Georgiana, Lady Burne-Jones (née MacDonald; 21 July 1840 – 2 February 1920) was a British painter and engraver, and the second oldest of the MacDonald sisters. She was married to the Late Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, and was also the mother of painter Philip Burne-Jones, aunt of novelist Rudyard Kipling and Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, confidante and friend of George Eliot, William Morris, and John Ruskin. She was a Trustee of the South London Gallery and was elected to the parish Council of Rottingdean, near Brighton in Sussex.
She is known for the biography of her husband, The Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones and for publishing his Flower Book. She became the mother-in-law of John William Mackail, who married her daughter Margaret. Their children were the novelists Angela Thirkell, Denis Mackail and Clare Mackail.
Early life Georgiana, always called "Georgie", was born in Birmingham on 21 July 1840,Taylor (1987), p. 14 one of eight surviving children born to the Reverend George Browne Macdonald (1805–1868), a Methodist minister, and his second wife Hannah Macdonald, née Jones (1809–1875).Taylor (1987), pp. 4–8
The Macdonald family moved frequently since the usual time in each of George's postings was three years, returning to Birmingham in September 1850, where Georgiana's elder brother Harry attended King Edward's School. Through him Georgiana and her sisters were introduced to a group of students who would become known as the Birmingham Set or "Pembroke Set" at the University of Oxford, most of whom were from Birmingham or had studied at King Edward's. Among them was the young Edward Burne-Jones (then plain Edward or Ned Jones).Taylor (1987), pp. 24–32 Edward went up to Exeter College, Oxford, to study theology. There he met William Morris as a consequence of a mutual interest in poetry. The two Exeter undergraduates formed a very close and intimate society, which they called "The Brotherhood", with other members of the Birmingham set. The members of the Brotherhood read John Ruskin and Tennyson, visited churches, and worshipped the Middle Ages. At that time neither Burne-Jones nor Morris knew Dante Gabriel Rossetti personally, but both were much influenced by his works, and met him by recruiting him as a contributor to their Oxford and Cambridge Magazine which Morris founded in 1856 to promote their ideas. Under Rossetti's influence both Burne-Jones and Morris decided to become artists, and Burne-Jones left college before taking a degree to pursue a career in art.
Georgiana moved to London with her family in 1853, following the death of her sister Carrie from tuberculosis; first to Sloane Square, and then to 33 Walpole Street. The family then moved to 17 Beaumont Street in Marylebone, in August 1856. After a brief family relocation to Manchester, Georgiana moved on her marriage into Russell Street in 1860.Burne-Jones (1904), The Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, Vol 1, 1904.
Through her friendship with, and eventual engagement to Edward, at age 15 in June 1856, she was able to visit the studio where he worked with Rossetti and Morris. She was also introduced to John Ruskin. She said, "I wish it were possible to explain the impression made upon me as a young girl whose experience so far had been quite remote from art, by sudden and close intercourse with those to whom it was the breath of life ... I felt in the presence of a new religion."
The artist Ford Madox Brown and his wife Emma invited Georgiana to an extended stay at their London home in April, 1860, so that she could spend time with Edward, and the two were married two months later.Flanders (2001), pp. 72–73
Marriage and family
Georgiana and Edward married in Manchester on 9 June 1860. Georgiana was 19, and Edward 27. They had been engaged for four years to the day. Between them they had £30 and a deal table containing her engraving tools,Todd (2001), p. 71 but "Light-hearted indifference, however, to many things generally regarded as essential lent boldness to domestic arrangements, and I remember thinking it quite natural that in the middle of the morning I should ask our only maid – a pretty one – to stand for me that I may try to draw her; to which she, being good tempered as well as pretty, cheerfully consented."
Georgiana moved on her marriage into rented rooms in Great Russell Street. The early years of their marriage were idyllic; they spent a summer with William and Jane Morris at Red House, working together on decorating projects. Their first child, Philip Burne-Jones, was born on 21 October 1861.Flanders (2001), p. 82 But in the summer of 1864 little Phil caught scarlet fever, and Georgiana soon contracted the dread disease, which brought on the premature birth of her second child, Christopher, who was also infected and died soon after. Georgiana was ill for months, and on her recovery refused to return to their old rooms where so much tragedy had occurred.Todd (2001), pp. 89–91 The family soon moved to 41 Kensington Square, and their daughter Margaret was born there in the summer of 1866.Wildman (1998), p. 107Todd (2001), p. 99
After Georgiana's marriage, her sisters Louisa, Alice and Agnes, married Alfred Baldwin, John Lockwood Kipling and Edward Poynter respectively. Their youngest sister, Edith, cared for their parents in the family home and published a brief family history.
Artistic career
Georgiana attended the Government School of Design, which was part of the South Kensington museums complex in a building that is now part of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Georgiana dismissed her time at the school in a single sentence in Memorials by saying she had not learned anything of importance.
