HISTORY: HORNIMANS AT FOREST HILL

John Horniman is reputed to have been one of the last men to ride to work on a black horse in full Quaker costume. That would have been in the early days of the reign of Queen Victoria. He started a tea merchants business in 1826 and the warehouse was just north of the City in Shepherdess Walk. The story is that he was one of the first merchants to have the idea of selling tea in packets. Whether for that reason or some other, the firm prospered and advertised widely so that Horniman's tea became a household name.

I do not know whether John's son, Frederick John, was brought up a Quaker, but if he was he did not continue as one. He was a small man of considerable energy. Not only did he run his business personally, but he was a member of the L. C. C. and a Member of Parliament for Falmouth, and a great builder in the sense that he donated money and supervised the erection of buildings of all sorts - churches for various denominations, halls, clubs and so on. An example was a hall for the YMCA in Croydon, where he was then living. The secret of Frederick John's energy may have been that every day of his life he ate rice pudding! When he visited his constituency in Cornwall he took rice pudding in hay boxes to last the journey.

His activity of most interest in Forest Hill was that of a collector of, as was described in his day, "curios and specimens of insect life". He travelled widely and as his interests became known other travellers brought specimens to him. I do not know the date of his move to Forest Hill but soon he was opening rooms in his house so that members of the public could view his collection, first on one day a week and then on three. At length his wife is supposed to have said, " Either the collection goes or we do". And the family did indeed move in 1890 to Surrey Mount, the house, now demolished, which stood near the top entrance to Hornimans Gardens. The old house was neither large enough nor suitable as a museum and the present building was put up and given with the Gardens to the L. C. C. in 1901.

My grandfather, Emslie John, was brought up at Surrey Mount with his sister Annie. He was very different from his father, being tall and reserved in manner and not very interested in business. Indeed he was trained as an artist. However he too became a member of the L. C. C. and for a time Liberal M. P. for Chelsea. Also he shared his father's love of travel and brought back many specimens for the Museum - one, a prehistoric hoe from Japan, wrapped safely in his morning coat! (He was not a man who cared much for appearances.)

Emslie John was very much imbued with the Liberal philosophy that education could lead mankind to a better way of life, and he viewed this in a wide sense so that his generosity extended not only, for example, to providing an extension to a grammar school in order that girls as well as boys might be educated there, but to establishing a garden in a deprived area of north London, preserving houses of architectural merit, presenting portraits of Sir Thomas More and Ghandi to the National Portrait Gallery and founding scholarships for anthropological students. He provided the funds to build the Library and the lecture hall at the Horniman Museum and left a considerable sum of money for it when he died.

His sister, Annie, however, was one who left her mark on the world. Her parents were not fond of the theatre, perhaps a result of John Horniman's Quakerism, perhaps because the theatre in Victorian days had a somewhat disreputable reputation with the middle classes. But Annie, from the age of ten, had a longing to be engaged in the theatre, although she kept that ambition to herself and her first essay into theatre management was in fact without her parents' knowledge. At last, however, thanks to a legacy from her uncle she was able to try her hand seriously. She never acted or produced but, as what I suppose now would be called an entrepreneur, she introduced the first plays of George Bernard Shaw to London, promoted the work of W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge and other Irish playwrights, founded the Abbey Theatre in Dublin for them and, principally through the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester, was largely responsible for the introduction of the Repertory Theatre movement in England. Although her interests were different, she seemsto have inherited her father's strong character and energy. On the one hand she was an ardent suffragette and on the other a keen devotee of the occult and a member, like Yeats, of the Golden Dawn. In similar fashion to Lillian Bayliss of the Old Vic she was made a Companion of Honour for her work in the theatre.

Michael Horniman