SIR JOSEPH BANKS (1743–1820): NATURALIST AND ANTIQUARY

Joseph Banks was the son of William Banks of Revesby, Lincolnshire.Footnote ⁸ Educated at Harrow, Eton and Oxford, he developed scientific interests that he was able to cultivate further after inheriting the family estates in 1761, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries in 1766. In that year he went on a natural history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador, and he sailed with Captain Cook on the Endeavour (1768–71), which brought him lasting fame. He did not go on Cook’s second voyage, but travelled to Iceland in 1772 (by way of the Hebrides and Orkney), taking in antiquities on the way.Footnote ⁹ Elected to the Society of Dilettanti in 1774 (Secretary, 1778–97), he became President of the Royal Society in 1778 (and remained in office there forty-two years). He married in 1779 and his London home in Soho Square became the centre of his scientific life and a place of resort for a host of international visitors. Revesby (some 3.2km north of Boston and 11km east of Tattershall) remained his country house. He was made a baronet in 1781.

Banks maintained a strong interest in botany (and in the development of Kew Gardens) and in Australia (both its natural history and the growth of the colony), while dispersing many of the objects he had collected or gathered.Footnote ¹⁰ At the same time he was concerned with antiquarian matters, stating that ‘general antiquities has been always with me a favorite [sic] pursuit of Relaxation’. He was closely involved in the political life of the Society of Antiquaries,Footnote ¹¹ being elected a member of Council on numerous times over a period of nearly fifty years, in 1767, 1774, 1778, 1785–8 and 1813–20.Footnote ¹² This was an age when learning easily extended across the fields of science and antiquity.Footnote ¹³ He supported Samuel Lysons’ excavation work at Woodchester Roman villa, and amassed a vast collection of materials concerning the antiquities of Lincolnshire. His attention to ancient remains within reach of his country home at Revesby (especially at Tattershall) included barrow-digging and attending the opening of Bishop Grosseteste’s tomb in Lincoln Cathedral in 1782.Footnote ¹⁴ He published several articles on a variety of topics in Archaeologia from 1792 onwards, including Roman remains, medieval churches and swan marks.Footnote ¹⁵ He also presented items that he had collected (including discoveries in the River Witham in 1787 and 1815) for discussion at Society meetings, and in 1800 he donated to the Society the Roman bronze foreleg of an imperial equestrian statue found in Lincoln.Footnote ¹⁶

THE ANTIQUARIAN CONTEXT

In both science and antiquarianism, the practice of illustration and the rise of the illustrated book had a profound impact on the character and growth of scholarship, and the respective roles of patrons and ‘knowledge workers’ has become a matter for discussion.Footnote ¹⁷ In an age of discovery, the artist played an important role in recording new worlds and both scientific and ethnographic material, just as artisan draughtsmen and model-makers were an essential part of making and recording progress in the industrial revolution.Footnote ¹⁸ The illustration of ancient buildings in the medium of watercolour and copper engraving became a commonplace in the eighteenth century, and the direct reporting of the form of the structure was often as important as its place in a picturesque composition.Footnote ¹⁹ For Tattershall, the existence of a print depicting the castle by the Buck brothers (1726) is the least that would be expected for a site of that interest, and it is an important view of the ruins before many medieval buildings were lost, while another print by William Millicent (1727) is of value in giving a view from the opposite direction. Later in the century Tattershall became the obvious subject of topographical artists for those who ventured that far, as the drawings by Girtin (and later de Wint) testify. What is exceptional, however, is the carefully drawn record of the great tower commissioned by Joseph Banks in 1783, which is almost a pioneering effort in the archaeological study of castles, even if Banks did not quite get what he had asked for.

