TW: Mentions of depression, alcoholism, drug-use, suicide and self harm.
Early Life
Alfred Tennyson’s father was Reverend Dr. George Clayton Tennyson. George was born to George Tennyson (Senior) and Mary Tennyson (née Turner) in December 1778. The Tennyson family lived in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire at the time and both parents came from wealthy families. George Sr. was a popular and well-respected member of Market Rasen society, having established trained as a solicitor and becoming head of the firm Tennyson, Mayne and Vane. In his later years, he became MP for Bletchingly and sat in Parliament on several occasions. The Tennyson’s had four children in total: Elizabeth, Mary, George and Charles.
However, George Jr.’s relationship with his father was fraught from birth. George Jr. suffered with mental illness throughout his life, which was suspected to stem from his epilepsy. Many of the Tennyson’s suffered similar symptoms, including Alfred Tennyson, and the “black blood of the Tennysons” was seen to have emerged from these mental health struggles. Shortly after his birth, George Jr. was sent away to relatives in Holderness and there was conflict with his parents from a young age until his death. Even at the age of seven, his mother declared that she had never seen ‘a child so rude and ungovernable’. Despite inheriting his father’s powerful intellect, George Jr. was always disproved of constantly and rarely received any praise or support beyond the financial from George Sr.
Adulthood, Education and the Church
Unlike George Jr., his brother Charles Tennyson (D’Eyncourt) was showered with attention by their father for his obedience and amiability. This favouritism meant that Charles was chosen to attend Eton, and to pursue a career in Parliament like his father, although George Sr. funded George Jr’s time at Cambridge University. George Jr. attended Cambridge in 1796 at the age of 18 and went into St John’s College. He got his B.A. in 1801, his M.A. in 1805, and his LL.D. (Doctorate in Law) in 1815 to become Dr. Tennyson. George Sr. openly expressed distrust for his eldest son, even hiring an investigator to check if his son’s academic progress was true, and despite the evidence of George Jr.’s intelligence, he disinherited him as ‘too impractical to found a County family’.
George Jr. was forced into the life of a clergyman his B.A., a vocation of which he had no interest, becoming ordained in Lincoln in 1801 and then becoming a priest in 1802. George Jr. then became the Reverend for the parish of Benniworth and from 1802, then also Somersby and Bag Enderby from 1806, before becoming also the Vicar of Great Grimsby in 1815. He held these titles until his death in 1831. Despite his dislike for the position, George Jr. was regarded as an excellent orator by his flock and was highly regarded as a man of faith. Alfred would say that he considered his father ‘the symbol of authority, as a priest the symbol of orthodox faith’.
Understandably, the two George’s managed only short periods of civility throughout their lives. George Sr.’s favouritism of Charles and his distaste for George Jr. was openly acknowledged. In 1820, George Jr. wrote a letter to his father expressing how he was ‘long injured by [George Sr.’s] suspicions’ accusing him of always making a ‘false estimate’ and looking upon him ‘with a jaundiced eye’. The well-respected George Sr. seems to have been unaffected by the accusations and continued to show little interest in his eldest son. This can be seen in George Sr.’s denial of his wife the ‘Tennyson d’Eyncourt’ name.
Marriage and Children
George Jr. had married the Poet’s mother, Elizabeth Fytche, on the 6th August 1805 in Louth, Lincolnshire. The couple had twelve children together – eight sons and four daughters – named: George, Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Mary, Emilia, Edward, Arthur, Septimus, Mathilda, Cecilia and Horatio. Sadly, the eldest son George who was born in May 1806, died in infancy of causes unknown. The rest of their children lived into adulthood, with Mathilda and Cecilia living into the 1900s. Between 1807 and 1808, the couple moved to The Rectory in Somersby, Lincolnshire which was where all the children from Charles onwards were born. The home was well-loved by the family and many of Alfred’s poems refer to scenery and landscapes surrounding the house.
At The Rectory, Dr Tennyson collected a large library to support the literary fascination of himself and his children. He was wholly committed to the education given the breadth of his own intellectual interests and educated them, particularly his sons, in a range of subjects. George Jr. was militant about his sons’ learning of the classics, and by the time they reached adulthood, the three eldest Tennyson sons were fluent in ancient languages, although George declared himself ‘suffocated with Latin and Greek’ as a result. Frederick, Charles and Alfred also followed in their father’s footsteps to attend Cambridge, and all three demonstrated a continued love and interest for classical literature either in their studies or through their poetry.
From the accounts of the Tennyson children, their father’s poor mental health was present throughout their childhoods and only seemed to worsen as the years passed. Arthur Tennyson recalled how ‘our father’s tall form appearing was generally […] the signal for a regular “scatter”, but although very severe, he had great tenderness of heart’. Another account in his Memoirs describes how ‘More than once Alfred, scared by his father’s fits of despondency, went out through the black night, and threw himself on a grave in the churchyard, praying to be beneath the sod himself’. The children seemed both fond of their father, but also terrified of their familial “black blood” and his troubling disposition.
