The diary of Antonia Booth[1]
Antonia Booth was my great grandmother. She died in 1952, 5 years before I was born.
Diary entries are in black,
commentary is in blue
and footnotes are below in black.
Entries are captured in months.
This blog begins with the year 1898 even though the diaries start in 1894 because it is more straightforward to introduce the main characters in this year. I shall return to 1894 in a while.
If you think I’ve left something out please do let me know or if there is a factual error please tell me gently.
October 1898
Southwark.
18th October 1898
Malcolm first time.[2] Enter George (Antonia’s brother) and George Duckworth. We all went to dinner together.
19th October 1898
Malcolm second time.[3]
They had this medal cast to commemorate this important day.
You could be forgiven for not noticing that Malcolm Macnaghten has proposed to Antonia Booth and she has accepted him. There is no description, so I am afraid we will just have to imagine the proposal. To help us imagine it please see below a proposal made to Mabel Chiltern in An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde in 1895:
Lord Goring: Please do not, Miss Mabel. I have something very particular to say to you.
Mabel Chiltern: [Rapturously.] Oh! is it a proposal?
Lord Goring: [Somewhat taken aback] Well, yes, it is. I am bound to say it is.
Mabel Chiltern: [With a sigh of pleasure] I am so glad. That makes the second to-day.
Lord Goring: [Indignantly] The second to-day? What conceited ass has been impertinent enough to dare to propose to you before I had proposed to you?
Mabel Chiltern: Tommy Trafford, of course. It is one of Tommy’s days for proposing. He always proposes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, during the Season.
Lord Goring: You didn’t accept him, I hope?
Mabel Chiltern: I make it a rule never to accept Tommy. That is why he goes on proposing. Of course, as you didn’t turn up this morning, I very nearly said yes. It would have been an excellent lesson both for him and for you if I had. It would have taught you both better manners.
Lord Goring: Oh! bother Tommy Trafford. Tommy is a silly little ass. I love you.
Mabel Chiltern: I know. And I think you might have mentioned it before. I am sure I have given you heaps of opportunities.
Lord Goring: Mabel, do be serious. Please be serious.
Mabel Chiltern: Ah! that is the sort of thing a man always says to a girl before he has been married to her. He never says it afterwards.
Lord Goring: [Taking hold of her hand] Mabel, I have told you that I love you. Can’t you love me a little in return?
Mabel Chiltern: You silly Arthur! If you knew anything about . . . anything, which you don’t, you would know that I adore you. Everyone in London knows it except you. It is a public scandal the way I adore you. I have been going about for the last six months telling the whole of society that I adore you. I wonder you consent to have anything to say to me. I have no character left at all. At least, I feel so happy that I am quite sure I have no character left at all.
Went to tea with Alice Pollock to meet Malcolm there. He came back with me and gave me my ring.
Alice Pollock comments on that tea in a letter to Malcolm, Malcolm and Antonia were unable to tell Alice about their engagement before Antonia’s family knew so the tea was a tense and disconsolate affair.
Tuesday October 25th 1898
48 Great Cumberland Place My dear Malcolm Last night it was all too exciting, agitating to say anything, but I must write you now and tried to say how extraordinarily delightful it is. It is always very difficult to express oneself when one feels a great deal. But you must try and understand how happy it has made me. No one else could ever have been half good enough for Dodo (Antonia). I should have hated her to marry anyone but you, really it is quite perfect only altogether too wonderful to believe. We all sit and gasp for joy. I must say it makes me rather angry to think of Thursday and all the unnecessary pain I suffered after that melancholy tea. Poor things you did look so very sad. Of course, you mustn’t come on the 13th of December. As you are both so firm about dances. We are going to see Ethel Lloyd in….. tonight who you ought to feel immense sympathy for now, I shall try very hard to appear very interested in them, but this puts everything else in the background. Well, goodbye, your affectionate Alice Pollock.