The Tattershall survey belongs to the first age of the scientific (we would now say archaeological) regard for medieval remains, and a signal instance of the investigation and record of historic buildings that was to be the hallmark of antiquarian studies in the early nineteenth century. It followed on from a sustained campaign to record classical buildings, partly encouraged by the Society of Dilettanti and exemplified by a series of renowned publications that were to have a profound impact on English architecture: Palmyra (1753), by Robert Wood and James Dawkins; Athens (1762), by James Stuart and Nicholas Revett; Ruins of Diocletian’s Palace (1764), by Robert Adam; and Ruins of Paestum (1768), by Thomas Major.Footnote ²⁰ Reports of excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii were also circulating, brought to English readers through the papers given by Sir William Hamilton to the Society of Antiquaries.Footnote ²¹

A serious interest in medieval antiquities is evident in the first wave of historical and scientific antiquarianism in the seventeenth century, with Hollar’s illustrations to the works of Sir William Dugdale, and the pioneering study by John Aubrey of the development of Gothic architecture in the Chronologia Architectonica section of his Monumenta Britannica.Footnote ²² Medieval antiquities, as much as Roman or earlier remains, were to be a constant interest of William Stukeley, who recorded medieval ruins in his Itinerarium Curiosum (1724) (including the Tower on the Moor near Tattershall), while the first volume of Archaeologia (1779) included a 1755 record of the demolished belfry (the ‘Sanctuary’) at Westminster Abbey. One of the first books in these islands to offer extensive treatment of fieldwork on monuments of the medieval period was the detailed series of surveys of earthwork and stone castles in County Louth printed in Wright’s Louthiana or An Introduction to the Antiquities of Ireland (1748), possibly less well known since it deals exclusively with just one part of Ireland. The author, Thomas Wright, the ‘Wizard of Durham’, is now better known as an astronomer and garden designer, but deserves a niche in the antiquarian pantheon.Footnote ²³ There was a growing interest in medieval antiquities towards the end of the eighteenth century, as shown by the subjects illustrated in the Vetusta Monumenta,Footnote ²⁴ and an increasingly serious attitude to Gothic buildings.Footnote ²⁵ Similarly, James Murphy’s Description of the Church of Batalha (1789) was an important publication of a church in Portugal with strong English affinities. Edward King’s book on castles was published in 1799,Footnote ²⁶ and John Carter’s landmark series of cathedral studies was published in the 1790s, while the proliferation of visual records of buildings as conscious records rather than picturesque images was becoming a frequent occurrence in publications such as The Gentleman’s Magazine. Indeed, visual representations became so commonplace that Gough famously remarked in 1788 on the unwitting contribution of engraving to the destruction of historic buildings: ‘when the engraving is made, farewell to the thing engraved’.Footnote ²⁷

There were, of course, other reasons for producing drawn surveys of historic buildings, and both architects and military surveyors were accustomed to providing building plans that distinguished old and new work by colour differentiation (while military surveys were a significant aspect of the development of archaeological fieldwork).Footnote ²⁸ Indeed the finished drawings of Tattershall Castle were not dissimilar to some surveyors’ drawings in the Board of Ordnance or Office of Works (for example, Clement Lemprière’s drawings of the White Tower of London, 1721–9), but as a deliberate study of a medieval ruin they were exceptional.Footnote ²⁹ One remarkable contemporary example of an illustrative building record is provided by the plates produced for the scientific examination of the scene of a dramatic lightning strike on the workhouse at Heckingham in Norfolk in 1782. The Royal Society sent Dr Charles Blagden (1748–1820) to investigate,Footnote ³⁰ together with the scientific instrument maker Edward Nairne (1726–1806) and a draughtsman to survey the course of the lightning bolt through the damaged building; unfortunately, he did not sign the excellent perspective drawings that survive in the Society’s archives and that would have been known to Banks from their publication.Footnote ³¹

For Joseph Banks, it may have been his scientific interests as much as the antiquarian context that drove the wish to investigate and record the monuments of his own county and prompted the study. After the fashion of the time, if on a different scale, Banks assembled a great collection of Lincolnshire antiquities, preserved in four folio volumes that were later entitled A Collection of Views / of the seats of the Nobility and Gentry / of Castles Churches and Chapels / The Ruins of Ancient Buildings / and other objects / within the County of Lincoln.Footnote ³² They bear witness to a deliberate programme of the recording of antiquities directed by Joseph Banks; many of them were undertaken by John Claude Nattes (c 1765–1839), who was commissioned by Banks to make more than 500 drawings of Lincolnshire buildings between 1789 and 1797, for a total cost of £708 12s.Footnote ³³ It is thus of some interest that the drawings of Tattershall date from just before this commission.

