In a home where good conversation was encouraged, Theresa and her sisters developed strong opinions, which were expressed with crisp assurance and a hint of dogmatism. They were influenced by two movements – the Pre-Raphaelites and High Anglicanism. Theresa was never a radical in politics or in anything else and resisted her brother Hamo’s attempts to persuade her to embrace the Socialist ideas of William Morris. The precepts and observances of the Christian religion were central to her view of life and in that orbit everything else moved and was judged. Decorum was a favourite and often-used word, reflecting her belief in an ordered and structured society. A household of artists the Thornycrofts most certainly were, but there was nothing Bohemian about them. Siegfried described their social attitude as the ‘Thornycroft mentality’ and on more than one occasion declared it to be their greatest gift to him.
To accommodate the artistic needs of the family, Thomas decided to leave Wilton Place and build a larger house with studios in Melbury Road, Holland Park, an area running north from Kensington. It was still open country and the homes of two renowned artists, Frederic Leighton and G. F. Watts, were situated there. In honour of his Cheshire forebears he named the new residence Moreton House. Thomas was by this time more engaged in engineering than sculpture and his eldest son John showed a similar inclination. Together they established a marine engineering works at Chiswick, to which John Donaldson came as manager. He married Frances, the third Thornycroft daughter, who became the mother of 10 children known as the ‘little Dons’ – Siegfried’s happy cousins and over-active holiday companions. Mary Thornycroft, solid and matriarchal, was never happy unless she held a piece of clay in her hands. ‘Stick with the clay,’ she told her son Hamo. She never tired of encouraging her daughters to visit and to participate in exhibitions, especially at the Royal Academy. She was also in demand by rich patrons who desired sculpted representations of themselves and their loved ones. It was her reputation in this field which caused the initial acquaintance with the Sassoons, when in 1863 she was invited to Ashley Park to sculpt S.D. and Flora.
Following the death of her husband, Flora’s life revolved around the rearing of the children. Her brothers-in-law offered assistance; Reuben was particularly solicitous, but each knew that Flora would brook no interference. She believed herself to be, and indeed was, more than capable of meeting the demands of widowhood. Supported by family wealth, strength of character and her entrenched cultural and religious convictions, she determined that the future would be propitious for her children, especially her favourite son, Alfred Ezra. He was full of charm, showing an early liking for music, particularly the violin. Flora was more than pleased and believed him to be a future concert artist. Never one to doubt her own judgement, she bought her prodigy not one Stradivarius but two. He was also fond of books, though not of reading them to any purpose. Alfred was not a robust child but, like his sister Rachel, he was a determined one. Flora did not encourage her sons to enter commerce. As far as Alfred was concerned this was a wise decision since he lacked the application required for success. This lack was not confined to commerce. Flora worried when her son began to exhibit signs of the dilettante rather than the purposeful student. He had passions for horses and cricket; he loved dancing and party-going. With his good manners and Sassoon winning ways he was attractive to women and attracted by them. Life for Alfred was to be measured in miles rather than fathoms.
Exeter College, Oxford, was a diversion for a few terms but proved too restrictive. The Continent beckoned; indulged by his mother he responded but went no further than Paris, where he tasted the delights of café society, the theatre, the boudoir and, if her autobiography is to be believed, an expensive dalliance with the actress Sarah Bernhardt. No doubt the gilded name Sassoon and its connections provided the entrée. This frenetic and undirected style of life continued when he returned to London but Flora’s delight in her son was undiminished, as it was in her daughter. Rachel was of small build and a delicate complexion. In 1882 her mother commissioned Hamo Thornycroft to sculpt a figurine of Rachel. Hamo’s fiancée, Agatha Cox, noted that the sitter was ‘graceful, but not a pleasing face’. The remark has the undertone of fear that Hamo might be beguiled. At Melbury Road, Rachel met and liked Theresa: a friendship developed. It is possible that Alfred accompanied his sister to Hamo’s studio and first saw Theresa there, but they did meet in Ashley Park, where Theresa was invited on several occasions by Rachel and welcomed by Flora, who did not suspect that the gaiety and boisterous laughter, always a mark of her son’s presence in the house, was a prelude to bitterness.
Alfred became interested in modern art and sculpture in particular. The roll of entry for the life classes at the Royal Academy for the autumn of 1883 includes the following: ‘Alfred Sassoon. Age 22. Walton-on-Thames. Recommended by H. Thornycroft.’ Art and ardour were potent in the wooing of Theresa. She was eight years older than Alfred but this proved no impediment to the growth of their desire for each other. Impediments came, as might have been expected, from Flora. When Alfred’s intention to marry Theresa was made known to her, this redoubtable woman was aghast. Despite being warned that his relationship to the Sassoons would be endangered if he persisted, Alfred was unmoved. It was now time for threats of disinheritance and the cessation of his allowance under his father’s will. But Alfred was astute enough to check the terms at Somerset House. The money lay outside Flora’s jurisdiction. A secret engagement was entered into in November and with the help of Hamo and Canon Loraine, a special marriage licence was issued. Theresa and Alfred were married at the Church of St Mary Abbots in Kensington on 30 January 1884. Hamo and Edmund Gosse stood witness. No parents or family were present.
The Thornycrofts were overjoyed when the news was revealed to them. Hamo had feared that his parents would have tried to prevent the marriage if told beforehand. Moreton House was in festive mood – not so Ashley Park. Flora called down a curse on the marriage and upon any issue proceeding from it. She forbade her other children to communicate with their brother: he had chosen a gentile for a wife and must suffer for his treachery.
In The Times on 23 April 1884, an advertisement appeared for the sale of a residence known as Weirleigh, Brenchley, Kent. Theresa and Alfred had decided that they would live in the country but within convenient reach of London. Alfred boarded the train at Charing Cross for Paddock Wood, from where he made a short journey and gained his first view of the house above whose door was emblazoned in Latin: Vero nihil verius – Nothing is truer than truth. Built in the 1860s, Weirleigh stands at the point where the road from the village of Matfield takes a sharp incline to Paddock Wood and the railway station. This strange pile of Victorian architecture had previously been the home of the nature artist and cat lover Harrison Weir. He had an obsession for adding to the house, with the result that it lacks symmetry. Theresa was critical of Harrison Weir’s architectural ideas, which she constantly attacked as wasting so much space. Nonetheless the house enveloped her and for the next 60 years was the centre of her life. Of Weirleigh and its garden the adult Siegfried wrote, ‘it is the background to all my dreams both pleasant and unpleasant.’ Wandering through the rooms for the first time is like revisiting familiar surroundings, so accurate and vibrant are Siegfried’s descriptions of them. This is especially true of the square, light-oak staircase, which rises past the room where he and his brothers were born. As one stands at the top and looks down the well, the spirit of place which he evokes in The Old Century and in his poetry, is almost palpable:
Down the glimmering staircase, past the pensive clock,
Childhood creeps on tiptoe, fumbles at the lock.
Out of night escaping, toward the arch of dawn,
What can childhood look for, over the wet lawn?
The documentary quality of his prose and poetry captures the essence of Weirleigh – the house, the garden and the distant prospect of the countryside: ‘Looked at from our lawn, the Weald was, in my opinion, as good a view as anyone could wish to live with. You could run your eyes along more than twenty miles of low-hilled horizon never more than ten or twenty miles away. The farthest distance had the advantage of being near enough for its details to be, as it were, within recognisable reach. There was, for instance, a small party of pine trees on the skyline toward Maidstone