.

  Chapter Three

  As the Potters’ horse-drawn carriage swept up the long drive towards the imposing sight of Wray Castle, with its gothic turrets and towers rising from the banks of Lake Wind
ermere, Beatrix was immediately awestruck by the breathtaking scenery that greeted her and her excited family.

  She was just 16 years old, and although the family had hoped to be in Scotland, Beatrix had no complaints. She was more than happy to console herself with drawing animal scenes in the grounds of the baronial castle. The vast house and its neighbouring church had been built in 1840 for retired surgeon James Dawson, who spent his wife’s entire fortune on the project. Following Dawson’s death in 1875 the estate was inherited by his 15-year-old nephew Edward Preston Rawnsley, who appointed his cousin Hardwicke Rawnsley as parish vicar of Wray Church.

  Beatrix did not imagine she would meet anyone who interested her on the trip, she rarely struck up anything approaching a friendship since she usually tended to alienate other children, but she found an unlikely ally in the form of Canon H.D. Rawnsley, who came to introduce himself to the family and offer his ecclesiastical services during their stay.

  Although they were not especially religious people, both Beatrix and her father were quickly charmed by Rawnsley who befriended them easily and stayed in close contact for many years, even long after he moved from Wray to take up a new post in Crosthwaite, near Keswick. Rawnsley and Rupert corresponded regularly on religious matters. Inspired by the vicar’s infectious love of poetry, Mr Potter began to build up a valuable collection of autographed letters once belonging to the Lake Poets.

  Rawnsley was also an amateur naturalist who had in his time skinned and anatomised animals just as Beatrix and Bertram often did. Beatrix had never encountered an adult who wanted to talk to her before, and certainly not a man who actually listened to her ideas.

  During their many lengthy discussions, Beatrix found herself equally fascinated and enthralled by the robust way Rawnsley described the fierce battles he was launching against the damage being done by ruthless developers who were threatening to ruin the natural beauty of the area. At that time it was no longer just the rich who were enjoying the benefits of taking holidays.

  The Industrial Revolution had seen the rise of the stream train, and new railway lines stretching the length of the country. Bringing increased affordable train travel meant workers were starting to enjoy their leisure time in new ways. Industrialisation and the spread of factory work meant that the working classes ceased to enjoy the seasonal breaks that farming offered. They worked every day apart from Sundays, Christmas Day and Good Friday. However, demands for improved working conditions and shorter hours in factories also led to the Bank Holiday Act in 1871, which gave workers four new public holidays in England and Wales, while three new ones were introduced in Scotland. Additional paid leave was granted to senior managers and supervisors as the Trade Unions began to campaign for paid holidays for workers.

  As soon as the new bank holidays came into force, people jumped aboard trains to make the most of their three-day long weekends. Soon, the idea of taking family holidays for several weeks rather than occasional days was rapidly increasing in popularity.

  Needless to say the Lake District was a highly desirable choice, since its location made it easily accessible from the mills, factories and mines of the large manufacturing cities of the north including Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Glasgow. It was a golden age for British manufacturing, but Rawnsley had seen what these Victorian beachgoers were doing to the seaside, with donkey rides and ice cream vendors enjoying a roaring trade.

  He hated the pubs and postcards, the picnics and the puppet shows. Huge crowds were thronging on the newly fashionable piers that were springing up along the great British seaside, as the working classes flooded in demanding pleasure palaces that offered entertainment including music, dancing theatre performances, aquariums and zoos. For many holiday makers these retreats to the seaside gave them a glimpse of life as they had never seen it before.

  But the idea of careless workers, who had no emotional attachment to the Lake District, wrecking the place and leaving without a backward glance absolutely horrified Rawnsley, who loathed the unstoppable march of progress and planned to do everything in his power to stand in its way. He shared with Beatrix his deep-seated fears that the sudden surge in the tourist industry, and all that came with it, would inevitably destroy the area’s outstanding natural beauty. He felt the holidaymakers who were starting to appear had no respect for the grandeur of the area. The tourists were making what he considered a horrible mess with their demands for fun, and Rawnsley could not stand to see it.

  In his mind, visitors who claimed to have a great love of the countryside were making it unpleasant for the people who lived there, and he vowed to do everything in his power to halt it.

  It was a delicate balancing act – of course he could see the economic benefits of welcoming tourists with pay packets in their pockets, but he also saw them as short-sighted parasites hell-bent on destroying the peace, tranquility and more importantly the agricultural integrity of the land for their own pleasure.