THE TATTERSHALL SURVEY

We first hear of Banks’ interest in Tattershall Castle in June 1782, when he mentioned in a letter to John Lloyd of Wigfair in Flintshire (1756–1814) that he would be glad to see him later at Revesby ‘especialy [sic] about the second week in Sep^t. more or less when Dr Kaye & Mr Grimm come to my house for the purpose of drawing Tattershall Castle &c &c. I am sure you would be of essential use to them.’Footnote ³⁴ The Revd Dr Richard Kaye, FRS (1736–1809), Canon and later Dean of Lincoln, had signed Banks’ nomination paper for the Royal Society in 1766, while the Swiss artist Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1733–94) was his protégé, who was sent to draw antiquities.Footnote ³⁵ But it would seem they were not to appear, either this year or next, and Grimm (who did visit Lincoln in 1784) may never have seen Tattershall, as no drawing of it survives amongst the twelve volumes of Dean Kaye’s collection of Grimm drawings in the British Library.Footnote ³⁶ Nonetheless Banks must have been determined to proceed with the project for, in the following September, he reported to his friend and scientific correspondent, Dr Charles Blagden (1748–1820), that:

Heckingham, in Norfolk, was the location of the lightning strike already described, the drawings of which will undoubtedly have raised Banks’ expectation of what could be achieved. Presumably the engineer Robert Mylne (1733–1811) is meant as the alternative source of advice.Footnote ³⁸ Banks’ proposal for the terms of the draughtsman’s contract is a very nice definition of a working guest, given fees, postage and travel expenses, while surrendering all his time and output, and with variable opportunities for dining.

Blagden immediately set to work on the matter, and replied to Banks on 25 September:

Blagden’s enthusiasm in finding alternative candidates was to cause him no little trouble and confusion, but it is an interesting reflection on the times that more than one name should have come to hand so soon. Johnson was proposed by The Hon Charles Francis Greville (1749–1809), antiquary, mineralogist and gardener, who was the younger son of Francis Greville, first Earl of Warwick (1719–73), and well known to Banks. He was MP for Warwick and High Steward of the Society of Dilettanti; he lived in Paddington and sometimes in Warwick Castle during the lifetime of his elder brother George, the second earl (1746–1816),Footnote ⁴⁰ and the Warwick connection was indeed relevant, as we shall see.

The second (un-named) architectural draughtsman was proposed by Tiberius Cavallo, FRS (1749–1809), a Neapolitan physicist settled in London,Footnote ⁴¹ while the architectural antiquary John Carter, FSA (1748–1817), the most obvious choice,Footnote ⁴² was perhaps suggested by the fashionable London journalist Edward Topham (1751–1820).Footnote ⁴³ However, no doubt unaware of Blagden’s actions, Banks now expressed his second thoughts a couple of days later, perhaps alarmed by the prospect of an untried house guest:

This crossed in the post with Blagden’s update on the situation, informing Banks that the draughtsman recommended by Cavallo was Hatfield, a pupil of the architect Wyatt, and that Carter’s engagements prevented him from attending.Footnote ⁴⁵ Hatfield is otherwise unknown (which is to say he is absent from Colvin’s Dictionary), while Carter was already heavily engaged in his own publishing activities.

With Blagden’s earlier letter in hand, Banks (who was a little unwell, possibly bored at Revesby and a little miserable, describing himself as ‘poor country mouse’) now once more warmed to the proposal:

One can feel Banks’ concern for the possibility of his efforts appearing in one of the industrious Carter’s part works. His reply was of course destined to cross with Blagden’s reply of the next day to the previous letter:

In any case the lack of any arrival at Revesby had resigned Banks to disappointment, and he told Blagden:

The same day Blagden wrote from London, now perhaps a little confused, and with his own problems with a house guest:

Blagden again wrote a few days later, still not having heard any more from Banks on the subject, and now alarmed that all would go wrong:

But at last the matter was suddenly resolved, as a bemused Banks could finally report to Blagden with news of the sudden arrival of Mr Johnson at Revesby Abbey:

The initial impression given by Johnson was indeed underwhelming, but Banks held his course to give the new arrival a chance to prove himself. Blagden, meanwhile, still unaware of Johnson’s arrival, wrote again with reports from Greville. Far away from Lincolnshire the scientific world was buzzing with balloon mania, and news of Montgolfier’s efforts in Paris,Footnote ⁵² while Banks’ pet turtle continued to be a matter of concern:

