1903.] Sir Herbert Maxwell on Romney and his Works. 243 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February 6, 1903. 



Sir James Crtohton-Browne, M.D. LL.D. F.R.S., Treasurer 

 and Vice-President, in tlie Chair. 



The Right Hon. Siu Herbert Maxwell, Bart., M.P. 

 LL.D. F.R.S. F.S.A. 



George Bomney and his WorJcs.^ 



I HAVE undertaken to speak to you to-night about one who rosa 

 from exceedingly humble circumstances to the first rank of British 

 painters, and to show how he encountered and overcame difficulties 

 which almost invariably bar the road against persons much more 

 propitiously situated. 



In the midtlle of the eighteenth century there lived in the little 

 f;irm of Beckside, close to Dalton-in-Furness, a carpenter, cabinet- 

 maker, and cultivator in a small way, named John Romney. There is 

 still in that village a carpenter of the name of Romne}^ grandson or 

 great-grandson of a cousin of the original family at Beckside. 

 Family names always have a meaning, if we can read it ; and at first 

 it seemed to me that, like many others, this family must have taken 

 their name from some place. But, although there is Romney in 

 Kent and Rhyraney in South Wales, there is no place of that name 

 in the north of England ; and I am informed by one who bears the 

 surname that he believes it to be neither less nor more than Romany, 

 a gipsy. You may remember that it was in the Border country that 

 the gipsies, or Egyptians as they were termed in the old penal laws 

 of both England and Scotland, mustered most strongly of yore, 

 finding it expedient to be able to slip across the marshes into one 

 dominion when the warders and magistrates of the other showed 

 diligence in enforcing the statutes against vagrants. Both in Scotland 

 and England many gipsies abandoned their wandering habits and 

 settled down as industrious members of the community. If that be 

 the origin of the family of Romney or Romany, then we may be 

 inclined to trace some of the unrest of George Romney's life to the 

 wandering instinct in his ancestors. 



The carpenter of Dalton was known among his neighbours as 

 "Honest John," and was a man of some capacity in his craft, being 



* The discourse was fully illustrated by lantern slides. For fuller informa- 

 tion see ' Georpce Romney,' in the Makers of British Art Series, published by 

 Walter Scott and Co. 