George came in and found us in the dining room. It was a joy to have to tell him. He was very sweet and rejoiced.
In 1871, nearly 90 percent of women between the ages of 45 and 49 were or had been married” [4] By the end of the century this figure had fallen significantly. This was partly due to military conflicts and differing lifespans, girls and women outnumbered boys and men by 500,000 in the 1851 census and 1,000,000 at the end of the century[5]. When they married, Antonia was a day off 26 and Malcolm was 30. The mean age for males marrying females in 1899 was 28.8 and females marrying males 26.2 so you can see they pretty much followed the norm there as well. All the same upper class girls typically came out at 17 to enter the marriage market, culminating with a Court presentation in some cases. Then came The Season in London, and it was said they had about three seasons for marital opportunities to pan out. Clearly Antonia had not kept to that particular timetable. Malcolm was still young in terms of his legal career. He may have felt he needed to wait until he was more financially stable before proposing. Antonia mentions ‘our debts’ as a reason for a longer engagement in an early letter, my guess is these debts relate to the purchase of the lease of a house.
So why, apart from for love, did upper class women marry in 1899? Girls rarely received the formal education that their brothers did. Consequently, women lacked skills for most employment, and the available but limited employment options— such as governess or shop employee— carried social stigmas. As a result, few upper-class single women were employed in the public sphere. For example, 1861 saw fewer than 200,000 female employees in the middle-class occupations of education, health care, shops, etc. Marriage was the career for which women were trained and in which they spent their lives in their separate but not equal private sphere. Women could not propose to men; instead, they were taught to wait for proposals.
Antonia’s parents provided an interesting example of a happy marriage. Just before he was married, her Father knew exactly what he thought about it:
Teignmouth 26th April 1871 My Dear Nephew The event which moves my pen this time lies in my life, not yours and yet it may affect yours too in the end. I am to be married on Saturday and I will avail myself of this opportunity to write to you a short discourse on marriage as seen before the event. ..Some people look upon marriage as certain happiness – you love – you marry – you are happy ever afterwards. Seems to them the natural and inevitable order of events and I believe the same people would say that without it they never would have been happy. Thus those that make the worst of earth make the most of Heaven. But I doubt if they will ever be happy either here or there-either married or unmarried. Others look upon it as simple luck- you love – or you don’t love (it is immaterial) You marry-you live side by side – if you suit you are happy – if you don’t you are miserable – make the best of it then and remember that it can’t be helped and that others are no better off. Expect nothing and at any rate, you will not be disappointed. One cannot deny the stoical grandeur of this position. If such a one had been happy in youth he says “I have had my happiness. I cannot expect always to have my own way.” What if he is not? He says “The better chance for me now. But at any rate, it can’t be helped.” And this view is, to my mind, much truer than the other and more likely to bring about the happy life it hardly hopes for. The first expects everything to be done for it -the second does not try to do anything for itself. ….I do not ask from married life more happiness than the golden years of youth have given me, or even as much. But I ask from it a fullness of responsibility that unmarried life can rarely give. I do not ask from my wife the harmony of thought, which if it comes at all, can only come after many years and many sorrows together. I do not ask from myself the angelic spirit that will never be annoyed. But I do ask for some forbearance on both sides and the wish to understand each other and to make each other happy. And these things I do not think I shall ask in vain in my case. These things granted, I believe emphatically in the happiness of married life and when your turn comes, little boy may your chances be as good as mine. I am your affectionate uncle. Charles Booth.[6]
So on Saturday 29 April 1871, Antonia’s parents, Charles and Mary, were married at East Teignmouth. ‘The Booths drove off westward in the afternoon with Mary’s maid sitting behind them in the dog-cart. After ‘putting all to rights’, Mary came down to a little sitting-room and sat by the fire quite alone. The restless young husband had already set off for a long walk. She described this hour as being the strangest she had ever spent. What was she doing in this country inn, all alone, waiting for a man she scarcely knew? The honeymoon was spent driving about Cornwall in the dog-cart, arguing about everything. ‘It was sometimes very hot,’ said Charles; he did not allude to the weather.
