Philip Pusey / [Sir Ernest Clarke].

  • Clarke, Ernest, Sir.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Philip Pusey / [Sir Ernest Clarke]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which he said :—“ Protection has this year fallen ridiculously, not by the assault of its enemies, but the desertion of its supporters. Whether the dreams of other relief will be realised, a few weeks will show; but in any case the farmers will soon discover what blind guides they have followed. Improvement, on the other hand, has more resources than ever to offer : and its loudest opponents, stepping from the heights of their eloquence, must soon pay to it a silent tribute by consenting to purchase new manures and less uncouth implements. Chemistry and mechanism have beaten politics and protection.” His arduous and sustained public labours over so long a period, and his domestic troubles, began at this time to have a serious effect upon Pusey’s constitution. The health of his wife had been for some years a source of anxiety to him, and in May 1852 it was made worse by her terrible distress at the painfully sudden death of the Hon. Edward C. H. Herbert, her only sur¬ viving brother, who practically lived at Pusey. Although a start was made in August 1852 on a continental tour, both Pusey and his wife were ill at Paris, and had to return. During the winter of 1 852-53 he was unwell, with attacks of gout and fainting fits, and in September 1853 a tour in Scotland was spoilt by his ill- health. Meanwhile his wife, whose lungs were seriously affected, was getting worse, and Pusey was unwilling to leave her to attend his usual public avocations, no doubt recognising, more¬ over, that he himself was not the man he was. Some amount of solace may have been given to Pusey in 1853 by the conferring of the honorary degree of D.C.L. upon him by his old University of Oxford, which (after a fashion not uncommon at that time) he had left in his undergraduate days without taking a degree. Moreover, his colleagues on the Royal Agricultural Society elected him for a second time as President of the Society. His spirit, however, appears to have been broken, and all energy to have left him. On April 24, 1854, Lady Emily wrote in her di&rv: “ It is clear that Dr. Acland thinks there is no hope but of protracting my life a little longer.” 1 Mr. Pusey would not leave her, remaining by her bedside, so that the Lincoln Meeting of the Royal Agricul¬ tural Society, of which he was President, had to take place without him. The end came at last on November 13, 1854, when Lady Emily “ fell gently asleep.” Mr. Pusey was heart¬ broken. He could attend to nothing. After the funeral Dr. Acland advised a change of air, but as Pusey would go nowhere without his brother, and Dr. Pusey could not leave Oxford, he
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