Banks’ next correspondence with Blagden reported his continued misgivings about the choice of Johnson, who had yet to prove himself but could give no good account of his previous efforts, and seemed as helpless as the pet turtle:

At the end of the week Banks, overwhelmed with a busy household full of company, and now anticipating his return to London, reported to Blagden that ‘Johnson as I believe his name is goes on with considerable industry’,Footnote ⁵⁵ and having now realised that Johnson, despite his lack of ability in perspective, was no mean draughtsman, left him to continue work on Tattershall when he returned to London. Alas, the turtle did not survive as long as Johnson, and having shown ‘strong symptoms of mortality’ had its throat cut and was made into three tureens of soup, eaten by the Royal Society dining club (in the absence of Banks) at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand on 23 October.Footnote ⁵⁶

Johnson continued at Revesby until at least the beginning of November, when he gave Banks an account for his work to date and an estimate of what now remained to be done. The account, dated 2 November 1783, is entitled ‘Expences to and from Sir Joseph Banks’s – Revesby Abbey near Horncastle Lincolnshire – Sett out from Lord Middleton’s 1^st Oct. 1783’.Footnote ⁵⁷ It gives a delightful impression of a confident young man travelling expensively on another’s account, although to be fair (short of walking the whole way) much of this was necessary, and only amounted to £4.

The account covers twenty-eight days at half a guinea a day, and about twenty-two days’ lodgings with Dickinson. It is interesting to learn about the cost of the drawing board. We know of it from the marks of the sealing wax on the back of the sheets of pencil sketches, so it cannot have been very large, though there may have been more than one. The bill was paid in full (without the usual discount for immediate payment), a few days before Banks’ return to London.

The following estimate, made on the same date, tells us something more about the working methods, and reveals the rate of fees being claimed, 7s a day for shorter winter days (rather than the half guinea (10s 6d) offered by Banks):Footnote ⁵⁸

Presumably Johnson continued at Tattershall into December and, like other tradesmen, worked a six-day week; he reported his progress to Banks at the end of the second week of December:

None of the replies from Banks to Johnson survive, so we only have the following letter from Johnson, sent four days later and shortly before his departure back to Warwickshire:

The dispatch of unfinished drawings must have meant that the site work was done and they could now be completed in London, while their being sent on drawing boards perhaps means they were fixed on stretchers. Johnson’s letter was accompanied by another account, now including a bill of ‘extras’ that includes the cost of digging holes at Tattershall to find the foundations (as shown on the elevation drawings):Footnote ⁶¹

Whether Johnson met Banks in London is unknown, but clearly the unfinished drawings now needed to be inked and colour washed, and so in January he sent Banks an estimate of what remained to be done (once again on the higher half-guinea rate):Footnote ⁶²

In this instance Banks has added pencil notes of the dates of payment, and the note G = L against the second instalment is to be read G = £, meaning that Banks paid Johnson in pounds and not guineas, a not unusual discount for prompt payment. The date of the next communication is uncertain, but its place in the sequence is reasonably certain, and presumably before the February payments:Footnote ⁶³

Johnson’s final letter, sent three weeks after the second payment, is replete with further apologies, which have an authentic ring of the hapless practitioner finishing one job while starting work for another client, and then finding himself out of work, though it was perhaps rather tactless to blame the day rate offered by Banks for the high cost.Footnote ⁶⁴ The reference to his work for Lord Milton at Milton Abbas is discussed further below.