Despite his failing health in the early years of their marriage, and his frequent absences on business or research their marriage was a strong one. Mary was an invaluable advisor to Charles in the family business, an active and invaluable contributor to the work of his monumental survey into London life and labour, as well as running a substantial household and raising six children.
Twenty eight years later, in 1899, Mary wrote to Charles:
Do come nearer home, dear! Marriage seems to me a great and growing thing and more than ever needed as one grows old. Is this trite?
Charles wrote back: ‘I don’t find your remarks on marriage at all trite; indeed I don’t believe anyone ever said quite the same thing, but that is a way you have of finding a new cutting edge where everything seems blunt and worn out.’
But back to Antonia and Malcolm:
They first met on Dec 18th 1894 when Malcolm was 25 and Antonia was 21. They were introduced by the Pollocks who were related to Malcolm and lived in the same street as the Booths:
18th December 1894 Dear George came at breakfast time. Tom and I went out for a ride in the wind and rain, almost blown off our steeds then came great discussions and general expectations. Tom and I went to the stores and did all the crackers and many more things on our own account – most successful. By the time we were coming home the sun had come out and the streets looked perfectly delightful. After lunch Meg, Imo and I went out in sporting manner and met mother and George at B—’s however we winked the other eye merely and parted. Mrs Alford appeared at tea and was nice. I went to dinner with the Pollocks, the Maxses were there, a Lady Young, Mr Macnaghten, Mr Mactaggart (heaven preserve us) and somebody else and Dighton Pollock. George came for me and we stayed on late and prommed with dear Lady Pollock and Sir F. .
This is also the first time Antonia mentions riding in London. The Booths had their own stable behind 24 Cumberland Place and their own horses and carriage. They rode regularly on Rotton Row[7].
Of the letters from Antonia to Malcolm that I have this is, I think, the earliest and is probably written in 1896 because that was the year that the family lived at Ightham Mote.
Ightham Mote, Ivy Hatch at Sevenoaks Thursday 1886? Dear Mr Macnaghten You really have been more than splendid. Thank you so very much for getting together such a noble army of watchers. I can’t tell you how it cheers me to think of them all. Would it I wonder be possible for them to choose Friday the 6th instead of Monday as I have already some volunteers for Monday evening. It is too kind of them all and of you to undertake to marshal them. I should very much like to join the party and to feast first at the Temple. Thank you so much if only I had not already been spending a happy day of watching which would be too annoying and which I have a dismal foreboding of. The Truncheons will be very impressive. How terrible it would be if one solitary picture see-er arrives upon the scene to be guarded against and at the same time elevated in his tastes. What would you all feel! And where should I sink to? Gerald Duckworth wrote most kindly – thank you once more- and has taken 6 to 8 on Tuesday so my evenings are getting beautifully filled up I am to meet Susan Lushington at Blelaeth and I hope to get her to help. I wonder whether you have yet been inspired to write to Mr Mejdell and I hope Ireland is being very nice. It is rather a case of drip drip dreariness here. George is at Rustington with Arthur and Sylvia. Yours very sincerely Antonia Booth
It is evident that Antonia has persuaded some of her friends to guard a picture or pictures that are on display somewhere and that she expects there may be a need to intervene to protect it or them from vandalism perhaps or theft. Anyway Malcolm has not only agreed to help but to marshal other watchers and has also provided Truncheons. This is very gallant of him and suitable behaviour for a prospective suitor.
