Caroline Fuller-Maitland (1820-1897) - Esther Herschell's sister
How We Went to Rome in 1857
An introduction to the Kindle edition by Geoffrey Henderson
In these times of cheap international travel it has become almost routine for many people to fly across the Alps or the Pyrenees with barely a glance at the awesome mountain ranges beneath them.
It is hard to believe that just 150 years ago the journey was often undertaken with fear and trepidation. Even today it is a worthwhile experience to drive through the mountains in order to appreciate, and respect, their power.
For Caroline Fuller-Maitland the journey across the mountains and down to Rome began on Monday 2nd March 1857 at Park Place, the vast estate of the her wealthy family, overlooking the River Thames at Henley Reach.
Caroline’s elder sister, Esther, had recently married the Revd Ridley Herschell, the Jewish minister of a fashionable nonconformist church in Marylebone, London.
Herschell was born in Strzelno, Poland in 1897 and had adopted the Christian faith following a dramatic conversion experience in Paris. In 1831 he had married Helen Skirving Mowbray in London and they had five children together.
Cut off from their disapproving families Ridley and Helen spent much of their life together in relative poverty but they had friends in high places who were sympathetic to their evangelisation of Jewish people. Among these friends were the hugely rich Fuller-Maitland family.
After twenty-two years of marriage and a remarkable life together Helen died in Germany following a long illness. After an appropriate period of mourning Esther, the oldest surviving and still unmarried daughter of Ebenezer and Bethia Fuller-Maitland appeared on the scene as a suitor to Ridley, and they were married in 1855.
Whether this would be a real love match or a marriage of convenience we may only surmise, but we know Ridley would grieve for his beloved Helen for the rest of his life. By the time he died in 1864 there was certainly a deep affection between himself and Esther, but the children were the priority. Ridley needed to find a husband for his daughter, Mary, and careers for his sons, Ridley Judah and Farrer. Ghetal had married two years before. Esther needed to fulfil her maternal instincts and would spend much of her fortune on her new stepson, the future Lord Farrer Herschell, Lord Chancelor of England.
Unlike his first wife, the dedicated worker and would-be academic Helen, Esther enjoyed life at a rather more superficial level and her sister Caroline at the age of thirty-seven seems more like a spoilt school-girl than a respectable Victorian maiden lady.
And so these three unlikely companions set out for ancient Rome. The educated Hebrew Christian they called the ‘rabbi’, his new and very rich wife Esther, and Caroline, Esther’s second youngest sister.
Caroline must have been an amusing, if occasionally tiresome, companion. Even the ageing and world-weary Herschell seems to warm to her in the end and Esther takes it all for granted as she makes what must have been her rather belated Victorian version of the Grand Tour. Even the long-suffering maid, Jane, enjoys the trip during her few precious moments of leisure.
As they set out for Dover neither of the sisters could be sure where they might actually end up, for although Esther held the purse strings the Revd Herschell was very much in charge of the trip. As Caroline excitedly confides to her diary on the first day, “The Lord Warden Hotel, talking over our plans in the evening; possibly we may get to Rome!”
And so they did. This is Caroline’s diary of the journey which took place between March and May of 1857. But it would not be printed until 1892 and then only for private circulation five years before she died, still single, in Scotland.
It is often unwittingly amusing as when her fashionably anti-Catholic sentiments are ameliorated by the purchase of an Easter palm which the Pope had blessed, and her homely naming of the painter and sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti as Michael Angelo.
She is a joyful travelling companion whose English upper class arrogance is only surpassed by her French and Italian ignorance. But her confidence in all three languages is inspiring.
How We Went to Rome in 1857 is available from Amazon Kindle for 99 pence
An introduction to the Kindle edition by Geoffrey Henderson
In these times of cheap international travel it has become almost routine for many people to fly across the Alps or the Pyrenees with barely a glance at the awesome mountain ranges beneath them.
It is hard to believe that just 150 years ago the journey was often undertaken with fear and trepidation. Even today it is a worthwhile experience to drive through the mountains in order to appreciate, and respect, their power.
For Caroline Fuller-Maitland the journey across the mountains and down to Rome began on Monday 2nd March 1857 at Park Place, the vast estate of the her wealthy family, overlooking the River Thames at Henley Reach.
Caroline’s elder sister, Esther, had recently married the Revd Ridley Herschell, the Jewish minister of a fashionable nonconformist church in Marylebone, London.
Herschell was born in Strzelno, Poland in 1897 and had adopted the Christian faith following a dramatic conversion experience in Paris. In 1831 he had married Helen Skirving Mowbray in London and they had five children together.
Cut off from their disapproving families Ridley and Helen spent much of their life together in relative poverty but they had friends in high places who were sympathetic to their evangelisation of Jewish people. Among these friends were the hugely rich Fuller-Maitland family.
After twenty-two years of marriage and a remarkable life together Helen died in Germany following a long illness. After an appropriate period of mourning Esther, the oldest surviving and still unmarried daughter of Ebenezer and Bethia Fuller-Maitland appeared on the scene as a suitor to Ridley, and they were married in 1855.
Whether this would be a real love match or a marriage of convenience we may only surmise, but we know Ridley would grieve for his beloved Helen for the rest of his life. By the time he died in 1864 there was certainly a deep affection between himself and Esther, but the children were the priority. Ridley needed to find a husband for his daughter, Mary, and careers for his sons, Ridley Judah and Farrer. Ghetal had married two years before. Esther needed to fulfil her maternal instincts and would spend much of her fortune on her new stepson, the future Lord Farrer Herschell, Lord Chancelor of England.
Unlike his first wife, the dedicated worker and would-be academic Helen, Esther enjoyed life at a rather more superficial level and her sister Caroline at the age of thirty-seven seems more like a spoilt school-girl than a respectable Victorian maiden lady.
And so these three unlikely companions set out for ancient Rome. The educated Hebrew Christian they called the ‘rabbi’, his new and very rich wife Esther, and Caroline, Esther’s second youngest sister.
Caroline must have been an amusing, if occasionally tiresome, companion. Even the ageing and world-weary Herschell seems to warm to her in the end and Esther takes it all for granted as she makes what must have been her rather belated Victorian version of the Grand Tour. Even the long-suffering maid, Jane, enjoys the trip during her few precious moments of leisure.
As they set out for Dover neither of the sisters could be sure where they might actually end up, for although Esther held the purse strings the Revd Herschell was very much in charge of the trip. As Caroline excitedly confides to her diary on the first day, “The Lord Warden Hotel, talking over our plans in the evening; possibly we may get to Rome!”
And so they did. This is Caroline’s diary of the journey which took place between March and May of 1857. But it would not be printed until 1892 and then only for private circulation five years before she died, still single, in Scotland.
It is often unwittingly amusing as when her fashionably anti-Catholic sentiments are ameliorated by the purchase of an Easter palm which the Pope had blessed, and her homely naming of the painter and sculptor Michelangelo Buonarroti as Michael Angelo.
She is a joyful travelling companion whose English upper class arrogance is only surpassed by her French and Italian ignorance. But her confidence in all three languages is inspiring.
How We Went to Rome in 1857 is available from Amazon Kindle for 99 pence