The survey drawings (figs 1 to 7)

What Banks finally received was the set of plans and elevations that are now in his albums in Lincoln Central Library.Footnote ⁶⁵ Johnson’s drawings are on laid paper with ‘J Whatman’ watermarks on several sheets – fine drawing paper from Turkey Mill near Maidstone. They have a drawn frame and mount, the average size of the frame being 567×300mm for elevations, and 300 × 342–426mm for plans. There are four elevations of the great tower or keep at Tattershall, at a scale of 1:96 (8ft to the inch), and no fewer than eight plans at the same scale. The first elevation is titled ‘A Geometrical Elevation (Acurately Drawn on the spot) of the Remains of the East side of Tattershall Castle in the County of Lincoln’, and the others have similar titles.Footnote ⁶⁶ They show the brickwork tinted (variously shaded for shadows and highlights), and indicate windows and tracery in solid and surrounding ashlar masonry in pecked outlines; putlogs and empty beam slots are shown. Brickwork is shown in exposed sections, and the depth of footings and foundations is included with pecked lines. The north elevation has not been tinted, but shows the bricks in the main wall. The eight plans show the cellar and four upper floors, gallery, turrets and turret roofs;Footnote ⁶⁷ the walls are shown with solid tinting, and the arches and vaults are indicated by single or pecked lines. The albums also contain views of the castle by J C Nattes, which are presumably contemporary with his 1789 drawings of the church, and interior views of castle fireplaces, one of which is dated 1788,Footnote ⁶⁸ so these all post-date Johnson’s 1783 survey.

Fig 1

East elevation, Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783–4: Nattes 4, no. 143. Photograph: Lincoln Central Library

Fig 2

West elevation, Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783–4: Nattes 4, no. 145. Photograph: Lincoln Central Library

Fig 3

South elevation, Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783–4: Nattes 4, no. 147. Photograph: Lincoln Central Library

Fig 4

Ground plan (‘Second or Principal Plan’), Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783–4: Nattes 4, no. 153. Photograph: Lincoln Central Library

Fig 5

First-floor plan (‘Third Plan’), Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783–4: Nattes 4, no. 155. Photograph: Lincoln Central Library

Fig 6

Second-floor plan (‘Fourth Plan’), Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783–4: Nattes 4, no. 157. Photograph: Lincoln Central Library

Fig 7

Third-floor plan (‘Fifth Plan’), Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783–4: Nattes 4, no. 159. Photograph: Lincoln Central Library

Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the survey is that Johnson gave Banks not only the finished drawings but also, under the agreed terms, all the draft sheets (figs 8 to 14), and that Banks, being a methodical collector, kept them. These were part of the Revesby papers that were auctioned in 1918 and acquired post-sale by Curzon (see below), and are now with the National Trust deposit in Lincolnshire Archives. They provide a rare insight into the workings of an eighteenth-century architectural surveyor, and represent both the field drawings used by Johnson with his drawing board up the ladder (they have dabs of sealing wax on the back) and by his side when preparing his final drawings (numerous brush trials). There are some twenty-nine sheets, including wrapper, scales and brush trials, mostly on foolscap or quarto-size sheets, with a variety of watermarks.Footnote ⁶⁹ There are floor plans with measurements, sketches of details (including mouldings) and partial elevations up to the level of the second-floor offset. Most interesting are the drawings of repeated details such as the ashlar window surrounds, and door arches, which were sketched with estimated measurements for the width of individual stones.

Fig 8

Survey of ‘Fourth plan’ of Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783: LA, NT 6/1/1. Photograph: author

Fig 9

Part of survey of east elevation of Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783: LA, NT 6/1/1. Photograph: author

Fig 10

Survey details of window tracery and mouldings, Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783: LA, NT 6/1/1. Photograph: author

Fig 11

Survey drawing of chimney, and brush trials, Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783: LA, NT 6/1/1. Photograph: author

Fig 12

Survey details of brick and stone arches, Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783: LA, NT 6/1/1. Photograph: author

Fig 13

Survey details of jambs of gallery windows and loops, Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783: LA, NT 6/1/1. Photograph: author

Fig 14

Survey details of window jambs, Tattershall Castle keep, drawn by J L Johnson, 1783: LA, NT 6/1/1. Photograph: author

The survey of Tattershall is perhaps not remarkable by the standards of later products of the great age of Gothic publication (John Britton), or even of a decade later (Carter and Gough),Footnote ⁷⁰ but the care and accuracy with which it was accomplished, and the manner in which it was commissioned – to preserve by record an antiquity as if it was a natural specimen – is remarkable indeed for its time.

