Welbore St Clair Baddeley
Date of birth: 1856
Date of death: 1945
Category: writer
Identity:
Welbore St. Clair Baddeley was a poet, dramatist, world traveller, amateur archaeologist and historian.
Life:
Baddeley wrote several local history books including Place-names of Gloucestershire: A Handbook (1913), and travel guides of Italian towns such as Venice, for many of which he collaborated with Augustus J. C. Hare. Other publications include essays on Italian history and archaeology. Collection of his letters, diaries and papers can be found at the Gloucestershire Record Office and Leeds University Library.
Whistler was a friend and correspondent of Baddeley. Indeed, Baddeley was among those invited to Whistler's famous Sunday breakfasts (#00231). He also appreciated Whistler as an artist, describing the 'wondrous night atmosphere' of his Nocturnes as mysterious yet truthful. He supported Whistler at the time of the Whistler v. Ruskin trial, writing 'Art criticism so-called often strikes me as being the ruined nucleus of an indecisive, but art-tending temperament' (#00232). In 1878-79 there was talk of Baddeley dedicating one of his books to Whistler (#10532). His publications of the time included John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, an Historical Tragedy, and Songs and Poems (1879), George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham; a Drama, and other Poems (1878) and The Daughter of Jepthah, a Lyrical Tragedy, and other Poems (1879).
Bibliography:
Gray, Irvine, Antiquaries of Gloucestershire and Bristol, 1981; Wiseman, T. P., Talking to Virgil. A Miscellany, Exeter, 1992; British Library on-line catalogue (accessed 2004).