In 1856, Georgiana took lessons from Ford Madox Brown and remembered, "Madox Brown's incredible kindness in allowing me and Miss Seddon, sister to his dead friend Thomas Seddon the artist, to come and try to paint from a model in his studio".
There are few surviving examples of her artwork. One of her woodcuts and a small, exquisitely coloured watercolour and pencil rendering of a dead bird show a focus on small scale personal drawings and woodcuts to be used as book illustrations. The bird was done in 1857 and is held by the Tate Britain.'Dead Bird', Georgina Macdonald (Lady Burne-Jones) at tate.org.uk
In 1861, the decorative arts firm Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., "Fine Art Workmen in Painting, Carving, Furniture and the Metals," was jointly created by William Morris, Madox Brown, Burne-Jones, Charles Faulkner, Rossetti, P. P. Marshall, and Philip Webb to create and sell medieval-inspired, handcrafted items for the home. Jane Morris directed the embroidery arm, and Georgiana was employed painting tiles,Todd (2001), p. 83 but with the birth of her son Philip in October of that year she gave up the art studio to become a full-time caregiver. "I remember the feeling of exile with which I now heard through its closed door the well-known voices of friends together with Edward's familiar laugh, while I sat with my little son on my knee and dropped selfish tears on him as 'separator of companions and the terminator of delights'". As late as 1868 she was still attempting to learn to etch but none of her work was published.
Friendships
In 1867 the Burne-Jones family moved again, to the Grange, an 18th-century house set in a large garden in North End Road, Fulham, London. For much of the 1870s Burne-Jones did not exhibit, following a spate of bitterly hostile attacks in the press, and a passionate affair (described as the "emotional climax of his life"Wildman (1998), p. 114) with his Greek model Maria Zambaco which became a public scandal bordering on farce when she tried to commit suicide by throwing herself in Regent's Canal in 1869.Flanders (2001), p. 118-120 During these difficult years Georgiana developed a close friendship with William Morris, whose wife Jane had fallen in love with Rossetti. Morris and Georgiana may have been in love, but if he asked her to leave her husband (as some of his poetry of these years suggests), she refused.
Of the Zambaco affair, which would sputter on for some years, Georgiana wrote to her dear friend Rosalind Howard "Dearest Rosalind, be hard on no one in this matter, and exalt no one, and may we all come through it at last. I know one thing, and that is that there is enough love between Edward and me to last out a long life if it is given us".Quoted in Wildman (1998), p. 260. The letter is dated 18 February 1869.
In the end, the Burne-Joneses remained together for another 30 years, as did the Morrises. William Morris and Georgiana remained close until his death.Flanders, Circle of Sisters, p. 136
Another close friend was George Eliot, whom Georgiana met in February 1868. The self-educated novelist encouraged her young friend to make up for her lack of education, and Georgiana studied to improve her scant French and German, and took Latin lessons. They remained close until Eliot's sudden marriage in 1880, of which Georgiana had no inkling in advance, left her feeling betrayed and untrusted. The rift was never mended, for Eliot died that December.Taylor (19887), pp. 82–83Flanders (2001), p. 168
Public life
In 1880 the Burne-Joneses bought Prospect House in Rottingdean, near Brighton in Sussex, as their holiday home, and in 1889 they acquired Aubrey Cottage next door to create North End House, reflecting the fact that their Fulham home was in North End Road. Georgiana loved her new country house and garden, and became active in village affairs. Rottingdean became her home in way that it never was for her husband, who preferred the Grange and its studio.Flanders (2001), pp. 222–23Taylor (1987), p. 158
Although she had abandoned organized religion at the time of her marriage, Georgiana's Methodist upbringing emphasized service to the community, and she had been a supporter of William Morris's active role in the Social Democratic Federation and later the Socialist League.Taylor (1987), pp. 155-56 Her close friends Morris, John Ruskin, and Rosalind Howard were all involved in progressive causes. Georgiana's first steps into public service came as a supporter of the South London Fine Art Gallery, which had been established in 1891 to arts education for the working classes of South London. Georgiana encouraged the loan of her husband's paintings and those of others in her circle. She and Walter Crane championed the addition of a library to the gallery. She became the only woman on the committee established to turn governance of the gallery over to the local authority, and discovered a talent for detail-oriented committee work.Taylor (1987), p. 155–56Flanders (2001) p. 278
In the mid-1880s Burne-Jones had begun hyphenating his name, merely - as he wrote later - to avoid "annihilation" in the mass of Joneses,Taylor (1987), pp. 150-51 and thus Georgiana became Lady Burne-Jones when her husband reluctantly accepted a baronetcy in 1894, partially at least as the title would descend to his son Philip, who ran with the smart set around the Prince of Wales and cared very much for the honour. Jane Morris wrote that her husband had commented "Well, a man can be an ass for the sake of his children", but in general the Socialists of their circle and Georgiana herself were appalled.Flanders (2001), pp. 259–260Taylor (1987), p. 151