Alfred, Lord Tennyson in Somersby and Louth, Lincolnshire

Saint Margaret's, Somersby.

 

'IN GRATEFUL MEMORY OF

ALFRED, 1^ST LORD TENNYSON.

BORN 1809. DIED 1892.

––––––––––

THIS TABLET IS ERECTED IN THE CHURCH OF HIS BAPTISM,

AT HIS BIRTHPLACE, AND THE HOME OF HIS YOUTH.

––––––––––

                                     "Follow the Christ, the King;

Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King."'

 

'With thanks to GOD, for HIS gift of song

and in Memory of the Centenary of the Birth

in the Old Rectory hard by, of Alfred

Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, this Church

was restored and a replica in Bronze of Woolner's

Bust of the Poet was placed within on the sixth

day of August 1911 by the Tennyson Centenary

Committee.'

 

The Old Rectory is now in private possession, and trees conceal much of the front, making photography from the street virtually impossible.

 

 

 

A small display case in the church includes two clay pipes and a quill pen, marked as having belonged to the poet.

 

The tomb of the poet's father lies very close to the church, to the south-west of the tower.

'To the Memory of

The Reverend

GEORGE CLAYTON TENNYSON,

L.L.D.

Eldest Son George Tennyson Esq

of Bayons Manor,

and Rector of this Parish,

of Bag Enderby, and Bennyworth,

and Vicar of Great Grimsby in this County.

He departed this life

on the 16^th day of March 1831.

Aged 52 years.'

 

 

The future poet underwent the harsh teaching of the grammar school in Louth for a relatively brief time, although this was not the same building as the present one.

 

'"An old wall covered with
wild weeds
opposite the school windows"
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
1809 – 1892
at Louth Grammar School
1816 – 1820'

 

 

'FROM THESE PREMISES
WAS PUBLISHED IN 1827
ALFRED AND CHARLES An
TENNYSON'S
"POEMS BY
   TWO BROTHERS"

THIS TABLET WAS ERECTED BY THE
LOUTH MUSEUM COMMITTEE'

 

In Tennyson's time these premises in the centre of Louth were where Jacksons, the booksellers and printers, ran their business. An old drawing of the place looks quite similar to the building today.

Highgate Cemetery (West) #4: Frederick Tennyson

'SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
FREDERICK TENNYSON,
POET AND SCHOLAR,
BORN AT LOUTH, LINCOLNSHIRE,
JUNE 15th 1807,
DIED AT KENSINGTON, LONDON,
FEBRUARY 26 th 1898,
IN HIS 91st YEAR.
ERECTED BY HIS ELDEST SON
JULIUS GEORGE TENNYSON,
IN TOKEN OF AFFECTION.'

 

Frederick Tennyson was an elder brother of Alfred who was temporarily expelled from Cambridge University for refusing to accept punishment for not attending chapel. He lived in Florence for twenty years and was heavily influenced by Swedenborg.

Alfred Lord Tennyson in Auckland, New Zealand

What better way to spend a few minutes at an airport than make a blog post? Interesting to see this quotation from Tennyson at Auckland Airport by the check-in, on this, our final day in New Zealand, where the weather has been superb. I believe it's far less than superb in the UK. Ah well, briefly on for overnight in Singapore first though.

 

The quotation:

 

'For I dipt in to the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce,

Argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight,

dropping down with

costly bales'

 

'From "Locksley Hall

Alfred Lord Tennyson

1860'

Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Lady Godiva

The statue of Lady Godiva stands at the entrance to the Cathedral Lanes shopping center in Coventry.

The legend of the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia riding naked through the streets of Coventry as a protest against her husband's savage imposition of taxes on his tenants - and the later added story of Peeping Tom being struck blind for looking at her - is well known. But Tennyson's poem is less known. 

 

On two sides of the statue are engraved four lines from Tennyson's poem 'Godiva', which he wrote in 1842 on leaving a visit to Warwickshire for London. This is the poem in full:

I waited for the train at Coventry;

I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To match the three tall spires; and there I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this:


Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve!"
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve".
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache
For such as these?" - "But I would die," said she.
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul;
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
"O ay, ay, ay, you talk!" - "Alas!" she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do."
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.


So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.


Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.


Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways in the wall.


Then she rode back cloth'd on with chastity:
And one low churl, compact of thankless earth,
The fatal byword of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep'd - but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused;
And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers,
One after one: but even then she gain'd
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.

Lincoln and Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The statue of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), in the grounds of Lincoln Cathedral, England. Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire.

A quiet pub tucked away from the tourist circuit, but less than 100 yards away from the Museum of Lincolnshire Life: The Lord Tennyson pub in Rasen Lane, Lincoln.

The inn sign on the above pub, showing the elderly Poet Laureate.