Laura Troubridge Hope and Adrian Hope, 1868-1933
Scope and Contents
The More House Archive consists of the family archive of the Hope-Nicholson family, who lived at More House at 52 Tite Street in London for a century beginning in 1892. The house was purchased by Adrian Hope and Laura Troubridge and the house archive contains materials produced by them, their daughter and son-in-law Jaqueline and Hedley Hope-Nicholson, and grandchildren (particularly Marie-Jaqueline Lancaster and Felix Hope-Nicholson), as well as other members of their extended Troubridge, Hope, Gurney, Nicholson and Cleghorn families. Materials comprise correspondence, diaries, photographs, literary manuscripts, original art and business papers, dating from the early 17th century to late 1990, though the bulk of material dates from the 1870s to the 1940s. The Troubridge, Hope, Gurney and Hope-Nicholson families were very well-connected across a variety of disparate social circles and fields. As such, materials relate to a large number of topics including Pre-Raphaelite and aesthetic arts, diplomacy and the military (particularly the Crimean War), royalty, politics, the gay and lesbian avant garde, religious figures, journalism, country life, amateur and professional theater, interior decoration and education.
Family members well-represented here include Laura Troubridge Hope, Jacqueline Hope-Nicholson, Hedley Hope-Nicholson, Marie-Jaqueline Lancaster, Felix Hope-Nicholson, Una Taylor Troubridge, Alfred John Nicholson, Mary Cleghorn Nicholson, Amy Troubridge, Helen Troubridge Bate, Robert Bontine Cunninghame-Graham and Thomas W. Allen. Correspondents and friends of the family circle represented in the collection include Oscar Wilde, Cyril and Vyvyan Holland, John Betjeman, George Kolkhorst, Queen Victoria and the Royal Family, Radclyffe Hall, Trelawny Dayrell Reed, C.K. Scott-Moncrieff, Lord Alfred Douglas, Edward Burne-Jones and family, the de Bunsen family, John Millais and family, Edward Scott-Snell, Harold Nicolson and Ada Leverson, to name only a few.
Many of the original housings and containers in which this archive was stored have been retained in the More House Archive at the Clark. Normally, most original boxes and containers would be discarded during processing, but in the case of this archive, the Clark staff decided that the way the archive was collected, curated and stored was an important part of its overall story. The collecting habits of the Troubridge-Hope-Nicholson's are a very significant part of the provenance of the archive, and it was deemed important to keep some record and evidence of how they curated the archive when it was in their posession.
A family tree of the Troubridge, Hope, Gurney and Nicholson families is viewable online.
Dates
- Creation: 1868-1933
Conditions Governing Access
This collection is open for research.
Biographical Note
Laura Troubridge was born in 1858 in London, the second (surviving) child of war hero Sir Thomas St. Vincent Troubridge and Louisa Gurney. After the early deaths of their parents in 1867, Laura and her 5 siblings went to live with their widowed grandfather Daniel Gurney in Runcton, Norfolk. Laura showed an early aptitude and passion for drawing and painting and became a well-regarded portrait painter (especially known for portraits of children) and illustrator. In 1884, she became engaged to Adrian Hope, the eldest son of Lt-Colonel William Hope and his wife Margaret Jane Cunninghame Graham.
Adrian Hope was born in 1858 and had a somewhat difficult and unhappy childhood. After a brief career in the Diplomatic Service, his father moved the family back to England to work on a series of unsuccessful agricultural experiments. He also tried to invent a new kind of gun. Adrian and his 5 younger siblings did not receive any formal education after they completed their basic schooling, and Adrian had some difficulty finding adequate employment as an adult because of this. After suffering ill-heath he worked in Ceylon for 3 years as Private Secretary to the Governor and returned to London in 1884. He finally was appointed as Secretary to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, where he had some success as a fund-raiser.
The young couple was not able to marry until 1888 because of Adrian's difficulties in finding a job that would support them both, but their marriage was a happy one until Adrian's untimely death in 1904, the result of an operation for appendicitis. Their younger daughter, Esme, died of diptheria in 1905 at the age of 7 and Laura and their older daughter Jaqueline (1889-1972) were left in much reduced circumstances. During this period, they had to let More House to others and lived in rented lodgings, but were able to move back into the house in 1915. In 1916, Jaqueline married Hedley Nicholson and, along with their children Lauretta, Marie-Jaqueline and Felix, the Hope-Nicholson family lived with Laura in More House until her death in 1929. In addition to her work as a painter, Laura (like her sisters and daughter) was much involved in amateur theatricals and also wrote articles and stories for publication.
Extent
From the File: 175 Linear Feet (213 boxes)
Language of Materials
From the File: English
Arrangement
This series is arranged in 6 subseries:
- Subseries 1.1.
- Adrian Hope-Laura Troubridge correspondence, 1884-1904
- Subseries 1.2.
- Laura Troubridge Hope correspondence, 1868-1929
- Subseries 1.3.
- Diaries, photograph albums and writing by Laura Troubridge Hope, 1870-1925
- Subseries 1.4.
- Original artwork by Laura Troubridge Hopem about 1883-1925
- Subseries 1.5.
- Adrian Hope correspondence and other materials, 1881-1918
- Subseries 1.6.
- Laura Troubridge Hope housekeeping and general files, 1888-1933
Repository Details
Part of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library Repository