I couldn’t find any evidence that Valentine Lacy qualified as a doctor,
let alone practised as one, so I think he must have dropped out of university
or - worse from his father’s point of view - failed his exams. If he had been destined by his father to join
the family medical practice, perhaps that’s why he didn’t go home - if he still
thought of India as home. Elder son
George having gone to work in India, George Forbes Vibart and Annie had moved
south to be near their younger son Henry.
Valentine Lacy followed them to London and got a job working in the
office of a firm called Biltor Ltd.
As the company called Biltor Ltd that Valentine Lacy worked for no
longer exists, I haven’t found much information on it. It’s also been difficult to find much about
its founder, Emil Alexander Wüterich. It
seems, though, that Valentine Lacy may have got the job with Biltor Ltd through
George Forbes Vibart, as Marian Charlotte Vibart - who was George Forbes Vibart’s
first-cousin - was persuaded to buy shares in the company.
I found two patent applications made in England by Wüterich. One for a parlour game and its equipment
seems to have been refused, but the other was granted, in February 1889, for a “device...for
tobacco pipes or cigar or cigarette holders to prevent nicotine reaching the
mouth of the smoker”. There’s a cutaway
picture of a pipe with the device inside it, on the web - it looks like an
inner tube. Following the grant of the
patent, Wüterich decided to set up a limited company to exploit his patented
device. He founded Biltor Ltd, with
capital of at least £15,000, and Marian Charlotte Vibart and a woman called
Anna Wüterich - Emil Alexander’s wife, perhaps - as its other major
investors. Wüterich may already have
owned the tobacconist’s shop at 93 Oxford Street (on the corner with Dean
Street) that appears in some adverts for Biltor Ltd. Either that, or the shop was opened to sell
pipes fitted with the patented device as well as all the other paraphernalia of
smoking.
The patent of 1889 had been granted for a fixed number of years, and in
1902 as the time drew near for it to expire, Biltor Ltd and Marian Charlotte
Vibart applied to the Patent Office to have it renewed. As was usual in such cases, the Patent Office
sent an employee to look at Biltor Ltd’s accounts. However, the accounts had been made up in
such a way that you couldn’t tell what income the company drew specifically
from sales of the patented device, and what was from other items sold in the
shop. So the renewal of the patent was
refused. Someone - several someones -
had been rather careless in doing office admin.
On the 1901 census, Valentine Lacy had described his occupation as “Secretary
to Biltor Ltd”. If he meant that he was
acting as the firm’s company secretary, he must bear a share of the blame for
what happened and for the shareholders’ loss of future income; although Wüterich,
too, had been lackadaisical, as the company’s most active director. Nor did
either of them get very good advice from their solicitors.
Biltor Ltd’s shareholders had made efforts to make the patented device
more widely known: they had exhibited it at the Paris International Exhibition
during 1900, and it had won an award.
After the blow of losing the renewal application, they decided to expand
the business in England and by 1908 had opened a second shop, at 88 Queen
Street Cheapside, in the City of London.
The company was still going at both addresses in 1913 and continued, at
least at 93 Oxford Street, until Emil Alexander Wüterich died in November
1927. Valentine Lacy acted as
administrator of Wüterich’s estate and was probably kept busy in 1928 as Wüterich
had left no Will. How he earned a living
after that - whether he took on the business himself, or just wound it up, sold
the shop and retired - I don’t know. He
was 60, and - provided he and Biltor Ltd had paid his national insurance contributions
- was entitled to a pension.
George Forbes Vibart and Annie had settled in Barnes and on the day of
the 1891 census were living at 2 Carshalton Villas on Cambridge Road. I haven’t been able to establish when
Valentine Lacy moved to London. He was
probably still living in Edinburgh in June 1894 when he joined the Theosophical
Society’s Scottish Lodge. The lodge met
at 14 Royal Circus, Edinburgh, the home of John and Frances Brodie-Innes. John Brodie-Innes had been in the Order of
the Golden Dawn since 1890. However,
Valentine Lacy also knew other GD members.
At the time he joined the TS, all applicants needed two sponsors who
were already members. Valentine Lacy’s
two were Hugh Elliot and Florence ffoulkes; Hugh Elliot was initiated into the
GD later in 1894 and Florence ffoulkes became a member in 1895. Florence ffoulkes’ husband Henry was related
to the Vibarts: his uncle Henry had married one daughter of Edward and Frances
Lloyd and Marian Charlotte’s mother was another daughter of the Lloyds. It’s not at all difficult to see how
Valentine Lacy might have been picked out as a suitable person to be initiated
into the GD.
