The Remarkable Lushington Family. David Taylor

boys experienced a regime that commenced with work and prayers from half-past six till eight o’clock interspersed with breaks and time for play and concluded with prayers at a quarter to eight. Corporal punishment was frowned upon and only permitted in special circumstances. Moreover, as a rule, punishments of all kinds were avoided. Instead, “timely advice and kind words” were considered preferable and ultimately more effective. Shortly before Mayo’s death in 1846, Henry Shepheard took over the headship. A good scholar and a man of upright character, he was, like his predecessor, a devout Christian of the rigorous sort.

      In 1908, Susan Lushington, visiting Epsom, wrote to her father describing the place. He replied:

      I quite agree with you as to the pretty old look of Epsom. I enjoy it every time I go there. But you, dear Sue, cannot have my primeval recollection of it—date about 1842 or 43 when my Father came there with Fanny & Alice & the horses, putting up at “Baker’s Coffeehouse” as it was called, & Godfrey & I came over from Cheam, dined with them, & walked back the next morning. It was September, for I remember the blackberries.⁹

      However, Lushington’s memories of Cheam were not altogether happy and, faced with the prospect of being in the vicinity of his old school later his life, he recalled “Shepheard’s lank & gloomy vicarage” which produced:

      a memory, which truly, is not full to me of pleasant recollections—the sight of those bricks & the 4 prison walls wd. I am sure it would be hateful to me now—For what a nursery system that was of ours—Codling puritanism; espionage, petty restrictions, incessant work & little play – my pride revolts even now as the bare thought of it all.¹⁰

      A rare glimpse of Lushington’s boyhood is found in a letter written from Ockham Park by one of his siblings [probably Godfrey] to their sister Alice in 1846. The writer tells how he, together with Vernon, and their older brother William, had spent their holidays horse riding and in other activities on the estate:

      Yesterday Vernon & I went out for a walk & bathed, but stopping to devour blackberries, were pressed for time. Accordingly, we made a dashing short cut over Mr Lambert’s carrot and potato field, broke through 3 nasty hedges, scaled the park wall, & ran home, just in time to wash our hands & go downstairs …Although the naval business is no longer a secret, for it is entirely settled, yet the little ones and the servants know nothing about it, in order that Papa may not hear it talked about. However, I imagine the subject does not vex him as it formerly did.¹¹

      The Naval Cadet

      The “naval business” that was “no longer a secret” refers to the next phase of Lushington’s life when, despite his father’s disapproval, he went to sea as a cadet in October 1846. Such action displayed an early sense of independency in the young Lushington that ran contrary to his usual respect for his father but, in writing to one of his daughters in 1899, he reflected:

      This day 53 years ago I joined H.M.S. Eurydice. The more fool I probably; at any rate it is an instance of a boy persistently longing to be what he is totally unfitted for. Why my good Father allowed me to go I cannot think.¹²

      An event that took place during Lushington’s time at sea demonstrated an inherent sense of justice and fair play that he retained throughout his life. The episode was recounted to the art historian William Gaunt by Susan Lushington when he stayed with her to research his pioneering book on the Pre-Raphaelites.

      Beginning life as a midshipman he [Vernon] was incensed at the bullying then practised; and finding one of the officers engaged in roasting a midshipman (over a fire, as in Tom Brown’s Schooldays), knocked him down. This piece of insubordination deserved and received praise, but also a nominal reprimand; the upshot was that he left the navy and went to Cambridge to study law.¹³

      In December 1849 Stephen Lushington, concerned by this incident, wrote:

      my thoughts . . . have been wholly occupied with Vernon—Capt. Gambier will soon save him if indeed he will be saved but I cannot expect he will get off free. . . . Vernon I find is still under arrest tho’ Capt. G did all possible to get him released.¹⁴

      Lushington’s discharge papers have not survived but a digest of the matter among official records reveals that the charges were considered to be, “frivolous, a subversion of the discipline of the Service.” He was punished by a loss of three months sea time; his offense being described as “misconduct” and he was eventually discharged from service on 13th December, 1849.¹⁵

      A strong affinity with nautical life was retained by Lushington long after he left the navy and, when out on the popular Working Men’s College Sunday walks, he would greet any passing sailor with a nautical phrase.¹⁶ He was later to resume a connection with Britain’s “senior service” when, in 1871, he was appointed Secretary to the Admiralty, a post which he held for seven years. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, Lushington’s mind returned again to his time in the navy. He wrote, that the events of the war were “all so near too. Those who remember the year 1848 may have something of the same feeling, but I was a boy, in the Indian Seas.”¹⁷

      Further Education

      In March 1850, Lushington was placed under the care of the Reverend W. J. Conybeare at his Vicarage in Axminster, Devon, to be schooled for the next phase of his education. Conybeare, a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was a broad churchman and a noted contributor to the Edinburgh Review, an influential periodical that promoted Whig policies¹⁸ Although he undoubtedly helped nurture a more liberal theological outlook in the young Lushington, Conybeare would not have condoned his pupil’s later adoption of Positivism. In 1853, Conybeare wrote an article in the Review on Church Parties at the end of which he commented, “The highest ranks and most intelligent professionals are influenced by sceptical opinions, to an extent which, twenty years back, would have been deemed incredible.”¹⁹ Three years later, Conybeare wrote a novel called Perversion; or, The Causes and Consequences of Infidelity in which he placed Positivism between Unitarianism and Mormonism on a downward-leading path of sin and unbelief.

      The East India Company College

      Conybeare’s role was to prepare Lushington for the East India Company College at Haileybury, Hertfordshire. He supported his student’s application by confirming that, during the time he had known him, he had “conducted himself with perfect propriety; that he has been orderly in his behaviour, attentive to regulations, and most diligent in application to is studies.”²⁰ When Lushington entered the College, its principal was the Reverend Henry Melvill, a popular evangelical preacher whose sermons were said to lack simplicity and directness, appealing more to the literary than the spiritual sense.²¹ His tutor in Asian languages was Monier Monier-Williams, another evangelical who believed the conversion of India to the Christian religion to be one of the aims of oriental scholarship. A former pupil at the College recalled:

      Haileybury was a happy place, though rather a farce as far as learning was concerned. In fact, you might learn as much or as little as you liked, but while the facilities for not learning were considerable, those for learning were, in practice, somewhat scanty.²²

      Despite any distractions and temptations, Lushington gave himself to learning, thereby earning the high regard of the headmaster who, on his leaving, wrote to his father, “I cannot but express my regret at the loss wh[ich] our Coll[ege] will sustain on the retirement from its walls of one of its highest ornaments, of one so admirably qualified in every respect to be the Head of the College.”²³ Lushington excelled at Haileybury and won prizes in Classics, Law, History, and Political Economics, Sanskrit and Hindi as well as a General Proficiency Prize. He also contributed a humorous essay to the school magazine entitled “Stylo-philus Having Broken His Golden Pen, Indulgeth in the Following Stain”.²⁴

      Edward Lear

      Just as their father had gathered a circle of talented friends around him at Ockham Park, so did Lushington and his siblings. One of that circle was Edward Lear, now best remembered for his nonsense verse and art. Lear had a close friendship with Lushington’s cousin, Franklin, whom he had met in 1848 when the two were sailing from