JOHN LEES JOHNSON (1762–c 1790)

So who was Mr Johnson? His clear signature is ‘J L Johnson’, and it would seem that he can be identified with John Lees Johnson of Warwick and Worcester, who appears under the name of his father, Thomas Johnson (d 1800), in Colvin’s Dictionary. Johnson senior was the designer of the Warwickshire County Gaol and St Nicholas Church, Warwick, and Colvin notes the report in Jopson’s Coventry Journal (22 February 1779) that the elevations of both buildings ‘were drawn and planned by a son of Mr Thomas Johnson, an architect in Warwick (a youth not above 16 years old) under whose direction, together with that of his father, both these works are now carrying on’.Footnote ⁷¹ And indeed, the hand and signature on the plan and elevation of St Nicholas Church are identical with those of the Tattershall letters.Footnote ⁷² The baptism of John Lees, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Johnson, is recorded in St Mary’s Church, Warwick, on 5 February 1762.Footnote ⁷³ Thus we can see how the youthful prodigy might have come to the attention of Charles Greville (who had been born in Warwick, and whose father owned the castle), leading to his recommending Johnson to Banks; it also explains the comment that he made to Banks on their first meeting that he had studied ‘straight line architecture’ under Sir William Chambers. There are other hints of aristocratic commissions above the level of a mere country jobbing architect, in that a sheet of designs for garden temples at Bowood House is apparently signed ‘J.L. Johnson Jr. London March 10th 1781’.Footnote ⁷⁴ And when Johnson came galloping into Revesby in October 1783 he had just come from ‘Lord Middleton’s’. This may be Henry Willoughby (1726–1800), fifth Baron Middleton of Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, who had succeeded his cousin in 1781, though it is not known what Johnson might have been doing there.Footnote ⁷⁵ There is a slight possibility here of confusion between Middleton and Milton, since we have also seen that in 1784, on leaving Banks’ service, Johnson was making a town plan for Lord Milton. Joseph Damer (1718–98), Baron Milton, the owner of Middleton in Dorset, was in the process of creating the new town of Milton Abbas in the 1780s, initially with Sir William Chambers and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.Footnote ⁷⁶ Surviving plans of Milton do not, however, include any that can be attributed to Johnson at this date.Footnote ⁷⁷

What became of Johnson after the Tattershall episode with Banks is uncertain, though more information may in due course emerge about his career. We do not even know if Banks was pleased with what he got, or thought it good value for money, but with hindsight we can say he should have been on both counts. We last heard of Johnson returning to Warwickshire and then in London, having been with Lord Milton in Dorset. Subsequently his father seems to have moved to Worcester, and his son with him, since it was as ‘John Lees Johnson of Worcester, architect’ that he was involved in 1787 with a Warwick property released to his aunts Sarah and Ann Lees, both spinsters of Stratford upon Avon.Footnote ⁷⁸ Then by Sarah’s will of September 1791 we learn of bequests to her nephews John Lees Johnson and Thomas Johnson, and to her sister Ann Lees,Footnote ⁷⁹ but John Lees is not mentioned in his father’s will of November 1800Footnote ⁸⁰ so he may by then have been dead, and no further references to him have been traced.Footnote ⁸¹ The death of his father, ‘Mr Johnson, Architect of Sidbury’, was briefly reported in Berrow’s Worcester Journal on 11 December, where it was said that Thomas Johnson had been buried ‘behind the Choir in the Cathedral’ on 6 December 1800.Footnote ⁸²

An intriguing coda to this part of the story is the discovery in 1915 of six architectural models in the attic of a cottage behind the Talbot Inn in Worcester.Footnote ⁸³ This was in College Street (in the exempt jurisdiction of St Michael Bedwardine, next to the Cathedral Close), and near to the start of Sidbury (the suburban street south west of the cathedral), and so possibly the very house where Johnson lived or worked. The models were initially dispersed (and one remains in private ownership), but the Warwickshire Museum Service today holds five of them: of St Nicholas Church (the building drawn by John Lees), the County Gaol and the facade of Shire Hall (both designed by his father, Thomas), an unidentified church and an unidentified circular building – possibly a model for a gaol.Footnote ⁸⁴ The obvious question is whether model-making is to be added to the achievements of the young Mr Johnson.