  Suddenly the Lakes were beset with opportunistic entrepreneurs who wanted to build affordable bungalows and guest houses for holiday makers to stay in. There were plans for more and more pubs, cafes and tea rooms, and he had seen shops selling what he could only describe as highly objectionable picture postcards for tourists to send home.

  Worse still, there were also discussions about further extensions to the railway lines, which currently stopped at Windermere, to allow visitors to easily reach the more remote locations. More signposts were needed to prevent ramblers straying on to private land, but the scheme that horrified Beatrix the most when Rawnsley told her was the idea of carving into farmland to widen the roads in order to allow a greater flow of traffic during busy seasons.

  The thought of all this beautiful scenery she had been admiring simply vanishing to make way for the arrival of noisy, smelly motorcars broke her heart, and Beatrix found herself agreeing vociferously with all of Rawnsley’s sensible objections to halt these plans.

  Beatrix was hugely sympathetic to the way Rawnsley saw himself as the champion of the region, determined to challenge any perceived threat to the area’s indigenous beauty. She listened, rapt and attentive as he laid out his angry arguments against a plethora of new restaurants and cinemas – which he felt sure would only show filthy and depraved films – that would lure to tourists to the region. To his mind, these outsiders tended to contribute nothing besides ruining beauty spots with piles of litter and unwanted food left behind from their interminable picnics.

  In Beatrix’s eyes, Rawnsley was nothing but an unstoppable force for good, and she immediately wanted to know what she could do to help his mission. To her astonished delight, he was extremely interested in hearing her opinion and unlike any other adults she had ever met, he appeared to be taking her very seriously. Although she was far too young to offer much in the way of practical or financial help at that stage, Beatrix joined his crusade whenever she could, seemingly almost as energetic and passionate about his campaign as he was. With Beatrix in tow, Rawnsley would set about launching a one-man campaign to raise funds to erect plaques or stones to commemorate a forgotten monument, or particularly breathtaking view, to impress upon planners the significance of the area they were seemingly dead set on obliterating. Another of his ideas was organising a group to walk through the night to view the sunrise from a specific beauty spot. Rawnsley was a great believer in the dramatic spectacle of lighting huge bonfires to celebrate special events; for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee he arranged for a wave of 148 fires to be lit across the fells.

  Rawnsley delighted in finding the joy in life, he loved entertaining and feeding large groups of people. The Potters tended to be abstemious and unadventurous when it came to their diet, but Rawnsley could be counted on to provide a bountiful picnic for any occasion, and Beatrix always greeted his feasts with amazement. After a particularly jolly outing, Rawnsley would immortalise the event in a poem, and would usually send his cheerful verses off to newspapers as a unique way of telling the public what he had been up to.


  Despite the fact that Beatrix was, of course, one of those dreaded out-of-town holiday-makers herself, sweeping into a rented home for the summer then disappearing to London, she and Rawnsley always saw eye to eye. Once she was fully on board with his deep-rooted fear that even more visitors to the area would inevitably start to erode, and ultimately destroy, its stunning beauty, Rawnsley confided in Beatrix that he had a master plan which could save the Lake Districts for future generations.

  By the time he shared the secret scheme, Rawnsley was already deep in the process of formalising his passionate crusade to create a National Trust, a UK wide charity which would secure funds to purchase areas of outstanding natural beauty under threat of ruin, as well as grand stately homes facing demolition, and countless other places of important historical interest in need of protection.

  To Rawnsley’s delight, Beatrix shared his dream that one day a charity would spread across the country and be rich enough to be able to preserve all these endangered places in perpetuity on behalf of the entire British nation. His vision meant that each of the beauty spots and stately homes would be open and accessible to everybody, not just the very wealthy aristocracy and their private visitors.

  Having only been used to the self-centred antics of her parents who appeared to exist only to please themselves, Beatrix was enormously impressed by Rawnsley’s sense of altruism and the way he travelled tirelessly around the region, storming planning meetings with impassioned speeches, terrifying council committees and tackling anybody who dared to suggest a new, ugly or unsympathetic development which he deemed offensive or inappropriate.

  Beatrix was not the only one who could see the sound sense in Rawnsley’s vision. His passion was contagious and by 1895 he had also won the support of Octavia Hill, a passionate philanthropist, and Sir Robert Hunter who cheerfully gave his extensive legal knowledge to the rapidly growing cause as they fought together to win as much public support and funding as they could.