What Valentine made of the TS and the texts by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
that were its main source of spiritual ideas I can’t imagine: amongst the many
influences on her work was the Hinduism that his father had rejected for
Christianity. However, once he had
converted, John Clement Lacy had been (according to the memoir) an “earnest”
Christian; and I would suppose that included banning his children from any
reading of the texts of Hinduism. In
that case, Blavatsky’s work would be as new to Valentine as to any English born
and bred member. He remained a member of
the TS after he left Edinburgh, only giving up paying his subscription in
1902. He may have been a regular at TS
meetings in London but I think probably not, because he never told the TS his
new London address. Perhaps he tried
the GD because theosophy didn’t satisfy him and that brings me to wondering -
how devoted a Christian was he, the son of a man who had all the zeal of the
new convert and who had rejected his Brahmin family for religious reasons? Although the teachings of the TS had Hindu
influences they had plenty of other sources, too; and the basis of the GD’s
teachings, although mostly Christian, was similarly wide-ranging. What did Valentine Lacy make of it all? Seeing that he was not a committed member of
either organisation, perhaps he found their eclecticism unconvincing; or even
alarming.
The Vibart family seem to have been one certainty in Valentine Lacy’s
life; perhaps the only certainty. If
ever someone was a stranger in a strange land, it was him. I’ve spoken of him above as uprooted from his
cultural past; but - especially if both his parents were Indian as I believe
they were - he was also a black man living surrounded by white people.
George Forbes Vibart died in August 1893. By 1901, Annie and Valentine had moved, but
only down the road, to 1 Napier Villas Cambridge Road. Perhaps they had a relationship, by now, that
was more mother and son than landlady and lodger. Their household was a modest one, with no
servants living-in. Annie hadn’t wanted
to move too far from her son Henry and his family; they were living just round
the corner, at 29 Cleveland Road, Barnes although Henry himself was often
working away or abroad.
Annie’s son James Henry Vibart was the actor Henry Vibart (born 1863,
died 1939 or 1943): see wikipedia and imdb for details of his career which
began around 1886 in the theatre and continued for 40 years, taking in silent
films (he was in 70) and even the first years of the talkies. Although he was never a great theatrical star
in the manner of Henry Irving, Henry Vibart was continually in work and
established a reputation for being a reliable professional.
Henry met the actress Taigi Keene in 1886 or 1887 while they were
working for the theatrical impresario F R Benson. Taigi was the eldest daughter of the artist
and illustrator Charles Joseph Keene and his wife Annie, a professional artist’s
model. Taigi’s three sisters also worked
as artists’ models but from 1883 until her marriage Taigi was a professional
actress. The family were devout
Catholics and Taigi was named after the Italian Maria Taigi, known for her
charity work and her visions, which came to her when she fell into trance-like
states while at prayer. Taigi and Henry
Vibart had eight children (three had died by 1911), so she was kept pretty busy
and was probably glad to live near her mother-in-law, with Henry abroad so
often working with British companies touring in the USA, Australia and New
Zealand. And after Annie Vibart died, in
1910, it seems to have been natural for Valentine Lacy to move in with Taigi,
Henry and their children. On the day of
the 1911 census they were all living in the same household, still in Barnes but
a few doors down from Henry and Taigi’s 1901 address, at 24 Cleveland
Road.
And that’s it! More or less all I
know about Valentine Lacy. It’s harder
to find the GD members after World War 1: no census information; google books
hasn’t ventured that far as yet because of problems with copyright; and I
decided not to pursue even London-based GD members through the electoral
registers as it would involve too much work.
Valentine Lacy outlived almost all the people he knew that I have found
out about. Taigi Vibart died in 1938;
and Henry Vibart in 1939 or 1943 (see below for the discrepancy) perhaps his
closest ‘relations’. Marian Charlotte
Vibart died in 1932; Florence ffoulkes in 1936; and Hugh Elliot’s wife Blanche
in 1947. Perhaps he kept in touch with
Hugh Elliot, who lived until late 1948.
Valentine Lacy died in the summer of 1947. I don’t think he ever married.
BASIC SOURCES I USED for all Golden Dawn members.
Membership of the Golden Dawn: The Golden Dawn Companion by R A
Gilbert. Northampton: The Aquarian Press
1986. Between pages 125 and 175, Gilbert
lists the names, initiation dates and addresses of all those people who became
members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or its many daughter Orders
between 1888 and 1914. The list is based
on the Golden Dawn’s administrative records and its Members’ Roll - the large
piece of parchment on which all new members signed their name at their
initiation. All this information had
been inherited by Gilbert but it’s now in the Freemasons’ Library at the United
Grand Lodge of England building on Great Queen Street Covent Garden. Please note, though, that the records of the
Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh were destroyed in 1900/01. As far as I know, the records of the Horus
Temple at Bradford have not survived either.
Family history: freebmd; ancestry.co.uk (census and probate);
findmypast.co.uk; familysearch; Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage; Burke’s Landed
Gentry; Armorial Families; thepeerage.com; and a wide variety of family trees
on the web.
