The daughter of a London physician, she was better educated than most Victorian women and particularly fond of music and of reading, especially German philosophy and literature, the novels of Dickens, and eventually her eldest son's poetry.
Her sister Maria Smith Giberne taught Hopkins to sketch. The drawings originally executed as headings on letters from her home, Blunt House, Croydon, to Hopkins's mother and father reveal the kind of precise, detailed drawing that Hopkins was taught. The influence of Maria Smith Giberne on her nephew can be seen by comparing these letter headings with Hopkins's sketch, Dandelion, Hemlock, and Ivy, which he made at Blunt House. Hopkins's interest in the visual arts was also sustained by his maternal uncle, Edward Smith, who began as a lawyer but soon made painting his profession; by Richard James Lane, his maternal great-uncle, an engraver and lithographer who frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy; and by Lane's daughters, Clara and Eliza (or Emily), who exhibited at the Society of Female Artists and elsewhere. Another maternal uncle, John Simm Smith, Jr., reinforced the religious tradition which Hopkins's mother passed on to him; Smith was churchwarden at St. Peter's, Croydon.
These artistic and religious traditions were also supported by Hopkins's paternal relations.
This is a free page. This page contains 199 words. This
biography contains 13,522 words (approx. 45 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Gerard Manley Hopkins Access Pass.
