Beatrix Potter and Frank Sutcliffe
How Whitby’s illustrious photographer was a source of inspiration to the writer and artist
What do Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins and Lewis Carroll have in common? Well, they were amongst many well-known authors who visited Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast and were inspired by it, especially Stoker who set part of Dracula there. Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) first visited on a mathematical study holiday from Oxford University in 1854 and shortly afterwards excelled in his exams. He was so taken with Whitby that he returned for several more holidays.
The writer Beatrix Potter, however, is not normally associated with Whitby; indeed, as far as is known, she never set foot there, yet at one time she harboured a bit of a guilty secret connected with the town.
Helen Beatrix Potter was born in 1866 in South Kensington, London, where she was brought up, with her younger brother Walter Bertram. Her parents never sent her to school but entrusted her education to governesses. She had private drawing lessons because her artistic talents were recognised when she was quite young; she also loved animals and was keenly interested in all matters scientific. Her early holidays were spent in Perthshire in Scotland and later her family stayed at Wray, near Windermere in the Lake District, which she grew to love.
The family came to know the local vicar, Hardwicke Rawnsley, who was passionate about the need to protect the countryside and who campaigned with Octavia Hill and Sir Robert Hunter to form the National Trust, which would buy sites of historic interest or natural beauty. The Trust was founded in 1895 and Beatrix’s father, Rupert, became the first life member. Beatrix herself was much influenced by Rawnsley’s ideas and championed the preservation of the countryside. On her death in 1943 she bequeathed over 4,000 acres, as well as many farms and cottages, to the National Trust.
Rawnsley had his links with Whitby too, and was the prime mover in a campaign for the erection of a memorial to Whitby’s earliest known writer, indeed England’s earliest named poet, Caedmon, who died in 680. The memorial to the cowherd who sang for the Abbess Hilda was unveiled by the Poet Laureate, Alfred Austin, in the churchyard of St. Mary’s at the top of the 199 steps, in September 1898. The Whitby Gazette carried an advert for photographs of Canon Rawnsley and Austin beside the cross, which had been taken by Whitby’s famous photographer, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe (1853-1941).
Photographers had to be made of stern stuff in the past and Sutcliffe carried his big heavy-stand camera up to the top of the church tower to take pictures of the assembled crowds at the ceremony. Frank then went down to take many photographs with a small Kodak hand-held camera. He had been experimenting with Kodak cameras, thanks to an arrangement by which they supplied him with their latest models free, and in return were allowed to use some of the results for their advertising.
Although Sutcliffe took photos in the countryside around Whitby, it was his Whitby scenes which appealed to Beatrix Potter. She came across some prints published by G. W. Wilson of Aberdeen whilst on holiday in Perthshire, in 1892. Beatrix recorded in her journal that she had found “some splendid photographs by Mr. Sutcliffe of Whitby” in Mckenzie’s photographic shop in Birnam, a town that came into being with the coming of the railway, but whose name is associated with Macbeth because of Shakespeare writing of Birnam Wood in the Scottish play. Today Birnam’s main claim to fame is a Beatrix Potter Exhibition and Garden, set up because of her association with the area.
Beatrix was inspired by one of the Sutcliffe photographs to draw a picture entitled “What shall we buy?” It showed a picture of David Storry’s shop in Church Street, just below the 199 steps, but the shopkeeper and some girls chatting outside were replaced by cats (see below). It became Squintina Tabby’s establishment, which caused great interest to two kittens, who had stopped playing with their hoops to peer into the windows. Squintina was named after the cat belonging to Beatrix’s aunt and uncle: Sir Henry Roscoe and Lucy, Lady Roscoe.
Beatrix had first sold some of her pictures for publication in 1890 and later she sold several, to the publishers Ernest Nister, who used them in their annuals and other books. The Whitby
picture was one of these and it was to cause her problems, about which she felt somewhat guilty.
She wrote in her journal in 1895, “I used a shop background in a cat drawing which I sold last summer to Nister, completely forgetting at the time it was copied from a bought photograph”. Normally, where possible she used her own photographs for inspiration. She was clearly worried about infringing the copyright on the photos, but Mckenzie sent a copy of her drawing to the publishers of the prints in Aberdeen, who were, she recorded, “very civil”, and some arrangement was reached. As a result a corner of Whitby was seen in Comical Customers. In the same book Nisters published some other pictures by Beatrix entitled “A Frog he would a Fishing Go”, but after some time she negotiated to buy back the rights to the pictures, and used them in her own books, so the rest is Jeremy Fisher history.
As for Frank Sutcliffe, it would certainly have pleased him to hear from Wilson’s that the copyright of his work was respected. In the 1890s he was a leading light in the Photographic Copyright Union, which aimed to protect photographers’ rights and prevent other people making unscrupulous profit from their work. He tried to assure his personal rights by registering a good number of his photos for copyright protection, and between 1885 and 1896 alone he registered 37 of some of his most impressive pictures.
Striking photographs of Whitby fishermen, their families and their boats had helped to make Sutcliffe’s reputation. He won over 60 medals in competitions, at home and abroad. His photos are in important public and private collections and are still available from the Sutcliffe Gallery in Whitby today. The saloon of the German Emperor’s yacht was adorned with copies of his photographs. Even the Prince of Wales bought a copy of his 1886 “Water Rats”, a picture showing naked boys playing in the River Esk (pictured above), which caused scandal in certain circles, but won Sutcliffe many awards for its outstanding photographic qualities.
Sutcliffe had first set up a photographic studio in Waterloo Yard, off Flowergate, in Whitby, in 1875, at a time when there were already three other photographers in the town (William Stonehouse, Samuel Braithwaite and John Waller). It was not easy to make a living, as he had already discovered from an earlier failed studio venture in Tunbridge Wells, but his persistence, hard work and attention to detail paid off. He later moved to a new studio in Skinner Street in 1894. He had inherited an artistic eye from his painter father, Thomas, and not only took exquisite well-composed photos, but also wrote and lectured about the importance of beauty. He campaigned against ugly hoardings in Whitby and the destruction of beautiful old houses in the town.
Sutcliffe was the author of hundreds of interesting, often witty, articles in the photographic press; he could have earned his living at writing. Perhaps this explains his rapport with several authors. Throughout his long career he photographed and befriended several famous visitors to Whitby. The Punch cartoonist and author, George du Maurier (grandfather of Daphne), brought his family to be photographed, but did not like having his own photograph taken, so came to Sutcliffe’s studio to chat. Other friends of Sutcliffe were Alfred Austin, the Poet Laureate, and the American poet and diplomat, J. Russell Lowell.
If only Beatrix Potter had visited Whitby she would have enjoyed seeing more of Frank Sutcliffe’s work. Had she sat for a portrait with him, they would have soon discovered their common love for all things beautiful, the need to preserve the best of both town and countryside for future generations. They would have had much to talk about!