5237. RB to William Gillum
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 30, 255–256.
19. Warwick Crescent,
Upper Westbourne Terrace.
June 17. ’63.
My dear Gillum, [1]
I could hardly make up my mind at first to write—what needs must be written—that my arrangements with Robert & his masters prevent our accepting your most kind & pleasant invitation: this must explain my delay in answering your letter. We go away for two months at the end of July—and I cannot venture to disturb the regular roll of the disciplinary wheel that is to grind a Balliol student out of the little long-curled, velvet-clad fellow you were so good to, of old. He does very little, but is regular in the doing that; and I hope we shall succeed—without absolute loss of the music, drawing—not to say, riding & rowing, which he loves so much at present.
In the letter which should have reached you four years ago, nearly [2] —I had sent some photographs—as many of these as I can recover, I will send for your acceptance. I remember my perfect consternation at your generosity—those Turner etchings, those Albert Durers [3] —could you have really meant them for me—even when I was worth something? I have them—though you never had my poor photographs.
I meant to go to your schools on Monday, [4] but was so unwell, through a bilious attack, that I was forced to see the doctor & keep the house: my sister, Arabella Barrett, my close neighbour, will be much interested in them—having begun & carried on a Ragged Girls’ School of her own. [5]
Kindest regard to Mrs Gillum [6] —(the apparently impromptu expression of which, I could easily explain & justify) and, for yourself, believe me ever—in virtue of the dear old days
Affectionately yours
R Browning.
What I now send, are of course quite other things—which my friends care to have.
Address: Major Gillum, / The Moated House, / Tottenham.
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: Balliol College.
1. William Gillum (1827–1910), art patron and philanthropist. The Brownings met him at Bagni di Lucca in the summer of 1857 (see letter 4034, note 2).
2. See letter 4687, which was sent three years before. One of the photographs RB mentions was of the Hamilton Wild painting of Pen on his pony.
3. These works by J.M.W. Turner and Albrecht Dürer have not been identified or traced and are not mentioned anywhere else in the extant correspondence.
4. In 1860 Gillum “became a member of the management committee” of an “Industrial Home for Destitute Boys,” located on Euston Road. “In the same year … he founded with his own money, as a supplementary institution, the Boys’ Farm Home out in the country at East Barnet in Hertfordshire … For the upkeep of the farm home he paid entirely up to 1875, and thereafter was the head of a body of trustees” (Nikolaus Pevsner, “Colonel Gillum and the Pre-Raphaelites,” The Burlington Magazine, 95, March 1953, 76).
6. Leonora Georgiana Gillum (née Bell, 1827–1914), daughter of William Bell and his wife, Elizabeth (née Kinnear). The Gillums were married on 13 November 1861 at Christ Church, St. Pancras.
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