An Interesting Victorian

[Joshua Rogan]

When I googled this chap's name, I was quite intrigued when the website
"Thomas Ashe, the Lusk connection" popped up.

Turns out there's more than one Thomas Ashe....and more than one Lusk.

[MrBarnett]

Well, there is a "Kelmscott Bookshop" which sells a copy inscribed by the author

https://www.kelmscottbookshop.com/pa...ongs-of-a-year

but it seems that "Songs of a Year" was "privately printed at the Chiswick Press"

https://books.google.it/books?id=Mzd...sec=frontcover

I suppose they aren't relevant, but through

https://books.google.com/advanced_book_search

I found Ashe's mentions of an "Alice Bann"

https://tinyurl.com/fkurfhk3

and of an "Alice Dean"

https://tinyurl.com/9ev6kdtx

‘Songs of a Year’ (1888) was his last volume of poetry. It contains a number of ‘London Lyrics’ which might be interesting to read. They won’t be in the collected poems I have on order.

In his last year at Cambridge (1859) Ashe started a magazine ‘The Eagle’ and an article on him was printed in its Lent 1890 edition.

I had seen the Alice Bann poem, but not the Alice Dean one. Thanks for that.

[eclectic browser]

William Morris's legendary Kelmscott Press printed a clump of his poems in 1888. Seems like he had a definite thing for young girls. Here's two, perhaps, related to the two discussed here.

Well, there is a "Kelmscott Bookshop" which sells a copy inscribed by the author

https://www.kelmscottbookshop.com/pa...ongs-of-a-year

but it seems that "Songs of a Year" was "privately printed at the Chiswick Press"

https://books.google.it/books?id=Mzd...sec=frontcover

I suppose they aren't relevant, but through

https://books.google.com/advanced_book_search

I found Ashe's mentions of an "Alice Bann"

https://tinyurl.com/fkurfhk3

and of an "Alice Dean"

https://tinyurl.com/9ev6kdtx

[MrBarnett]

I can’t make this one out.

[MrBarnett]

William Morris's legendary Kelmscott Press printed a clump of his poems in 1888. Seems like he had a definite thing for young girls. Here's two, perhaps, related to the two discussed here.

Great find, Dusty.

I wonder when that was written.

In ‘The Pleiads’ he writes of leaving his chamber in Minster Close and passing through the Minster gate into the market where he encounters ‘wicked women, Two by two, who whisper low;’ and describes their ‘soft good nights, that shame’.

The photo above shows the Minster Gate and the market place. Interestingly, the building to the right of the gate with the ‘PRINTING OFFICE’ sign was where the Peterborough Advertiser, the paper that made the connection between Alice Pitts and Alice McKenzie, was located.

[drstrange169]

[drstrange169]

William Morris's legendary Kelmscott Press printed a clump of his poems in 1888. Seems like he had a definite thing for young girls. Here's two, perhaps, related to the two discussed here.

[eclectic browser]

One last extract from Ashe’s poetical works (thanks again, eb):

You are very welcome.

[MrBarnett]

In ‘Marit’ the girl says ‘The dear grey town, so queer, and old, it haunts me like a song!’

That sounds like it might be Peterborough.

I’ll wait until I get the book in my hands, but it seems quite plausible that the sisters of the poem were Alice and Martha Pitts and that ‘Marit’ was one or other of them, or perhaps an amalgam of the two.

[MrBarnett]

One last extract from Ashe’s poetical works (thanks again, eb):

[MrBarnett]

He was a bit of an Anglican Francis Thompson.

Yes, Dusty, that’s how he strikes me, although his poetry is considerably less violent/gory than Thompson’s.


Look at the above: a poem written by Ashe in 1859/60 speaking of a lonely chamber in the [Peterborough] Minster Close and the 1841 census showing the Pitts family living in Minster Close with a lodger (?).

Later censuses just give the Pitts’s address as the wider Minster/Cathedral Precincts, but one press report speaks of the family having lived in the same small house for many years. And in every census between 1851 and 1871 there’s a lodger/boarder present.

[drstrange169]

He was a bit of an Anglican Francis Thompson.

[MrBarnett]

Hello, this is what I've found

https://books.google.it/books?id=HzbUwQEACAAJ&pg=PA231

https://books.google.it/books?id=M2MVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA107

Thank you, e b!

[eclectic browser]

Martha would have been 20/21 when Ashe was in Peterborough. I’m not sure where the 14/15 age comes into it. That age range was mentioned by a reviewer of Ashe’s poems, another said ‘13 or so’. It may be there’s a specific reference to it in ‘Marit’. I’ve seen three of the nine lyrics it contains, but they make no reference to age.

Ashe became the Curate of Silverstone at Easter, 1860 and Martha was recorded in his household in 1861 - just him, his sister and Martha.

He left there around 1865 to take up his teaching career. Prior to that Martha had returned to Peterborough and married a carpenter from Silverstone, Eli Varney - in 1862 in Peterborough cathedral. They remained there and by 1891 had their own teenaged house servant, Annie Pearce, 17.

Hello, this is what I've found

https://books.google.it/books?id=HzbUwQEACAAJ&pg=PA231

https://books.google.it/books?id=M2MVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA107

[MrBarnett]

That makes sense to me. Hopefully the collection you have on order will clear it up. Why must everything, no matter how tangential to the JtR crimes, end up with some sort of mystery attached to it?

- Jeff

That’s life, I suppose. :-)

The contrast between the experiences of Alice and Martha is a real ‘Tale of Two Sisters’ - one certainly had the ‘worst of times’.