John Ruskin revisited

A fascinating reassessment of the importance of John Ruskin has come in two excellent books published this year.

Suzanne Fagence Cooper has approached the subject from her art history background. To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters is a beautiful, intriguing book.

Andrew Hill is a Financial Times Journalist and, in Ruskland: How John Ruskin Shapes Our World, looks at Ruskin’s thinking on political economy. I am sure William would have approved.

The books also tell, amongst much more, of the influence of Ruskin on Charlotte Bronte. This influence came via William Smith Williams.

I have charted John Ruskin’s relationship with William Smith Williams who worked closely in the 1860s, editing The Selections of the Writings of John Ruskin published by Smith, Elder & Co in 1861.

http://www.williamsmithwilliams.co.uk/2019/03/william-smith-williams-and-john-ruskin.html

Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Bronte Studies

William Smith Williams: Charlotte Brontë’s First Devotee

Below is the link to an article I wrote for Bronte Studies. I have since published a book, Charlotte Bronte’s Devotee, telling the whole of what I discovered about this fascinating man. The article is but the bare bones. The book is available to buy

The article explores some of what is known of William Smith Williams, the reader at Smith, Elder and Company, who discovered and mentored Charlotte Brontë. It traces his childhood, education and early career. His interest in art was perhaps as great as that in literature and the article explores a number of his writings on the subject. His correspondence with Charlotte Brontë is well known; less familiar is his relationship with John Ruskin on which this article seeks to shed some light. It will show that William Smith Williams was very much a Renaissance man who attracted both friendship and respect from many of the nineteenth century’s leading writers, artists and thinkers.

A preface to the article explains my interest:

Philip Hamlyn Williams’s interest in William Smith William stems from his irritation that William Smith Williams seemed to be dismissed by many Brontë biographers. He holds an MA in Professional Writing and in 2008, as a mature student, was awarded a First Class Degree in Humanities from the University of Exeter. He, previously, had pursued careers in professional services, principally as a partner in accountants Price Waterhouse and the not-for-profit sector. He is the author of two books on the how the British army was supplied in the two World Wars: War on Wheels and Ordnance, both published by The History Press, Gloucester, England.

Correspondence to: Philip Hamlyn Williams. Email: philhwilliams@gmail.com. Website:  www.philwilliamswriter.co.uk.

The article, published by Taylor & Francis in Bronte on 18 March 2019, is available online:

The Kindle edition of the book is available by following this link 

Charlotte Bronte's Devotee? - a first draft

I mark 31 August 2018 as the day I sent off a first draft of my biography of William Smith Williams.

It has been a labour of love, a quest for the man behind Charlotte Brontë’s description of him: 'a faded Tom Dixon.' (He could hardly have been less so).


I was helped in my search by the genealogical work carried out by Mr Norman Penty and written up in his booklet, The Discovery of Charlotte Brontë William Smith Williams 1800-1875 – a Genealogical Quest. In 2006 Mr Penty contacted me and told me of the family tree that he had painstakingly researched. He contacted me because my name appears in the tree as the great grand son of WSW’s brother. The other huge source of help was from the late Margaret Smith’s edition of the letters of Charlotte Brontë. I visited the Brontë archive at Haworth, the Ruskin archive at Lancaster and the Smith Elder archive in Edinburgh, discovering in each place true gems. I researched extensively on line and in libraries. WSW's descendants in New Zealand and Australia provided a much need family perspective.

I found a true nineteenth century Renaissance man as at home with art as with literature, and with politics as with science. The question mark in the suggested title is deliberate. He is known as Charlotte Brontë’s mentor, a task he carried out with devotion. However, whilst she may have been the most prominent, she was very far from the only writer to whom WSW devoted his energies and very particular skills. 

The draft is divided into twelve chapters:

1 Childhood
2 Apprenticeship
3 The Hullmandel Years
4 The House of Smith, Elder & Co
5 The Bronte Years – Jane Eyre
6 The Bronte Years – Friendship
7 The Bronte Years – Art and Tragedy
8 The Bronte Years – Shirley, The Cornhill Parcels and Education
9 The Bronte Years – Villette, A Cooling Relationship
10 The Cornhill and Other Authors
11 The Ruskin Years

12 Home Life and Legacy

I now begin my search for a suitable publisher.

Charlotte Bronte's First Devotee

The title of this post is my current working title for my biography of William Smith Williams, with the strap line: Who was this man, William Smith Williams, who discovered and nurtured Charlotte Bronte?

The name, William Smith Williams, will strike a chord with readers of Bronte biographies. He was the reader at Smith Elder & Co who first spotted Charlotte’s genius. He then nurtured her talent, as is evident from the one hundred or so letters she wrote to him in the course of her short career.

But who was he? Whence had he come and whither did he go? A passage from a letter his nephew, Robert Hill, wrote on his death urges exploration: ‘There were complementary notices of his death in nearly all the papers. Nobody could have been more universally beloved or respected than he was.’

I read the obituaries and they were indeed full of praise and affection for this quiet man. The Athenaeum wrote: ‘His literally taste was excellent, and he had great powers of discernment. His judgement and his opinion regarding the works was very highly valued, more especially by young authors.’ One sentence, in the Publishers Circular, in particular caught my attention: ‘The truth is that Mr Williams’ previous education had fitted him to be a judge of good work, and he was singularly fair and unbiased.’ I had to discover what this ‘previous education’ may have been.

My researches are bearing fruit and I hope will appear in an article for Bronte Studies and will be part of a biography which I am seeking to publish.

John Ruskin and WSW

Did John Ruskin play as big a role in William's life as did Charlotte Bronte?

The University of Lancaster is home to a wonderful archive of John Ruskin's work. I spent a day there looking at his diaries and some of the other manuscripts he left.

To me of greatest interest was the 1861 first edition of Selections from the writing of John Ruskin edited by William Smith Williams. It is an alladin's cave. It shows the breadth of his interest, from fine art, through architecture to political economy.

Quite when William first met Ruskin remains unclear, however there is every reason to believe that William read the first volume of his first book Modern Painters very soon after publication in 1843/44.

William was certainly in 1843 a regular contributor to the Athenaeum Periodical. I have found some eight art and theatre reviews which he wrote that year. On 3 February 1844 a lengthy review of Modern Painters by a Graduate of Oxford appeared in the Athenaeum. It was scathing. Who was this young pup saying such modern nonesense. It is clear that William thought otherwise. He shared with Ruskin a love of Turner, especially early Turner landscapes which they both felt followed the path set  out by watercolourist, Samuel Prout.

William would later send a copy of Modern Painters to Charlotte Bronte to assist with the broadening of her mind.

The Smith Elder archive at the National Library of Scotland contains some fascinating further material.

In the 1860s, Ruskin turned his attention to political economy and wrote a series of articles together under the title Unto the Last for the Cornhill Magazine, published by Smith and Elder. He then wrote further lectures which came together in a number of books. In the archive there are personal letters from Ruskin to William concerning the publication of these.