Edith Louisa Wedgwood (1854-1935), great-granddaughter of the famous potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795), married Clement Francis Romilly Allen (1844-1920) in 1877. He was a member of the British Consular Service where he had been trained as a translator. In 1878 they moved to Shanghai where he was appointed British Vice-Consul, before being promoted to Consul at Beihai (Pakhoi) and Xiamen (Amoy) in 1881. Later he was posted to Fuzhou (Foochow), where he ended his career in 1898 and returned to Britain. He achieved fluency in Chinese and published a translation of the ‘Shi-jing’ entitled ‘The book of Chinese poetry. Being the collection of ballads, sagas, hymns and other pieces known as the Shih Ching or Classic of poetry’ (London 1891).
The couple had five children namely Clement Robert (aka ‘Bobby’, 1878-1914, born in Shanghai), Eleanor Marion (aka ‘Ellinor’, 1880-?), Emma Josephine Rosamund (1883-1917), Clementina Dorothy (Dodo 1885-1956) and Bertram (1888-1955). Bobby, Ellinor, Emma and Dodo are depicted in numerous sketches, as is the husband, C. F. R. Allen.
Edith Louisa was clearly a gifted draughts-woman. She had been trained at the Heatherleys School of Fine Art in London and once in China, she regularly exhibited her work at the Shanghai Art Society. She supplied illustrations for two of her husband’s books, namely John Chinaman’s Bamboo Tree (Shanghai 1886) and Some of the Analects of Confucius (Shanghai 1887) and also contributed art-work to The Graphic. The albums (A&B) include a number of drawings that were published in the magazine together with the printed double-page spread that featured her drawings under the title ‘Life at Pakhoi, one of the Chinese treaty ports’ (The Graphic, March 5th, 1887) as well as a letter by the manager praising her work “We are… pleased, indeed, to accept your sketches which are capital”, (ms. letter dated Oct, 1886). It includes a beautiful rendition of a men’s doubles tennis match, the first sight of the British Consulate at Pakhoi which appears to have been a pigsty and a horse-stable, the bombardment of Pakhoi by French men of war, and the subsequent evacuation to Hong Kong.
Most of the images in album A&B relate to their life in Beihai and Xiamen: One subject that features again and again is Po-lam bridge (Zhangzhou, close to Xiamen) which was a popular destination with foreigners stationed in Amoy in the 19th century together with a two-part albumen photograph of the bridge. The bridge which dated back to the 13th century used a large number of enormous stone monoliths spanning the Jiulong river over a distance of some 160 meters.
Outstanding are two large watercolours of the entrance gate to Amoy, two double-page drawings of the Consulate drawing room, as well as a large rendition of a Mrs. MacGowan languishing on an elegant reclining chair inside the Consulate, a beautiful scene of the family seated around a table in the new Consulate in Pakhoi together with a Chinese servant and an amah looking after the children (1885), as well as two still-lives, one of a Buddha’s Hand fruit (1886) the other of a bottle with a flowering Ixora (Pakhoi 1885). Other drawings show the races at Amoy, the Temple of Ten Thousand Rocks, the Li-wa-in temple at Ningpo, an exterior view of the Consulate at Kulangsu (Amoy), farmers, servants, wheel-barrows, a few humorous sketches, as well as portraits of friends and family (Mrs. Forbes, Mrs. Svenson, Annie, Eliza, Nellie etc). There are also a number of printed ephemera, like the printed Chinese visiting card of Consul Allen, another Visiting card of the General judge at Pakhoi (Xu Ru-si), a panoramic postcard of the International Settlements at Kulangsu annotated by her and identifying “our house”. Further drawings are of Singapore, the waterfall near Penang, Hong Kong island, Japan (largely Nikko & Miyanoshita), Malta, the Red Sea, as well as a number of manor houses in Britain (incl. Stanway House & Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, Stanton Court etc.).
Album C features numerous watercolours of a journey through Germany (Bad Kreuznach, Schwalbach), Switzerland (Geneva, Lausanne, Ormont-Dessus, Zermatt) as well as England, Wales, and Scotland (Glanafon, Llandudno, Fritham, Embley, Conway Castle, Durham, Edinburgh, Bornemouth etc). Album D consist largely of portrait studies, landscapes, flower studies, as well as a number of sketches she did while studying at Heatherleys School of Fine Art.
The present collection of drawings and watercolours span Edith Louisa Wedgwood’s entire adult life and they provide a fascinating and beautiful insight into a woman’s travels and lifestyle in the late 19th an early 20th century.
