(1828-1897)
Published in Windlesora 12 (1993)
© WLHG
Had we been living a hundred years ago, especially if we had been avid readers of fiction, we should certainly have known of the writer Margaret Oliphant. Yet today this popular Victorian novelist is little remembered, even in Windsor where she lived and worked for over thirty years.
Queen Victoria herself was a great admirer, indeed Mrs Oliphant was the only author whose every latest work was obtained for the Royal Library. The books must have taken up a lot of shelf-space, for Mrs Oliphant was very prolific, producing in all 92 novels, 8 volumes of short stories, and 25 non-fiction works. She also wrote innumerable journalistic articles; in fact, by the end of her life she had written so much that her pen had worn a hole in her index finger!
A Scotswoman by birth, Margaret Oliphant first came to Windsor in 1865 and loved it at once for “the beauty of the river and the Castle and the air of cheerful life about”. Cheerfulness was just what she needed then, since life so far had brought her rather more than a fair share of grief.
When a young woman – and already publishing novels – she had married her cousin, Frank Oliphant. He was a stained-glass artist who, among other commissions, worked with Pugin on the windows of the new Houses of Parliament. Unfortunately he contracted tuberculosis, and died in Rome while fruitlessly seeking better health in a warm climate. He left Margaret with two young children, Maggie and Cyril, another expected and £1,000 of debts. Only Margaret’s pen stood between the family and destitution.
Cecco (christened Francis but never known by that name) was born six weeks later, and somehow Margaret weathered the storm and built a new life. Four years later tragedy struck yet again in Rome. While Margaret was staying with friends in the city her beloved Maggie caught a fever, died within a few days, and was buried beside her father.
This time it took Margaret much longer to pick up the pieces, but for the sake of her boys’ education she eventually returned to England. She decided to send them either to Eton or Harrow, and her first visit to Windsor determined her in Eton’s favour. As she had permission for Cyril to live at home while attending school she looked for a house to rent. She found just what she wanted in 6 Clarence Crescent, a very bright house which she loved for its sunny aspect and for the Crescent garden which the family called “the Plantation”. With its ‘fine trees and wild nooks and corners’ it was a perfect place for the boys to play.
Margaret made friends with her neighbours and with the Hawtreys, “a parsonic family up to their necks in school feasts and soup kitchens and flannel petticoats” (Stephen Hawtrey was the incumbent of Holy Trinity Church.) She entertained lavishly, with boating parties in summer and amateur dramatics in winter. These were the “dear and blessed boyish days”, which were perhaps the happiest of her life.
When she came to Windsor Mrs Oliphant was doing well as a writer, especially with her “Carlingford” series of novels. They are set in an imaginary small town, not far from London (unfortunately we cannot suggest it is Windsor, since she had written several Carlingford stories before she came here). Salem Chapel and Miss Marjoribanks, (written partly at Clarence Crescent) were particularly popular and are still to be recommended, especially the latter, a very funny satirical novel comparable with the work of Jane Austen.
On the strength of her success Mrs Oliphant felt that Eton College, boating parties, and summer picnics were all within her means, but she was never a thrifty Scot: last month’s bills always had to be paid by this month’s hard work. As she was aware, the pressure she wrote under prevented her from doing full justice to her talents, but she thought of herself as working more for the boys than for her own reputation. She wrote at night, when the day’s gay social activities were over and the rest of the household in bed. It was perhaps a pity that the work went on thus almost invisibly, for it must have seemed to the boys that a good living came without effort.
A first disturbance to Mrs Oliphant’s happy life came when her brother went bankrupt, in 1868. At once she undertook to educate his son at Eton as well as her own boys. Then, only a year later, her sister-in-law died and her brother, now a broken man, arrived with his two little girls to swell the numbers dependent on her pen. She had to move house to accommodate them all and bought numbers 8 and 9 Clarence Crescent (number 9 is now called “Oliphant House”). It was now necessary to work even harder on her nightly “treadmill”.
The photograph of Mrs Oliphant and her three young men was taken on the steps of her home in 1874. She looks older than her 46 years, but was then looking forward to being able to abandon hack work, as soon as the boys were off her hands.
It was not to be, however. Her brother’s death in 1875 was something of a relief, and in the same year her nephew went out to join the Indian Civil Service: he had done well at Cooper’s Hill Engineering College (now part of Brunel University), and Mrs Oliphant loved him as dearly as her own sons. Cyril entered Oxford University at this time too; he had been an engaging child and shown great promise at Eton, but at university he was easily distracted from his studies. From then on troubles came thick and fast. First came the tragic death from fever of her nephew. Then Cyril began to cause his mother anxiety. When he finished his degree he showed no inclination to find employment and devoted himself instead to a life of golf rounds and card games. Cecco turned out little better, though he might have found a place in the British Museum had he not begun to show signs of the same illness as killed his father. Both these unappealing young men seemed to resent their dependency on their mother. Since her two nieces continued (more gratefully) to live with her, Mrs Oliphant found herself at the age of sixty still having to maintain four helpless young people with her writing.
In 1890 Cyril suddenly died; terrified for Cecco, Mrs Oliphant took him abroad as often as she could, but he became weaker and thinner and in 1894 he too died. Now the bright cheerful Windsor home, “empty, empty, cold and silent”, became unbearable. She sold it and moved to Wimbledon, where she longed for death, sure that it would reunite her with her loved ones. Death came on 25th June 1897, three days after Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebration. She was buried in Eton cemetery with her two boys. Anyone seeking Mrs Oliphant’s grave can find it just on the left of the entrance. The large Celtic cross, the most impressive monument in the cemetery ironically commemorates Cyril, the son who achieved nothing; her more modest stone lies at his feet.
After her death Mrs Oliphant’s reputation declined as she had always forecast. If remembered at all it was for her productiveness, quantity at the expense of quality. It is true that she did write many pot-boilers of which she felt ashamed, yet her writing gifts were great and her best books are now being rediscovered. Apart from the Carlingford novels, Kirsteen, set largely in her native Scotland, is a very good read, as are her supernatural “tales of the seen and the unseen”, published under the title of one of them, The Beleaguered City. The Curate in Charge has local interest for us as it 1s set in Windsor Forest, near Ascot race-course.
Even though life had brought her more downs than ups, Margaret Oliphant’s friends always found her cheerful and lively. Annie Ritchie, daughter of the novelist Thackeray, said that “she was one of those people whose presence is even more than a pleasure, it was a stimulus”. That sort of company is good to find in a book too. It would be pleasant if, in 1997, Windsor could find some way to mark the centenary of the death of this talented woman.
Hester Davenport
The Windsor and Maidenhead Royal Borough Collection has 21 volumes of work by Margaret Oliphant at the Museum Store in Tinkers Lane, Windsor, including Salem Chapel (1863), Miss Marjoriebanks (1866) and The Curate in Charge (1876). These are available for loan.
Among the other titles are:
- The Perpetual Curate (1864)
- A Son of the Soil (1866)
- Innocent [3 volumes] (1873)
- The Story of Valentine and his Brother (1875)
- Within the Precincts (1879)
- A Country Gentleman and his Family [3 volumes] 1886
- Sons and Daughters (1890)
- A House in Bloomsbury (1894)
Windsor Local History Group 