Monday, June 10th - Blythe House

Today we travelled to Blythe House to see the V&A Beatrix Potter Collection. It’s the largest collection of Beatrix Potter materials and includes original materials of hers like watercolours and manuscripts, as well as personal letters and family memorabilia.

It was fascinating to see her drawings and the varying styles and details she included, and how many of these subjects ended up appearing in her published works. I was wonderful to see all the steps, from inspiration to final product. After viewing the collection today I am not surprised that Peter Rabbit has never been out of print. Equally amazing was her coded journal! She began journalling at the age of 15 in a secret code only she knew, and it took Leslie Linder 5 years to decode it (15 years after her death). 

Linder is an important figure in scholarship on Beatrix Potter. He decoded her journal, but also collected her manuscripts, letters, drawings, watercolours and photographs. After his death in 1973 he left his collection of Potter material to the V&A, which paved the way for more donations, including the Beatrix Potter archives of Frederick Warne & Co., (the publishers of the Peter Rabbit books since 1902). Linder was able to spend years working on the code because he came from a wealthy family. Beatrix Potter was also upper middle class with a family that supported her interest in art. Her father Rupert Potter was an avid photographer, her mother Helen Leech was interested in watercolour and embroidery, and her brother Bertram also pursued a career as an artist. It made me wonder about how many more discoveries could be made if everyone was given these same opportunities to create and study.

I didn’t know that Potter had also studied mycology, and Andrew Whiltshire’s story about how Kew Gardens ignored her ideas because she was a woman, and this resulted in the invention of penicillin being pushed back 50 years, was really heartbreaking.

Visit the V&A Archives website here