Jonathan Ritson, the drunken wood carver
What links the magnificent Arundel Castle, in Sussex, with Cumbria? Primarily, it’s the complex family history of one of the great families of England, the Howards, and their marriages with other great families, including the Dacres of Greystoke.
It’s all well-recorded elsewhere, and needs to be. During a visit to Arundel Castle last year, I heard more than one visitor ask more than one guide: “Why is Arundel Castle the ancestral home of the Dukes of Norfolk?”
Secondly, there’s a connection that took me to Arundel last summer. Charles Howard, the 11th Duke of Norfolk, was from the Greystoke line, but ended up in Sussex. He was a Whig politician and a cousin of mine, a LOT of times removed, became his private secretary. I know Dr John Wasdale travelled to Sussex with the Duke on at least recorded occasion.
And thirdly, there is Jonathan Ritson, the drunken wood carver
Jonathan Ritson
Jonathan was baptised at St James’, Whitehaven, in February 1777, the son of Joseph Ritson.
Joseph Ritson was a wood carver, and his son followed him into the craft.
The 1841 census shows Jonathan living in Petworth, Sussex.
He was to die there in 1846.
He received a lengthy obituary in the Gentlemen’s Magazine, which, along with other sources, tells his story.
‘Jonathan Ritson was born at Whitehaven in Cumberland and was brought up to his father’s trade of a carpenter; he was employed upon the estates of the Duke of Norfolk at Workington and Greystoke.
It was here that his abilities as a carver in wood first attracted the notice of that nobleman, who being at that time engaged in restoring the ancient castle at Arundel, at his request Jonathan removed thither and executed most of the carved work in the Library and Barons’ Hall of that princely residence.’
The library at Arundel is amazing!
Charles Howard, 11th Duke of Norfolk, died in 1815. But Jonathan wasn’t left without work.
The 3rd Earl of Egremont
George O’Brien Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont FRS, was a major landowner and a great art collector – he was a patron of JMW Turner. He also fathered
‘a large progeny of illegitimate children’
His key properties were Petworth House in Sussex and Orchard Wyndham in Somerset.
It’s another of those ‘great family’ tangles: Petworth is in Sussex, but previous owners included the 10th Earl of Northumberland, and 6th Duke of Somerset.
Egremont, of course, is in Cumbria: the Northumberland Percys had (naturally!) owned lands there.
Back to Jonathan Ritson
In 1816, the Earl of Egremont employed by him to restore the carved work at Petworth House. It was a task he was undertake for about 18 months, before heading to London for ten years, only to then return, in 1827, to Petworth, and complete the Carved Room, left unfinished (since 1721) by the death of Grinling Gibbons.
The National Trust reckons:
‘Ritson’s great technical proficiency was superior to his sense of design. His carving was allowed to run riot on all available spaces of wall and ceiling and the majority of his embellishments were removed in 1869. Only three large, compressed and florid compositions were allowed to remain, as they can be seen today, on the core of the ceiling. Ritson was apparently treated at Petworth ‘with too much indulgence, and tempted by an inordinate love of strong beer.’
Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that.
The Gentlemen’s Magazine liked it, at any rate:
‘This undertaking (Petworth) he executed with consummate care and ability, combining groups of flowers, birds, and fishes, formed into festoons profusely ornamented, and displaying a degree of airy lightness and natural beauty almost inconceivable.’
The Earl of Egremont must have been pleased, too. He had a portrait of Jonathan Ritson painted, to hang alongside one of Grinling Gibbons. And provided him with a pension in his final years.
You can see what he looked like in this copy of the portrait.
The drunken wood carver
There was another side of Jonathan Ritson, though. As summed up by the Gentlemen’s Magazine, which said he was…:
‘…a remarkable instance of innate genius and superior abilities being united with the low and degrading habits of drunkenness; and no one who was acquainted with his exquisite skill as a faithful copier of nature, can help reflecting with grief upon the loss of distinction and wealth which he would most assuredly have acquired had it not been for the baneful influence of this vice.’
After a few pars celebrating his life, the writer, ‘who knew him well and admired the surpassing beauty of his workmanship’ continued:
‘From the debasing nature of his habits it is needless to say his mind was of a very unintellectual cast; he had but two sources of pleasure — in his work, and in his cups.
‘It was said of George Morland, whose character he greatly resembled, that all his time which he did not spend in painting he spent in drinking; and the same may be said of poor Jonathan, whose habits led him into the lowest society.’
And that’s the words of an admirer!
‘It was no unusual occurrence to find him for days and nights in a state of drunken in-sensibility, clothed in rags, associating with chimney sweepers and trampers, and exhibiting a spectacle of filth and wretchedness painful to contemplate.
‘His favourite beverage was strong beer – wine and spirituous liquors of all kinds he abhorred and repudiated.’
His own enemy
The lengthy obituary concludes:
‘And yet he had some redeeming qualities: he was as harmless and inoffensive as a child; he was most obliging and civil in his manners; he was an enemy to no one but himself. The writer of this notice, cannot help commiserating his unhappy fate, when he refects upon what he was and what he might have been.’