Thursday October 20th 1899 (One day after the second proposal)
Malcolm Dear…..it is a great comfort for me to have the ring which you gave me on my finger my dear …Would you like to know that Monday does seem rather far off. Your A
Friday the 21st of October 1898 (Two days after the second proposal)
198 Queens Gate Dear Mrs Booth, Dodo will have told you our story. I hope you are not sorry. But when I think what her going away must mean to you I know you must be sad and I wonder if you can have a kind thought but I hope you believe that she will be happy with me but that appears the only thing that really matters and I know it must seem wantonly reckless to wish to take away from so much happiness and love and to make a fresh start. But that she should care enough to be willing to come seems most wonderful, it makes one very proud and then very humble for I wish much that I were more worthy but I can’t help thinking that her love will make me not unworthy of her for it seems to have made a great difference already. So I hope you will not be sad and you will give me your blessing as well as hers. yours Malcolm M Macnaghten.
Malcolm’s letter suggests that he did not ask Antonia’s parents’ permission before proposing.
The letters sent to Mary Booth upon news of this engagement stick to a set format, along the following lines:
Dear Mrs Booth
I almost fell off my chair when I heard the news.
You must be happy and sad at the same time.
Antonia is an excellent daughter and you will miss her.
I don’t know this chap Macnaghten but I hope he deserves her/I do know this chap Macnaghten and he is an excellent choice.
Yours in anticipation
Here’s an example:
9 Stanhope Street, Hyde Park Gardens October 25th 1898 My very dearest Mary, It is most overwhelming. News has only just arrived in Dodo’s letter. And yours came by the same post this morning, so that we knew nothing till an hour ago. At first we could only cry out of intense feeling about it and the greatness of our love for you all. But dearest Mary, it does seem very very happy. Only, I know the next feeling and the agony of losing her even if they were to live in the next street. Still, to know that one’s darling is to be cared for through life by such a good man whom you can so thoroughly trust must be a comforting thought. And their affection for one another sounds perfectly ideal. He is lucky, for there is no one in the world to compare with Dodo. You never can think anybody quite good enough for her, but from all we hear he is perfectly charming and has great gifts and talents. Lady Pollock has been here and tells me how greatly they value and appreciate him, and that he is the only person they know really worthy of Dodo. How full your hearts and minds must be. It must be hard to be parted from her, even for a few days. Dearest Mary, I can’t possibly tell you in writing all I feel about it, we can think and talk of nothing else. You are so very near and dear to us. Dear darling Dorothy heard of it in a note this morning and was a good deal upset at first. But is calmer and perfectly full of happiness for her dear Dodo. Alice, I found her with this letter in her hand and her eyes shining through the tears and such a lovely look on her face. Dorothy is doing very well, thank God and we feel the crisis is passed today. Alice is sitting with her now and trying to read to her, but both of them are so full of this great news that they can think of nothing else. Dear Alice is brimful of feeling about it as you well know. And our Harry[8] is so rejoiced and could not speak at first. Dear Dodo has promised to come this afternoon, how I long to see you and talk about it all. Your most loving cousin Janie Fletcher
Jane Fletcher was a first cousins of Charles Booth on his mother’s side.
Leslie Stephen, Virginia Woolf’s father, wrote to Mary saying that he had thought Malcolm would make a good son in law himself for one of his daughters. An interesting thought.
A letter to Malcolm from his great friend Arthur:
65 Pont St. Sunday the 30th of October 1898. My dear old boy, what a splendid bit of news greeted my arrival in London yesterday. I’m so glad and thankful for your letter. You deserve a solid slice of happiness better than almost anyone I know. I feel quite affected by it as if it were one of my own boys. I’m afraid I don’t remember meeting Miss Booth. But I hope It won’t be very long before I shall do so I feel very keen to tell her quite placidly that she is especially lucky girl. I do most cordially congratulate you, my dear boy. And wish you every possible happiness. Yours affectionately Arthur Balfour.