Failing Mental Health
The mid 1820s saw a shift in George Jr.’s behaviour into extreme bouts of depression, and physical violence. Driven by his anger and injustice at his treatment by his father, George’s developed several addictions, primarily alcoholism which understandably only blackened his mood and his relationships with his family. Declining physical health meant that he was prescribed laudanum (opium) to relieve pain after a chest complaint and he continually used, though admittedly he was considered more an alcoholic than an addict. These addictions have been considered reasons why he died younger than several members of the Tennyson family who had remarkably long lives.
It seemed that the Tennyson patriarch’s history of poor relationships between father and eldest son continued into the new generation. Frederick, as the eldest living son, bore the brunt of their father’s ire. A letter from Elizabeth to George Sr. recounts how George Jr. had told her ‘he would kill Frederick by stabbing him in the jugular vein in the heart’ and that he knew ‘he should not do this but he would kill others and Frederick should be one’. This is seemingly the only recorded account of such a threat, and there appears to not be any of the same threats to his other children. There is no evidence that such an attack on Frederick came to be, but the letter portrays a deeply disturbing familial dynamic between George and his eldest son. Of note, is that George Sr. seems to have refused Elizabeth’s plea for assistance.
Thomas Rawnsley also records the severity of George Jr’s mental, emotional and physical health. The Rawnsleys were close family friends with the Tennyson’s and regular visitors at Somersby. In a letter dated March 12th 1829, Rawnsley writes to George Jr.’s brother Charles that:
‘The whole family quitted, and the doctor [George] was left alone and so ill, that his neighbour sent an express to me, fearing he would sink under his depression, and epileptic tendencies. When I arrived on Monday, I found your brother feeding upon himself, and most miserable. […] He must not return to his family, and the sooner he takes another trip to France, or elsewhere, the better for him and for all concerned for him’.
Thomas Rawnsley to Charles Tennyson d’Eyncourt
The grotesque description of George’s poor health reinforces the troubling accounts of the Tennyson children. It also supports the knowledge that the family had started to separate from George Jr. as his mental suffering worsened.
Death
There would eventually be an end to the suffering. George Clayton Tennyson would pass nearly exactly two years later, on 16th March 1831 after a month-long illness. There are several letters to various friends and family which report that George was considered to be dying and unable to recover from the 4th March and was being treated with laudanum. In a letter from Trinity College on 9th March, James Spedding reported that:
‘Both the Tennysons have gone home suddenly; their father is dead or dying; Alfred will probably not return to Cambridge; Charles will take his degree next term; when he will make out his terms reading with me.’
James Spedding to Edward Spedding
Despite these letters, there is some uncertainty surrounding the cause of George’s death. Hallam Tennyson reports in the Memoir that his grandfather was found having died peacefully in his study chair, suggesting a sudden death from heart failure. Hardwicke Rawnsley reports that it was ‘Black typhus or fever or something’ and that the windows of the house had to all be thrown open and his body put into isolation. Many believe that regardless his alcoholism had an effect given the longevity of the rest of the Tennyson family.
Within a week of his death, a grieving Alfred would climb into this father’s bed for the night, earnestly wishing to encounter his ghost. The late George did not appear to him, spectral or otherwise. “You see,” Alfred said later, “ghosts do not generally come to imaginative people.”. The failure to communicate with his father’s ghost, however, did not dissuade him from his belief that there was life beyond death or indeed the Tennyson familial fascination with spiritualism in their adulthoods.
Despite the accounts of George’s illness, the man was well-loved and respected. Rawnsley mourned for the loss ‘of such a powerful intellect’ over his years of poor health. Alfred’s brother Charles reported his father’s death to his friend John Frere saying: ‘My poor father, all his life a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, has gone to “that bourne from whence no traveller returns”’. Charles discusses the peacefulness of his father’s expression in death and continues that his father’s soul ‘whilst on earth was daily racked by bitter fancies, and tossed about by strong troubles’. The Tennyson family grieved the loss of George, repeatedly expressing sympathy for his condition throughout his lifetime and beyond.
Unfortunately, George’s troubles had meant that he had picked up a gambling habit and meant he left several debts behind him. George Sr., who outlived his son, was the one financially supporting the family and fixing the problems created by the son he despaired of. Even before George Jr.’s death, the three eldest sons all received letters which demanded they stop wasting the family money and finish their degrees at Cambridge with a vocation in mind, or leave academia and find a respectable work to support themselves. Since George Jr. had died with four daughters all unmarried, and Victorian women either unable or discouraged to work, the eldest Tennyson men were encouraged to think of their sisters’ futures. As a result, Tennyson left Cambridge shortly thereafter without a degree and struggled for many years with a limited income.
Conclusion
George Clayton Tennyson lived a troubled life; one in which a lack of tolerance and medical treatment for his epilepsy meant that he was written off by his father and forced into a life he did not want for himself. Despite this, he was seemingly well thought of by his children in Arthur’s affection for his father’s gentle nature, Charles’s sympathy in his letters, and Alfred’s desire to communicate with his father’s ghost. George’s memory continues within the successes of his children and their debt to his intellectualism.
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