Famous-people sources: mostly about men, of course, but very useful even
for the female members of GD. Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography. Who
Was Who. Times Digital Archive.
Useful source for business and legal information: London Gazette and its
Scottish counterpart Edinburgh Gazette.
Now easy to find (with the right search information) on the web.
Catalogues: British Library; Freemasons’ Library.
Wikipedia; Google; Google Books - my three best resources. I also used other web pages, but with some
caution, as - from the historian’s point of view - they vary in quality a great
deal.
SOURCES FOR JOHN VALENTINE LACY
JOHN CLEMENT LACY, originally CHANDI DEEN
All I know about the conversion of Chandi Deen, his original name, and
his subsequent career as a Christian physician, was published in A Brahman
Convert: A Memoir of Dr Lacy of Agra, by Rev Benjamin J Lacy, John Clement’s
eldest son. It was published by the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in 1905, and
reprinted in 1907; but the Society didn’t send a copy to the British Library. The review I used, which reprinted the memoir’s
highlights, was in the Society’s The East and West: A Quarterly Rvw of the
Study of Missions volume 3 number 11 1905: pp357-58. Published by the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, at 19 Delahay St W/m. On pp357-8 short rvw of A Brahman Convert:
A Memoir of Dr Lacy of Agra, by Rev B J Lacy of Cawnpore. Rvw is anon, so prob by the editor; however,
cldn’t find any mention of the editor’s name.
P357 It’s abt a Hindu Brahman orig named Chandi Deen who was bapt Chr
1859 and took the name John Clement Lacy.
B 1825 d 1902 in Agra. Educ as a
brahmin pundit but abandoned that to train as a doctor ag his family’s wishes;
a Dr T S Lacy an imp help during his time training. Chandi Deen then went into Govt serv. Was stationed 1855 in Agra wh he conv to
Islam and campaigned ag the bldg of Rev French’s CofE college in Agra (Rev
French later bp of Lahore). However by
the time the Mutiny broke out ((May 1857)) he was on the point of being capt
Chr. Mutiny delayed this; as the
fighting contd he was v helpful ((no dtls)) to E India Co. Batp finally took place 1859 w T S Lacy as
godfather; it was T S Lacy’s suggn that the new convert take his surname. From then on, J C Lacy’s exist was “the
record of the family life of one who was at once a skilful doctor and an
earnest Christian”; he remained in Agra and had a priv medical practice
there. P358 ((however)) rvwr notes that
later in his life, JCL got into fnnl trouble; he was also persecuted by “some
of his enemies” ((no fur dtls of who and f what)). Rvw ends w a tale tkn from the book of JCL
clearing up the mud in ch left by a careless yng male convert who didn’t wipe
his boots.
The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was
founded by royal charter in 1701 and still exists, though its name and its
purpose have changed. Its early records
are at Lambeth Palace Library and at the website www.mundus.ac.uk there is a short overview of the SPG until the
end of the 19th century.
I did find one other reference to a man called Chandi Deen but it can’t
be to the man who became John Clement Lacy: Asiatic Journal and Monthly
Miscellany volume 14 1822 issued by the East India Co. On p247 there was a report on the 2nd
Annual Disputation, held at the Hindu College at Benares. P249 mentions a student called Chandi
Deen. Perhaps he was John Clement Lacy’s
brahmin father.
Baptism of (the adult) Chandi Deen as John Clement Lacy is at
familysearch. Baptisms of some but not
all of his children are there too. The
marriage of Alexander Clement Lacy, a child of John Clement Lacy whose baptism
record I didn’t find is also recorded at familysearch.
I checked the General Medical Council Registers for John Clement Lacy:
no one on the registers with that name and that address in India was registered
between the 1860s and the 1900s. There
was also no one called John Valentine Lacy.
Roll of the Indian Medical Service 1615-1930 Index p684 lists only one man
with the surname Lacy: Thomas Saumarez Lacy.
His career details p1840: born St Peter Port Guernsey 1816. MRCS 1838.
LSA 1838. Retired 1 January 1866
and died on Guernsey.
What details I could find on John Clement Lacy between 1859 and 1902,
were all in issues of
Thacker’s Bengal Directory between 1864 and 1908 which was the last year
in which Lacy’s Medical Hall appeared in it.
John Clement Lacy’s eldest son Benjamin John Lacy became a clergyman.
Indian Law Reports: Allahabad Series 1899 has Mr B J Lacy, son of
Dr J C Lacy, living at Agra.
The death of John Clement Lacy is in records at familysearch.
Thacker’s Indian Directory issue of 1908 Part 2 p2010 B J Lacy is manager
of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel’s mission school in Cawnpore.
Pioneer Mail and Indian Weekly News volume p 47: death notice for
Rev Canon Benjamin Lacy of Allahabad; he’d died on 27 March 1920 from TB at the
age of 57.
