Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1866

Mrs. Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879)

RA Collection: Art

Photogravure printed by H. H. H. Cameron and his partner J.C. Smith from negatives by Julia Margaret Cameron for the publication Alfred, Lord Tennyson And His Friends.

Julia Margaret Cameron's close relationship with the Tennyson family took various forms, typically these included the bestowing of gifts and the running of errands. Her friend Anne Thackeray Ritchie was witness to her generosity.

'After she came to live near the Tennysons, Mrs Cameron had no sense of ever having done enough for them or more than enough. She would arrive at Farringford at all hours, convenient and inconvenient, entering by the door, by the drawing-room window, always bringing goodwill and life in her train. She would walk in at night followed by friends, by sons carrying lanterns, by nieces, by maids bearing parcels and photographs…'

Tennyson, himself, describes her as wonderful in 'her wild beaming benevolence' and probably found, as Michael Thorn suggests, in his biography, that such vivacity and energy was a compliment to his torpor.