There is more in Antonia’s letters about how the Booths received the news:
Saturday the 22nd of October 1898 (4 days after the second proposal)
Dear Malcolm We all sat around close together last night and talked and talked and then mother and I came to my room to talk more. And her dear eyes did shine very brightly indeed at some of the things I told her as well as I could of what you have said. And the end of it all is that things seem much happier and clearer my dear, isn’t it extraordinary how the whole of life is changed by this what has happened. Before one was always living right up against absolutely dark and mysterious thing called the future but now it is as if a ray of light had shot suddenly through and through the dark to vanishing point dear. It comes from the lamps which you are holding up for me and it is so wonderful I don’t feel a bit vain that you love me so much because I know it comes from your goodness and not from mine at all, but I do feel ashamed and unworthy and I want to deserve it. This morning will come letters from you but this must go first. I’m writing it very badly, not like the lovely neat handwriting which your letters are written dear. Goodbye dear Lamplighter. Today I’m going to write to the Pollocks and all sorts of people but it won’t get to them till Monday. Dodo
The idea of Malcolm as a lamplighter is just charming.
[1] Antonia Macnaghten née Booth was born on 3 February 1873. She was the daughter of Rt. Hon. Charles Booth and Mary Catherine Macaulay.1 She marred Rt. hon. Sir Malcolm Martin Macnaghten. She had four children. She died on 18 January 1952 at the age of 78 leaving 53 diaries which are transcribed here.
[2] Malcolm proposed.
[3] Malcolm proposed again.
[4] (Phegley 14).
[5] https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1456&context=open_access_dissertationsWhen
[6] With thanks to my cousin Charlie.
[7] ‘Rotten Row is a broad track running along the south side of Hyde Park in London. It leads from Hyde Park Corner to Serpentine Road. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Rotten Row was a fashionable place for upper-class Londoners to be seen horse riding. Today it is maintained as a place to ride horses in the centre of London, but it is little used as such. In To Let by John Galsworthy, the third book of The Forsyte Saga, Soames Forsyte, walking from Knightsbridge to Mayfair in 1920, stops to contemplate “the Row” and the social decline exhibited there over sixty years of his experience.’ Wikipedia
[8] Harry Martineau Fletcher became an Architect. He was President of the Architectural Association in 1918-19. In 1924 Harry designed Cecil Sharp House(CSH) in Camden as the home of the English Folk Dance and Song society. ‘First opened in 1930, the building holds all the tension of the 20th century’s battles over the definition of “folk music” and who it belongs to. Visitors will feel it in the architectural push-pull between blunt, right-angled utilitarianism (formal rectangular halls for dancing, rectangular windows for light) and mystical curves of wooden carvings of green men, dragons and bawdy Morris men. For at Cecil Sharp House, town meets country, academia jostles with vernacular tradition and all three classes collide. A great proponent of folk music, Cecil Sharp died in 1924 and CSH was built to keep his legacy alive. After it was hit by 4 bombs during the war, the musicians’ gallery was replaced by a lively, abstract mural by English artist Ivon Hitchens, depicting the English folk dances and traditions (although some spot the presence of UFOs). When Malcolm Taylor first started at CSH, the chair of the committee was Ursula Vaughan Williams, who lived around the corner in Gloucester Crescent .…Ursula would always start lunch with her latest aperitif – something like Cinzano and grapefruit juice. You had one of those and you’d struggle to sit straight through lunch. Then she served coffee that made your scalp twitch!” Taylor laughs about the time when one of Mick Jagger’s representatives called up one day asking to buy some of CSH’s original material. “I said it wasn’t for sale. The guy said, ‘but Mick’s decided he’s been most inspired by the Appalachian mountains.’ I said, ‘I don’t think I’d agree with that!’. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/cecil-sharp-house-folk-music-arts-centre-shirley-collins-peggy-seeger-a9634281.html
Looking Sharp: the exterior of Cecil Sharpe House near Regent’s Park in London in March 1971
(Hulton Archive)
Competitors arrive for the diamond jubilee festival of the English Folk Dance and Song Society at CSH
(Getty)
Ivor Hitchen’s mural.
Antonia and Mary 
