BLACKHEATH AND DISTRICT REPORTER
April 1960
CHARLES KELSALL AND HIS LIBRARY
by Reginald Saw.
Tucked away among the new houses between Kidbrooke Church and the "Dover
Patrol" is Kelsall Close. As this is not far from Morden College, to which
Charles Kelsall left his library a century ago, it may be assumed that the
little Close was named after him. Here, then, is his story.
The Kelsalls came from Cheshire. There is a village of that name about eight
miles from Chester and the Manor of Kelsall belonged to the older branch of
the family. They were certainly prolific. Today we may say the world is
over-populated, but in 1797 a Mrs. Susan Kelsall, of Cheshire, died, leaving
13 children, 87 grandchildren, 86 great-grandchildren and 3
great-great-grandchildren: a total of 189 descendants from one woman in one
lifetime.
Without going too far back we can start with John Kelsall, a lawyer who
fought for King Charles and lost half his property as a penalty for being on
the wrong side. One of his grandsons, also a John Kelsall, went to Wiltshire
for a wife and chose Alice Maskelyne, of Purton, and this is where the
Greenwich story really begins.
This grandson went into the service of the East India Companyand was captain
of one of their trading vessels. His wife's only neice was the girl, who at
the age of 18, married Robert Clive - Clive of India. Thus, when John and
Alice had a son of their own he was a cousin of Lady Clive and very wisely
went to India, to enjoy the patronage of the Clives. He returned in 18 years
with a fortune. Meanwhile his father, Captain John Kelsall, had retired and
settled at Greenwich where his 2 children, Thomas and Mary were born. This
Thomas is the man whose portrait now hangs over the mantelpiece in the
Library at Morden College. It was painted by Francis Wheatley in 1791 the
same year as he became an R.A.
Thomas Kelsall left India at the age of 37 and settled down at Greenwich, as
his father had done before him. He is mentioned as "of May's Hill,
Greenwich" in the Probate of his father's Will and there is a note that he
lived in the house of Sir Gregory Page near the foot of Maze Hill. If that
were so, then from its upper windows he could have seen the Royal
Observatory where his cousin Nevill Maskelyne (Lady Clive's brother) was
Astronomer-Royal for 46 years. A notice at the College says that Thomas was
a tenant of College property, but no-one has found out where, and as he was
a wealthy man when he came back from India it is almost certain he would
have owned his own house, and a good one too.
He married a Sarah Phipps at St.George's, Hanover Square, and had three
children, all born at Greenwich. Charles born in 1782, the eldest, is the
subject of this article. None of the three married, and as their parents
died while they were miinors they were brought up by an uncle. But where
Charles lived from then until 1840 has not been discovered.
Charles Kelsall was sent to Eton and to Cambridge, as a Fellow-Commoner at
Trinity but he left without taking a degree. He tried the Army, but after
three years he decided to devote himself to learning and travel, having
ample means to do so. He bought regularly and noted inside each one where
he had bought or read them. From this information we can trace his journeys
from Moscow to Lisbon and from Ireland to the Caucasus. He himself wrote
that between 1805 and 1844 he had visited 16 countries and travelled over
100,000 miles. And this before railways were in use!
It was in a street in Old Moscow, whilst touring Russia with Viscount
Royston, that he bought his copy of Anacreon in 1807, Greek on one side,
Russian on the other. Five years later he wrote inside the book "1812 Moscow
and Royston now no more!" Moscow had gone up in flames, Royston had gone
down in a shipwreck.
Charles Kelsall always considered himself an amateur-architect, his taste
naturally inclining towards the classical style of Palladio and Wren. His
most ambitious scheme was one for an ideal university and this was published
in book-form in 1814 when he was only 30, with a companion volume of plates
done by a professional architect. He described his scheme and lived to
assert that it "furnished the first idea of London University." It was
printed at least six years before the latter was even thought of! His second
great plan was developed in 1827 when it was proposed to re-build the
residential part of Windsor Castle. He wrote an 81-page brochure explaining
how the new buildings should be designed, in the classical style, something
like Somerset House. Thirty years later he wrote "they could have built it
at a third of the cost if they had only listened to me!"
In his will he had several charitable schemes. One to help the poor crofters
of St.Kilda, another to give £1 or £2 to some selected emigrants to
Australia, New Zealand or North Ameriaca, but with such a paraphenalia of
controls that the administration probably cost more than the total of tiny
doles. And the scheme was to be for 5 to 20 years only, not for ever. He
left his books to Morden College and £2,000 to build a Library to house
them: 1,100 volumes more than a century old, - half of them English, 228
French, 114 Greek or Latin, 67 Italian. Kelsall was a book hoarder rather
than a book-lover. He preferred the 18th century Augustans, Pope, Dryden,
and Addison, and never collected the works of his really great
contemporaries Keats, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley. He liked Byron but
seems to have missed Scott. His Library is surprisingly lacking in first
editions. He preferred always to have the revised texts, and he had a horrid
habit of showing off his linguistic virtuosity by scribbling the opinion of
a book in the language of the author on the end-papers and fly-leaves. He
liked good leather bindings and bought some very fine old books on Naples
and Sicily. The collection makes a handsome show on the shelves in the
Library.
Having made an immensely long Will, he preceeded to make ten codicils to
alter it! In the fourth he left a picture of The Dead Christ in the lap of
His Mother "partly painted by Van Dyck" to a Catholic College near Ramsgate,
then six months later he left it to the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem.
The very next day he made another Codicil leaving £1,000 to provide 50
marriage-portions of £20 each in Spanish dollars to the next 50 maidens to
be married in that church. The High Priest was required to kiss the New
Testament on the Cradle Altar as a guarantee of honesty before touching the
cash. Six months later, only a few months before his death, came another
Codicil giving the alleged Van Dyck to Jesus College, Cambridge, and giving
£50 each to 20 Bethlehem maidens instead of £20 each to 50. When he died,
the picture had vanished! He may have thought this would happen, for there
is a note among his papers which says, "when an old bachelor dies, wingless
vultures are often ready to snuff a prey!"
It is certain that he was living in his fine villa at Hythe overlooking
Southampton Water in 1841, for it was there that he made a catalog of his
books. The house is still standing, but has been greatly enlarged. He named
it Villa Amalthea, after the nymph who had the Horn of Plenty. There is a
row of stone busts, from Homer to Newton, overlooking the sea-wall, and a
copy of the famous Dancing Faun from Pompeii in the garden. I have met an
old lady whose mother was in service at Villa Amalthea and who tells me that
it was whispered locally that Kelsall worshipped the busts, on their
shoulder-high pedestals, and that they were known in the village as "them
images." Also that the Dancing Faun was supposed to be an image of the
Devil. Some practical jokers stole the Dancing Faun one night and dumped it
in the sea off Cowes. But they were seen, the Devil was fished out of the
salt water, and the magistrate took a poor view of the escapade.
Kelsall wanted to be buried under the turf of Morden College with a
trembling aspen-tree over his head, but he died at Nice and was buried there
by his old man-servant to whom he had left £100 in his Will, only to cancel
it in a Codicil. But the Bethlehem maidens got their Spanish dollars!
CHESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY
26 APR 1960
Fp92 KEL
81444