Pauline, Lady Trevelyan (''née'' Paulina Jermyn; Trevelyan, Raleigh (1978); ''A Pre-Raphaelite Circle'', p.7; Chatto & Windus, London; 1st edition. 25 January 1816,

Hawkedon Hawkedon is a village and civil parish in the West Suffolk district of Suffolk in eastern England. Located around south-south-west of Bury St Edmunds, the parish also contains the hamlet of Thurston End, and in 2005 had a population of 120. Th ...

, Suffolk13 May 1866,

Neuchâtel , neighboring_municipalities= Auvernier, Boudry, Chabrey (VD), Colombier, Cressier, Cudrefin (VD), Delley-Portalban (FR), Enges, Fenin-Vilars-Saules, Hauterive, Saint-Blaise, Savagnier , twintowns = Aarau (Switzerland), Besançon (Fra ...

, Switzerland) was an English painter, noted for single-handedly making

Wallington Hall Wallington is a country house and gardens located about west of Morpeth, Northumberland, England, near the village of Cambo. It has been owned by the National Trust since 1942, after it was donated complete with the estate and farms by Sir Ch ...

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

a centre of High Victorian cultural life, and for enchanting by her intellect and art

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and pol ...

Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabet ...

Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical sett ...

Christina Rossetti Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English writer of romantic, devotional and children's poems, including " Goblin Market" and "Remember". She also wrote the words of two Christmas carols well known in Bri ...

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

William Michael Rossetti William Michael Rossetti (25 September 1829 – 5 February 1919) was an English writer and critic. Early life Born in London, Rossetti was a son of immigrant Italian scholar Gabriele Rossetti and his wife Frances Rossetti ''née'' Polidor ...

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, ...

John Everett Millais Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, ( , ; 8 June 1829 – 13 August 1896) was an English painter and illustrator who was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He was a child prodigy who, aged eleven, became the youngest ...

, and other members of the

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, Jame ...

. She was married in May 1835 to Sir

Walter Calverley Trevelyan Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan FGS FRSE (31 March 1797 – 23 March 1879) was an English naturalist and geologist. Life He was born in 1797 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the eldest son of Sir John Trevelyan, fifth baronet, of Nettlecombe, Somerset, ...

, 6th

Baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14t ...

Background

Paulina (known as Pauline) Jermyn was the eldest child of George Bitton Jermyn (1789–1857), of Hawkedon Parsonage, who, to ensure the Jermyn surname survived, added it as her second Christian name. Her mother was of Huguenot descendancy. The marriage between artist Pauline Jermyn, the penniless daughter of a clergyman and the rich, teetotal, vegetarian Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan was an unlikely, but not surprisingly successful arrangement—their common interest in geology and art ensured their compatibility and the childless marriage allowed them to channel their creativity to other ends.

William Bell Scott William Bell Scott (1811–1890) was a Scottish artist in oils and watercolour and occasionally printmaking. He was also a poet and art teacher, and his posthumously published reminiscences give a chatty and often vivid picture of life in the ...

said of her,

"a true woman, but without vanity, and very likely without the passion of love."

Artistic and other interests

Shortly before proposing to Pauline, Walter had made his future wife a gift of a box of fossils. Walter had been described as "an intellectual of a dry professional order". He was the owner of Wallington estate from 1846 until his death. Besides being a distinguished geologist, he had a great interest in botany and was an authority on farming methods, winning awards for his cattle. His strict views on alcohol led to the dumping of his father’s wine collection into a nearby lake. Pauline had met him in 1833 at a

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

conference of the

British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chi ...

. She had been schooled in Greek, French, Latin, German, and Italian, and her interests were science, literature and the fine arts. She wrote pieces for the ''

Edinburgh Review The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929. ''Edinburgh Review'' ...

'' and ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...

''. On her first visit to her husband's family at Wallington, she was inspired by

Richard Grainger Richard Grainger (9 October 17974 July 1861) was a builder in Newcastle upon Tyne. He worked with the architects John Dobson and Thomas Oliver, and with the town clerk, John Clayton, to redevelop the centre of Newcastle in the 19th century. ...

and John Dobson's redevelopment of nearby

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

. Walter may have been a respected scientist, but he was eclipsed by Pauline who had become the focal point for an enormous array of poets, painters and writers. It was during this period that the Central Hall evolved. In earlier days the house was surrounded by an unattractive courtyard, until Ruskin suggested that it be roofed, so that in 1855 this was done under his and , John Dobson's supervision. Ruskin, of whom Pauline was a great admirer and confidante, is said to have designed the first floor balustrade. William Bell Scott, then an art teacher in Newcastle, with help from Pauline, Ruskin and Arthur Hughes, painted panels in the Hall showing figures and scenes from the history of Northumberland in Pre-Raphaelite style. Pauline was one of the earliest northern English patrons of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (his first having been another northern woman, Ellen Heaton, daughter of a Leeds bookseller, in 1855).

John and Effie Ruskin

Pauline had also been very friendly with Ruskin's wife

Effie Effie is a feminine given name, sometimes a short form (hypocorism) of Euphemia (Greek: Εὐφημία). Notable people with the name include: Women * Effie Bancroft (1840–1921), English actress and theatre manager * Effie Boggess (1927-20 ...

, but took Ruskin's side when their marriage was annulled in 1854 and subsequently shunned Effie's attempts to maintain contact with her. The previous summer the Ruskins had spent a protracted artistic holiday in the

Scottish Highlands The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland S ...

with the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Millais and his brother William. En route to Scotland the party stayed with the Trevelyans at Wallington. Pauline noticed that Ruskin and Effie (whose unconsummated marriage was under great strain) spent most of their time apart, but also seems to have been put out by Effie's flirtatious behaviour with John Millais and their lengthy absences together from the house. Even so, she was complimentary about Effie's appearance at an evening party at which she wore flowers in her hair, a stylistic trait that subsequently irritated Ruskin, came to the disapproving notice of

Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale (; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was an English social reformer, statistician and the founder of modern nursing. Nightingale came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer of nurses during the Crimean War ...

, and inspired a painting by Millais ("Effie with

Foxglove ''Digitalis'' ( or ) is a genus of about 20 species of herbaceous perennial plants, shrubs, and biennials, commonly called foxgloves. ''Digitalis'' is native to Europe, western Asia, and northwestern Africa. The flowers are tubular in shap ...

s in her Hair", 1853), whom Effie married in 1855.

Burial

Pauline was buried at

.John Ruskin:A Life in Pictures - James S. Dearden
/ref> Every year, many visitors come to appreciate her contribution to humanity.

Bibliography

London: Chatto & Windus, 2006 *''A Very British Family: The Trevelyans and Their World'' -

Laura Trevelyan Laura Kate Trevelyan (born 21 August 1968) is a British-American journalist who worked for the BBC for 30 years. She served as an '' On the Record'' reporter, United Nations correspondent (2006–2009),''A Review of John Batchelor's Lady Trevelyan and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trevelyan, Pauline 1816 births 1866 deaths 19th-century British painters 19th-century English women 19th-century British women artists English women painters Pre-Raphaelite painters Wives of baronets Women of the Victorian era Female Pre-Raphaelite painters