LORD CURZON AND THE DRAWINGS

The albums of Lincolnshire topographical drawings containing Johnson’s survey, now located in Lincoln Central Library but then at Revesby Abbey, came to the attention of Lord Curzon shortly after his acquisition of Tattershall Castle in 1911. Characteristically he had immediately initiated research on the castle, and in particular wanted to find surviving images of it before its final decay; the result is a series of letters from friends, antiquaries and art and book dealers offering suggestions and materials. Just three days after acquiring Tattershall, Curzon heard from the redoubtable Revd Francis Yglesias (who played such an important part in saving Tattershall) of the Banks collections at Revesby, belonging to The Hon R P Stanhope.Footnote ⁸⁵

It has been claimed that at the time of the great dispersal in the 1880s, the papers relating to Lincolnshire had been returned to Revesby Abbey under the terms of the second codicil of Banks’ will.Footnote ⁸⁶ In fact, some items had been sold earlier, in a general ‘Books and Manuscripts’ sale held on 15 and 16 June 1880, at which Sotheby’s had offered ‘an extensive and fine collection of illustrations of the county of Lincolnshire, formed by Sir Joseph Banks, consisting of engravings, water-colour drawings, rare proof portraits, &c, in 7 vols’.Footnote ⁸⁷ It is clear from the sale catalogue that the group of seven imperial folios forming lot number 532 on the second day of the sale must indeed have included the four volumes of drawings by Nattes, Johnson and others now in the Lincoln Central Library;Footnote ⁸⁸ they were then bought back by The Hon Edward Stanhope for Revesby.Footnote ⁸⁹ Likewise, one of the later sales, in March 1886, when so many of the Banks papers were sold, included as lot number 980 Johnson’s drawings and correspondence relating to Tattershall, and these must also have returned to Revesby at that time.Footnote ⁹⁰

Following an approach by Curzon in November 1911, Stanhope confirmed that he had sketches and plans showing the castle ‘as existing at the end of the 18th century’, and would look them out when he returned to Revesby; being only 11km away he offered to ‘send his motor’ to meet Curzon at Tattershall station. Subsequently he reported that he had found the ‘prints and drawings of Tattershall Castle are included in two volumes, I am therefore sending to you in a wooden box these two volumes by passenger train today, addressed to you at Carlton House Terrace’; these must have been the finished drawings, and not Johnson’s preparatory material. Stanhope also agreed that they could be photographed.Footnote ⁹¹

On discovering the interest of Johnson’s drawings Curzon attempted to have them copied at full scale, but this proved to be prohibitive since they were larger than a full-size photographic plate. Sir Frank Baines at the Office of Works (whom Curzon had earlier sought unsuccessfully to supervise the restoration of Tattershall) suggested they should instead be copied by hand, estimating a cost of 15 guineas for the fourteen drawings.Footnote ⁹² Baines confirmed that the drawings were too large to be photographed and stated that there was ‘no point in photography at small size’, but tracings would be accurate and he would ensure their ‘absolute truth’.Footnote ⁹³ This course of action was agreed, and in March 1912 Baines sent Curzon ten of the copy drawings, which he had carefully examined himself, and found to be ‘exact and accurate replicas’.Footnote ⁹⁴ They were all being done by the same person who, as we learn in August when the volumes were finally returned to Carlton House Terrace, worked for the firm of Messrs Norton and Gregory, draughtsmen.Footnote ⁹⁵ One set of copies was sent to Tattershall in September, where Curzon’s architect, William Weir, noted that he would get them framed, and the originals were presumably sent back following Stanhope’s enquiry after the volumes in late October.Footnote ⁹⁶

