by Kathryn Hadley
Yesterday, our editor Paul Lay wrote a piece listing some of the radio programmes commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). Today, the Victorian Poet Laureate’s newly restored library opened at Farringford House on the Isle of Wight, bringing together Tennyson’s furniture, paintings and manuscripts for the first time since the poet’s lifetime. The library will be used to house a series of exhibitions celebrating the life of Tennyson at Farringford. ‘Tennyson at Farringford’, the first exhibition in the series, also opened today. Showcasing many important artefacts on loan from private collectors and institutions, the exhibition brings back to life the Tennyson household and provides an insight into the many important visitors which the poet attracted, including Benjamin Jowett, Charles Darwin, Bishop Wilberforce, William Holman Hunt and Lewis Carroll.
Highlights of the exhibition include Tennyson’s terrestrial and celestial globes, the throne that he had made from a Farringford ilex for the widowed Queen Emma of Hawaii when she came to stay in 1865 as well as portraits of the poet, his wife and sons by George Frederick Watts, and of General Guiseppe Garibaldi, who famously planted a wellingtonia at Farringford in 1864. Living at Dimbola Lodge at Freshwater Bay, the British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was one of Tennyson’s neighbours. Also on display in the exhibition is an album of the photographs she created to illustrate Tennyson’s Idylls of the King cycle of 12 narrative poems published between 1856 and 1885, which retell the legend of King Arthur.
Tennyson and his wife Emily Sellwood rented Farringford in 1853 with the right to purchase, which they eventually did in 1856 with the proceeds of the publication of Maud. Farringford remained their home for the next 40 years and Tennyson had his second study built in 1871.
Tennyson at Farringford
August 7th – September 9th
Farringford Hotel
Bedbury Lane, Freshwater Bay
Isle of Wight PO40 9PE
Telephone: 01983 752 500
http://www.farringford.co.uk/
Highlights of the exhibition include Tennyson’s terrestrial and celestial globes, the throne that he had made from a Farringford ilex for the widowed Queen Emma of Hawaii when she came to stay in 1865 as well as portraits of the poet, his wife and sons by George Frederick Watts, and of General Guiseppe Garibaldi, who famously planted a wellingtonia at Farringford in 1864. Living at Dimbola Lodge at Freshwater Bay, the British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) was one of Tennyson’s neighbours. Also on display in the exhibition is an album of the photographs she created to illustrate Tennyson’s Idylls of the King cycle of 12 narrative poems published between 1856 and 1885, which retell the legend of King Arthur.
Tennyson and his wife Emily Sellwood rented Farringford in 1853 with the right to purchase, which they eventually did in 1856 with the proceeds of the publication of Maud. Farringford remained their home for the next 40 years and Tennyson had his second study built in 1871.
Tennyson at Farringford
August 7th – September 9th
Farringford Hotel
Bedbury Lane, Freshwater Bay
Isle of Wight PO40 9PE
Telephone: 01983 752 500
http://www.farringford.co.uk/
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