We’re delighted to welcome David Taylor FSA to our November meeting.

Vernon Lushington was a close friend of Elizabeth Gaskell and visited her often in Manchester, being a welcome guest at her house in Plymouth Grove.  He was a lawyer, civil servant, philanthropist and Christian Socialist.  Elizabeth got him to support her efforts to relieve the poor in the Manchester Cotton Famine in 1862.  Lushington was also a key figure in the pre-Raphaelite Movement: he introduced Edward Burne-Jones to Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was a friend of William Morris. He wrote an important essay on the painting “Work” by Ford Madox Brown.  Elizabeth Gaskell’s knowledge of art history was not deep or specialist, but she had some good contacts in the art world, including Lushington.  David Taylor’s talk will explore the relationship between the Gaskells and the Lushingtons, a family of exceptional talents.

Dr David Taylor FSA published The Remarkable Lushington Family: Pre-Raphaelites, Positivists, and the Bloomsbury Group in 2020.  This originated in his work researching and cataloguing the archives of the Lushington family of Ockham and Cobham, at the Surrey History Society, and expanded widely as he explored the connections of this influential family.

Doors open at 1pm – the chapel will be selling tea and coffee and you are most welcome to bring a packed lunch!

The talk begins at 1.30pm.

All are welcome – both members and non-members.