The Banks Lincolnshire collection is next heard of in 1918, when a notice of a forthcoming sale at Sotheby’s was brought to Curzon’s attention. Richard Stanhope had died on the Somme in 1916, and in his will had left the bulk of his £63,044 estate to his widow, Lady Beryl, who had married Walter Gilbert in 1917, and who sanctioned a series of auction sales of the contents of Revesby Abbey: the portraits (including a Gainsborough portrait of Sir Joseph) and silver in February 1918, the drawings and manuscripts later in the year.Footnote ⁹⁷ Thus the Banks Lincolnshire collections once more returned to Sotheby’s salerooms, on 18 October 1918. The principal group of Lincolnshire papers was in lot number 393, comprising some twenty-one cases, of which Case 15 included ‘Historical notices of Tattershall Castle with drawings of Architectural details and some Coats of Arms emblazoned’, a description entirely consistent with Johnson’s letters and draft surveys in the National Trust material now in Lincolnshire Archives.Footnote ⁹⁸ Curzon was anxious to acquire them, and seems to have placed a bid for the items (and indeed arranged with one potential purchaser that he could have the Tattershall materials), but in the event they were bought by a third party, John Carlbom of Grimsby, who agreed (through Sotheby’s) that Curzon could have the ‘Tattershall folders’, and sent them on to him in December 1918, presumably as a gift.Footnote ⁹⁹ Carlbom was the founder in 1897 of John Carlbom & Co of Grimsby (now Carlbom Shipping Ltd), and had paid £110 for the collection, apparently with the intention of presenting it to the town of Grimsby.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ His covering letter to Curzon explicitly states: ‘I have pleasure to hand your Lordship all the documents I purchased at the Sotheby sale re Tattershall Castle.’Footnote ¹⁰¹

Evidently the two Stanhope volumes of prints and drawings of Tattershall that Curzon had previously borrowed were not included in this sale, but appeared as the full set of seven volumes in a separate Sotheby’s sale of ‘Fine Engravings and Drawings’ that included further Revesby items.Footnote ¹⁰² These were bought in unsold, at £600, but the four-volume Collection of Views was subsequently acquired ‘for a much lower price’ by Colonel W V R Fane of Fulbeck Hall, Lincolnshire.Footnote ¹⁰³ He reported his purchase to Evelyn Stanhope (Dowager Countess of the sixth Earl, and mother of the late Richard Stanhope), and her reply, while not expressing an opinion on what must have been a rather distressing episode, expressed her pleasure at their not leaving the county, and recalled the joy of her brother-in-law Edward Stanhope when he bought back the collection for Revesby at Lord Brabourne’s sale, and that ‘my dear son looked upon it as one of his most valued possessions’.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ She also expressed her gratitude for the fact that ‘you further intend ultimately to secure that they should not again be in danger of leaving the county’ – and indeed the four volumes seem finally to have been passed by Fane to the safe keeping of the county library in the Second World War, when Fulbeck Hall was requisitioned; today they form part of Lincoln Central Library’s Local Studies Collections.Footnote ¹⁰⁵

The making of Johnson’s survey is a remarkable episode in the creation of a scientific record of an ancient monument that could have been an important source of inspiration had it not shared the fate of so many of Banks’ intellectual endeavours in being assiduously collected and noted, but not published. With the survey drawings lying unknown at Revesby Abbey, it was hardly surprising that others should come and survey the castle, and a full survey was published as a folio volume of lithographs by F R Reed in 1872.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Later measured drawings included one published by J Codd in The Architect (16 August 1873). Yet almost a century after Curzon’s rediscovery and the reproductions of Johnson’s survey had been made, they were carefully preserved but all memory of their extraordinary interest had been lost.

Curzon’s own work at Tattershall was of the first importance. His rescue of the threatened monument was a key episode in the events that led to the passage of the 1913 Ancient Monuments Act, while the restoration of the castle under William Weir became a model for site presentation.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ This was completed in the summer of 1914, and a grand opening was planned for Saturday 8 August, a date that proved to be inauspicious, – though in the busy swirl of the preparations, the death of the Austrian Archduke went almost unnoticed, overshadowed by the excitement caused by the acquisition of three pairs of royal swans for the moat from the King’s Swankeeper, and by the arrival of a guard dog from Battersea, acquired to protect important visitors from Suffragette ‘outrages’, should any potential perpetrators be lurking amongst the passengers of the charabanc tours. There was talk of a dining car being attached to the train bringing visitors from London, and of running a ‘special’ from Boston to Tattershall. In the event, not long after the invitations had been sent out, on 4 August, two days after the German invasion of France, Britain was at war. By 8 August, the castle’s caretaker had already been mobilised. Few of the invited guests were able to attend.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ In what must have been a somewhat subdued celebration, it was reported that Lord Curzon ‘conducted a large party of guests over the castle’, and that pictures of the castle (no doubt including the Johnson copies) were viewed in the guardroom.Footnote ¹⁰⁹