The Remarkable Lushington Family. David Taylor

BL British Library Bodleian Bodleian Library Comte Archive Musée d’Auguste Comte, Paris CUL Cambridge University Library Harvard Houghton Library, Harvard University LSE London School of Economics NAL V&A National Art Library NLS National Library of Scotland NYP New York Public Library ONDB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography SHC Surrey History Centre TC Trinity College, Cambridge TNA National Archives, London JR John Rylands University Library of Manchester WSRO West Sussex Record Office Yale Beinecke Library, Yale University

      Lushington Family Tree

      Carr Family Tree

Published Works of Vernon Lushington

      How Shall the Strong Man Use His Strength? Or, the Right Duty of War, with Application to the Present Crisis. Bell and Daldy, London.

      1856, June “Carlyle” in the Oxford & Cambridge Magazine. London: Bell & Daldy.

      1876 August Comte. System of Positive Polity. London: Longmans, Green. Vernon and Godfrey Lushington translated Vols. III, VII and the Conclusion.

      1883 Mozart (An Address to the Positivist Society delivered at Newton Hall on December 24th, 1882). London: Reeves & Turner, 1885.

      1883 The Day of All the Dead (An Address to the Positivist Society Delivered at Newton Hall on December 31st, 1882). London: Reeves & Turner.

      1885 Shakespeare (An Address to the Positivist Society Delivered at Stratford-on-Avon on August 2nd, 1885). London: Reeves & Turner.

      1885 Positivist Hymns (Printed for private circulation). London: Chiswick Press.

      1886 The Worship of Humanity (An Address on the Anniversary of the Death of August Comte Given at Newton Hall on September 5th, 1886). London: Reeves & Turner.

      1886 St. Paul (Poem printed for private circulation). London: Chiswick Press.

      1886 Moses (Poem printed for private circulation). London: Chiswick Press.

      1886 A Slab in Rome (Poem printed for private circulation). London: Chiswick Press.

      1890 Lushington contributed eight hymns to Ethel Bertha Hrrson (ed.) Service of Man: Hymns and Poems. London: Newton Hall.

      1892 Lushington contributed forty-nine biographies to Frederic Harrson (ed.) The New Calendar of Great Men: Biographies of the 558 Worthies of All Ages and Nations in the Positivist Caldendr of Auguste Comte. London: Macmillan & Co.

      1896 Remembered Words (Poems printed for private circulation). London: Chiswick Press.

      Articles in the Positivist Review

      1896, May. Vol. IV. “A Commemoration of Burns”: An address given at Newton Hall on March 22nd 1896.

      1901, July. Vol. IX. “Sonnets on the Positivist Calendar” (Afterwards reprinted for private circulation).

      1906, September. Vol. XIV. “Dr Bridges. His Contributon to the New Calendar of Great Men”.

      Legal

      Reports of Cases Decided in the High Court of Admiralty of England and on Appeal to the Privy Council, 1859–1862. Vernon Lushington.

      1868 Reports of Cases Decided in the High Court of Admiralty of England and on Appeal to the Privy Council, 1863–1865. Ernst Brown & Vernon Lushington.

      1903 Lynch’s Case. London: Chiswick Press.

Preface

      This book has been long in the making. I first became aware of the Lushington family when, in 1982, I set out to write a book about a house named “Pyports” in the small Surrey town of Cobham where I have lived all my life. “Pyports” proved to be a fascinating place which had been home to a number of interesting and, sometimes, well-known people. The house took its name from a family called Pypard who lived there in the fourteenth century. Nineteenth-century local records revealed that the house had once been home to a family named Lushington. This was an unusual surname and I needed to find out who they were. A letter in the correspondence pages of Country Life rewarded me with a large response from people who had either known the family personally, or who knew of them through a variety of reasons. I found references to Lushington in many biographies of well-known nineteenth-century figures as well as in other books dealing with the social, cultural and literary history of the nineteenth century.

      A reference linking Vernon Lushington to the Pre-Raphaelites led me to Diana Holman-Hunt, granddaughter of the artist. A meeting with this gracious old lady at her Kensington home brought a number of reminisces and stories about the Lushingtons and how her father had been named Hilary Lushington Hunt in honor of his father’s old friend. Asa Briggs, then Provost of Worcester College, Oxford, urged me to research the family especially Vernon who “is worth more attention than he has so far received.” Rosalie Glynn Gryllis, Lady Mander of Wightwick Manor, Wolverhampton, the lovely National Trust “Arts and Crafts” house, suggested a number of people who might be useful including Lady Bonham Carter who had been a friend of Susan Lushington. There were other letters from people not so well known but all of whom had something to add to my knowledge of the Lushingtons. Gradually a picture emerged of a fascinating family, three generations of which spanned the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.

      The most important reply was one which led me to a lady who held the Lushington family archive. A correspondence commenced as I sought access to the archive. Sadly, despite various attempts, I never succeeded in meeting her or seeing the family papers. The section in my book on “Pyports” dealing with the Lushington family had to be based on secondary sources and information obtained from people who had responded to my Country Life letter. Following publication of the book in 1985 I thought that was the end of my journey with the Lushingtons. But this was not to be the case.

      In 2005, I received a telephone call from the son of the lady who had held the Lushington papers. Sadly, she had died and he now held what remained of the archive. He was anxious to clear his late mother’s house and asked if I would like the archive. After a brief pause as I tried to take in the importance of what I was being asked, I responded with a resounding “Yes please!” Two days later the bulk of the archive was securely deposited by me in the Surrey History Centre.

      I was just completing a Master’s in Historical Research at the University of Roehampton and, on hearing of