A Scrapbook of Corners and the Fraternity of Noviomagians by Griselda Heppel

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Julia Jones’s moving post of 9th January about discovering long lost letters between her mother and grandmother came into my mind recently as I, too, sat down to look through some family memorabilia. 

Wonderfully silly visual joke
from Kate Corner's scrapbook.
Opening an enormous, scruffy, leather-bound scrapbook dating from 1855, I was stunned. I can’t even remember what I expected: some dull, holy verses extolling faith and humility, a few cut-outs depicting blowsy roses, nature walks described in spidery handwriting, that sort of thing…
Caricature from Kate Corner's scrapbook.


Instead, a wealth of well-drawn caricatures greeted my eyes, some wonderfully silly visual jokes...

... and two beautifully and comically illustrated invitations, framed as the planned outings of an exclusive club called the Fraternitye of Noviomagians. 
Noviomagus Anniversary Meeting 1st July
1856. By George Godwin.


Soberer items appeared in between: many carefully scrawled poems I haven’t been able to decipher; watercolours of village scenes, drawings of churches, all well executed. There’s even an elegantly copied out poem, Adelaide, by the German poet Friedrich von Mathisson, with ‘Handschrift von Beethoven’ (who set the poem to music in 1795) written in pencil underneath. 

Well, this certainly set my heart beating… until a swift google search revealed the great composer’s handwriting to be notoriously messy, nothing like the fine copperplate here.
Unlikely to be Beethoven's handwriting.
(Adelaide by Friedrich von Mathisson.)


Wishful thinking, it seems. 

The scrapbook belonged to my great-grandmother, Kate (Catherine) Corner, a gift from an uncle in 1855, when she was 20 years old. As she had several brothers and sisters and lots of cousins, the contributions are likely to have come chiefly from family members. 

Kate Corner's scrapbook
May 1855

I’d love to know who wrote/drew/painted what. Different combinations of initials with C abound but as I’m still piecing the family together I can’t work out who’s who. 

But I have no doubt as to my favourite contributor. 

The delightful creations for the Fraternitye of Noviomagus surpass everything else, in brilliantly drawn cartoons and witty Chaucerian pastiche. 

Invitation to Novomagians' day out at Caesar's Camp, Surrey, on 1st July, 1860.
By George Godwin.

The invitation to a day out on 1st July, 1860, at Caesar’s Camp, the Iron Age hill fort in Surrey, instructs members as follows:

Firste, ye are ordayned to meete at the Statyoune namyd aftyr Waterloo in Flandyrs; and so on speedylye by ayde of hotte waterre in a locomotyfe to Farnham… 

I particularly like how the day promises to end: 

with prayer and fastynge wende to ye pryncypalle hostelrie, where excellente browne bread, and fayre sprynge waterre shall be provided for alle; and for such as are weake brethren, there be alsoe thin cheese, and clear small beere; if they promise and vowe not to make beastes of themselves. 

It turns out the Lord High President of the Noviomagans, who penned these entertaining invitations, isn’t (as I should have guessed) a family member at all, but a good friend. An influential architect, George Godwin (1813 – 1888) campaigned to improve conditions for the working classes and designed much of South Kensington and Earl’s Court in London, including five pubs (which doubtless leaned more towards small beere than sprynge waterre). A friendship may well have grown between him and Kate’s solicitor father, George Richard Corner (1801 – 1863) through their shared interests in antiquarianism and archaeology. 

How to control the workings of the municipal machinery.
From Kate Corner's scrapbook, 1855.
The Victorians often come across as a serious, devout, hardworking and not especially humorous lot (all those sepia photographs of unsmiling people in heavy clothing don’t help). To discover, through family mementos like my great-grandmother’s scrapbook, that being high achievers didn’t preclude their having a highly developed wit and strong sense of the absurd is gloriously refreshing.


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