ARTISTS AND WRITERS HOMES II: JOHN MEADE FALKNER (1858-1932)
IAN GOSLING , SEPTEMBER 2025
My last post mentioned that the novelist and poet John Meade Falkner was the brother of Anne Louise Falkner the painter. Time constraints prevented the inclusion of any further information. This did a great disservice to John, a many-talented man, who is now principally remembered as the author of the celebrated novel ‘Moonfleet’, a gripping tale of smuggling around the Fleet on the Dorset coast, and of its impact on the young hero of the tale John Trenchard, a story which has been enjoyed by countless children and adults since it was written in 1898.
John was born in Manningford Bruce in Wiltshire on 8th May 1858, the third child of the Reverend Alexander Thomas Falkner, the curate of the parish, and Elizabeth Grace Meade. His father had been born into a wealthy landed family, but had become a scholar and taken holy orders, principally to care for the poor. John’s elder brother died in his infancy and his elder sibling, Mary Grace, was born in 1856.
In 1859 his father was appointed curate of St Peter’s Church in Dorchester, and the family rented No 6 West Walks (not Shirley House which was erroneously mentioned in my last post). This large villa, which has the appearance of an Italian lakeside villa in Como (Photo 1), had been constructed in 1851 by its owner Henry Barnes who lived nearby.
His younger sister Anne Louise, who later found fame as an artist, was born in that house in 1863 as were two younger brothers, Charles and William. In his memoirs he describes the garden thus “at the back and side there were a vegetable garden, a green house, a coach house and a stable and a laundry. In front there were flower beds, a lawn, a ‘round-about’ and some shrubberies which we children called ‘the wilderness’”.
In 1869, when John was eleven years old, the family moved to Weymouth where his father had been appointed curate of St Mary’s Church in Melcombe Regis (Photo 2).
A large painting of the Last Supper by the Dorset born painter James Thornhill hangs inside the church on the east wall (Photo 3).
It most certainly impressed the young John. Thornhill was appointed Sergent- Painter to King George I in 1720 and is known for his masterpiece the Painted Hall in Greenwich Hospital, and locally for his mural in Sherborne House. He was also elected as MP for Melcombe Regis and Weymouth in 1722 and 1727 (see my earlier blog on Greenwich which was posted in November 2023).
On arriving in Melcombe Regis his father moved the family into the Rectory at No 82 St Thomas Street, a grand late Georgian town house, one of a pair, built in brick and set back from the street. Until recently the two properties housed the Clipper Inn (Photo 4).
They have recently been restored to their former state, and it had been intended to house a Jurassic Coast Centre and Museum in No 82. Unfortunately, it is now unclear whether the project will materialise, and both properties are currently vacant (Photo 5).
In March 1871 disaster struck the family. Elizabeth Grace and her five children fell severely ill of a suspected gastric complaint shortly after having consumed their afternoon tea. Their state quickly worsened, and Elizabeth Grace died a few days later and was buried on 17th March. The children all survived, having been nursed back to health by two in-house nurses employed for the purpose by the Reverend Alexander Falkner. A thorough investigation revealed that the young and overworked family housekeeper had used water from the attic water tank, which was found to contain the putrid body of a rat, rather than taking the time to draw water from the property’s outside well which was uncontaminated.
John was thirteen at the time he lost his mother. He had been sent to school at an early age to a private establishment in Dorchester run by the Reverend Henry Moule, then to Hardye’s School in Dorchester and, after the family’s move to Melcombe Regis, to the Grammar School in Weymouth. From 1872, probably because of his mother’s premature death, he was sent as a boarder to Marlborough College in Wiltshire. On leaving school he read history at Hertford College Oxford from which he graduated with a third-class degree in 1882.
After a spell teaching he moved to Newcastle to take up the post of private tutor for the family of Sir Edward Noble who was the chairman of one of the world’s leading armaments and warship manufacturers, Armstrong Whitworth Co.
When his charges grew up his employer persuaded him to join the company, and because of his management skills he became a director in 1901. As a result of his language skills he was responsible for the firm’s exports which involved travelling extensively abroad and negotiating contracts with foreign governments. In 1915 he was appointed Chairman, at a time when the firm had become crucially important to the United Kingdom in its conflict with Germany. His work abroad led him to be decorated by the Turkish, Italian and Japanese governments.
Despite his strenuous business activities, he found time to write erudite tour guides and novels in his spare time:
• ‘The Handbook for Travellers in Oxfordshire’ in 1894
• His first novel ‘The Lost Stradivarius’ in 1895
• ‘Moonfleet’ his second novel in 1898
• ‘A History of Oxfordshire’ in 1899
• ‘The Handbook for Berkshire’ in 1902
• His third and final novel ‘The Nebuly Coast’ in 1903
• ‘Bath in History and Social Tradition’ in 1914, and
• ‘A history of Durham Cathedral Library’ in 1925.
From an early age he had been fascinated by the medieval world and as a consequence of his travels abroad he was able to acquire rare books and manuscripts of that period and to become an expert palaeographer (i.e. an expert in the history of manuscripts and texts). He specialised in liturgical literature and worked on manuscripts in the Vatican library to which he eventually donated several works from his collection. He also wrote poems which he circulated privately but many of which were published in the weekly journal ‘The Spectator’.
In 1902 he settled in Durham in Divinity House, on Palace Green overlooking the cathedral, with his wife Evelyn Violet Adye whom he had married three years previously at the age of forty. After retiring in 1921 he became Honorary Reader in Palaeography at the University of Durham, the Librarian to the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral, which he developed into the foremost such library in England, and Honorary Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. Towards the end of his life, he became a friend of Thomas Hardy and visited him in Max Gate. Following in the footsteps of his father he contributed to numerous charities throughout his lifetime. He died in his home in Durham, and his life is commemorated by a plaque in Durham cathedral.
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