Familysearch burial records have one for a Joseph Lacy, at Agra in 1920;
he was of an age to have been Valentine Lacy’s elder brother.
BILTOR LTD
Companies’ House keeps records of some limited companies. But it throws away the records of those whose
turnover was below a certain level, after they have been wound up. I saw via google some modern companies called
Biltor Ltd but they are not the one Valentine Lacy worked for.
Cosmopolis volume 8 1897 p923 has The Biltor Ltd at 93 Oxford
St.
Sessional Papers House of Commons volume 31 issued HMSO 1901 p302.
London Gazette 19 December 1902 p8773: date of the hearing about the
renewal of the patent.
Reports of Patent, Design and Trade Mark Cases volume 20 issued
by the Patent Office p285 gave the start of the story of the renewal of the
patent, and The Electrical Review volume 52 1903 p646 reported its
outcome.
The cutaway picture of Wüteric’s device is in Review of Reviews
volume 29 1904 pviii as part of an advert.
The design had been an award winner at the Paris International
Exhibition in 1900. At 93 Oxford St
only.
The expansion into a second shop: Spectator volume 100 1908 p756
had an ad f Biltor Ltd at 93 Oxford St ((wh is on the corner w Dean St)) and at
88 Queen St Cheapside.
The Directory of Gold and Silversmiths, Jewellers and Allied Traders
1838-1914 volume 2 based on the London Assay Office Registers. Published by the Antique Collectors’ Club
2000: p45.
London Gazette 10 April 1928 p2660-2661 notice issue 5 April 1928 in
connection with the
estate of Emil Alexander Wüterich.
[JAMES] HENRY VIBART
See imdb and wikipedia and The London Stage 1890-1899: A Calendar of
Productions by J P Wearing.
Who’s Who in the Theatre issue of 1914 p592 for the year of his first
professional performance.
For some information on the plays Henry Vibart and Taigi Keene appeared
in while working for F R Benson, see theatricalia.com though the website doesn’t
give the sources of its information.
About Henry Vibart’s death. All
the sources I found on him gave 1939 at Chessington as the year and place of
his death; they must all be quoting the same source, a source I haven’t traced
so far. However, when I checked through
freebmd, the only person called ‘henry vibart’ whose death was registered
between 1930 and 1943 was a Henry James Vibart, also called Henry Vibart, who
died at the Royal Hospital Richmond Surrey on 30 August 1943, although his
normal address was in Devon. This man
was the correct age at death to be the actor Henry Vibart. Either the actor Henry Vibart died in 1939
but his death wasn’t registered - which happens sometimes though more usually
at the death of an infant; or the usually quoted year and place of death is
wrong.
TAIGI KEENE AND HER FAMILY
The National Museum of Wales at www.museumwales.ac.uk http://www.musuemwales.ac.uk,Has a nice illustration of Burne-Jones’
Study of a Head (catologue number NMW A 244).
On 25 February 2014 the compiler of this web page, Henry Sire, contacted
me by email to point me at the blog of Mercedes Blanco, who has reconstructed
the career as artists’ models of Taigi Keene’s mother and her three
sisters. The blog is at
sitioparatodo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/keene-mountain-nymph-sweet-liberty-identity.html.
To give you the gist of a website that’s in Spanish, Taigi Keene’s
mother Annie was Edward Burne-Jones’ favourite model and was also photographed
by Julia Margaret Cameron. Taigi’s
sisters also became artists’ models - youngest daughter Bessie was another
Burne-Jones favourite - but Taigi herself only modelled for Louise Jopling (see
below) as far as Mercedes Blanco could discover. I’ve used information about Charles Joseph
Keene from Mercedes Blanco’s blog; and also information about Taigi’s career
with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which was sent as a comment to the blog by
a grand-daughter of Taigi and Henry Vibart, the actress Anne Wall. You do not need to read Spanish to appreciate
the illustrations on this blog - plenty of pictures featuring Annie and her
daughters, and a photograph of Henry Vibart in which I think he is dressed for
a particular part (though I couldn’t figure out which).
Henry Sire is a descendant of
Charles Joseph Keene’s first cousin Adelaide Keene. He told me that Charles Joseph Keene was a
devout Catholic; and that Annie had become a Catholic after her marriage. They named Maria Taigi (born 1866) after a
particularly devout Italian woman - see
en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Ven_Anna_Maria_Gesualda_Antonia_Taigi
for some information on her life. She
was beatified in 1920 but hasn’t been made a saint.
For the portrait of Taigi by Louise Jopling, see: www.louisejopling.arts.gla.ac.uk Glasgow University’s
Jopling Research Project.
VALENTINE LACY IN THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
Theosophical Society Membership Register June 1893 to March 1895 p154.
Copyright SALLY DAVIS
6 March 2014
***