2 October, 1891: Bertie’s Electrical Career, Part 2.

1 October, 1891

Newmarket

2 October, 1891

Returned from Newmarket. 8.p.m. dined at home
didn’t go out ___ __

In Part 1 of this story, I did warn you that Sullivan’s diary entries during the First October Meeting at Newmarket can be very boring. But this will give us time to further relate the story of why Sir Arthur Sullivan met with Sir John Pender in 1891, and then sent his nephew Herbert to meet with Pender the next day. In the first post we looked at Sullivan’s efforts to educate Bertie, and by an amazing twist of Fate linked them both, tenuously, to Albert Einstein. But we didn’t get to Pender.

What to do about Bertie?

On 10 November, 1884, Sullivan left his 16-year-old nephew Herbert at the home of a Mrs. Tritscheller in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. The idea was for “Bertie” to spend some time becoming fluent in German, with the hope that he could then attend the Polytechnikum at Zurich. Sullivan agreed to pay the Tritscheller family £90 for a year of this service; that’s about £14,000 today.

Thus begins a story in Sullivan’s diaries that feels like it might be entitled What to do about Bertie? In the 1880s, as Bertie was coming of age, the son of a gentleman had relatively few respectable paths from which to choose his career. Sons of the landed gentry could enter military service, or the clergy, or perhaps when the family bank account was sufficient, banking. First sons would inherit the family properties and were therefore educated to maintain those.

But Sullivan was not from the gentry; he was the very model of modern nouveau riche. There was no Sullivan family estate to maintain. Arthur Sullivan never owned any piece of real estate. Hence Bertie’s financial prospects would rely solely upon his own wits, or upon whatever cash Sullivan decided to grant him. The sons and daughters of some rich families were supported for life through the establishment of a trust; the heirs would receive the incomes from the trust, but were barred from touching the principal of the account. Sullivan was not that rich.

As I mentioned in Part 1, Bertie was sent to a boarding school in Brighton for his primary education. But now, where would that lead him? From Sullivan’s diaries, it appears that Bertie was still in Germany in August, 1886. In that month Sullivan wrote a letter to “Madame Ganter”, which I assume was his way of referencing the sister of Heinrich Ganter, who was then Mrs. Tritscheller, solely because I can’t imagine a reason for him to write to Dr. Ganter’s actual wife. Three months later he wrote to “Mad: Ganter & Rudis (encl:)” which is even stranger because F. Rudis was another mathematician with whom Heinrich Ganter had published a treatise. Whatever was going on there, and with whomever Sullivan was truly corresponding, Bertie will soon come home, and all mentions of attending the Polytechnikum will vanish.

Sullivan had no experience in training a young gentleman. He appears to have .. erm … asked around, because of course he had many friends who were successful in business. We’ve already seen how Sullivan’s friend Alfred de Glehn recommended the Polytechnikum. Another friend was one Robert Fowler. It appears Sullivan met Fowler at the Portland Club, because of course he did. The Portland Club was Sullivan’s gambling home away from home in London. Fowler was the son and heir of John Fowler of John Fowler & Co., of Leeds, by now a multinational supplier of steam engines for things like tractors and small locomotives.

On 3 November, 1886, two days after writing to “Mad: Ganter & Rudis”, Sullivan records “Saw Fowler at the Club. he told me to send Bertie to him.” I suspect the “enclosure” to “Ganter & Rudis” was Sullivan’s final payment to Bertie’s tutors in Germany, because now Herbert is back in London.

One word: Steam!

The next day, 4 November, Sullivan writes “Sent Bertie to Fowler – Fowler promises to take him.” So there we go, Bertie’s future is assured in … steam engines! And for perhaps 10 months, this may have seemed like a good move, because except for a brief return of the prodigal son for 1886’s Christmas, Sullivan records nothing else in his diaries which concerns his nephew, until September, 1887.

This is during the period when Sullivan was living at Brome Hall in Suffolk and shooting birds, when he wasn’t ill—see this previous post. On 11 September, 1887, Sullivan notes that poor Bertie was “left behind on account of attack of scarlatina”. Scarlatina was the name for the skin rash caused by Scarlet Fever. Bertie survived! But the interesting part of this diary entry for our current investigation is that Bertie was with Sullivan and not up in Leeds working on steam engines. It appears Bertie stayed at Brome Hall through December, when we find this intriguing diary entry:

3 December, 1887

Drove over to Rishangles with Bertie to see Rev. F. Mumford about leaving Bertie with him.

Leaving Bertie there?

Rishangles is a village in Suffolk, between Ipswich and Norwich, only about 8 miles from Brome Hall. Population in 1887 was probably less than 200. Robert Francis Mumford was the local Rector. I don’t see any great educational opportunities there. Nonetheless, on 7 December Sullivan wrote “Bertie left at 2.30 to stay for a few weeks with Mumford.”

And on 10 December, Sullivan himself left Brome Hall for ever, and returned to London. Bertie does not appear in Sullivan’s diary again, until April of the following year. What is going on here? And what happened to the career of now 19-year-old Herbert Sullivan?

As we are in the boring season of Sullivan scholarship—Newmarket—we’ll have time for a Part 3.