18TH CENTURY FAMILY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 889, 17 August 1956, Page 15

18TH CENTURY FAMILY

THE GAY DELAVALS, by Francis Askham; Jonathan Cape, English price 21/-. ONG ago an imported English sire, Seaton Delaval, enriched New Zealand’s racing blood; and, without following racing I wondered, as perhaps some punters did, where the curious name came from. Eventually I learned that the origin was Seaton Delaval Hall, one of England’s great country houses, now half ruin and half museum, "isolated," so says a Northumberland guide-book, "in nightmare grandeur in the scarred coal country round Newcastle." The owners maintain it as a trust, and people pay to see Vanbrugh’s mixture of architectural magnificence and domestic discomfort and the ghosts of a high-living past. Out of some twenty thousand family documents rescued from the fire of 1822 and stowed away, Francis Askham’ has constructed with praiseworthy industry the story of the house’s rise and fall. The Delaval who completed it about 1720 had six sons, but the last male died in 1814. This hundred-year record

has some value as a reflection of 18th century life, mostly the less pleasant sides. It ranges from the play-wriving and scurrilities of Samuel Foote to miners digging coal for northern magnates by the light of naked candles. Unfortunately, the Delavals are not important or interesting enough to warrant such detailed reconstruction of their lives, and the style in which they are re-furbished is rather too pretentious and sentimental. John Delaval, who became their’ head, had some business capacity, and was raised to the peerage, but really was not of much account. His eldest brother Francis, who gets most attention, was a worthless blackguard. This pleasure-seeking spendthrift was excluded from management; seduced a young visitor; arid married, for her money, a stupid woman about old enough to be his mother. The racing sire was the better man. It is not surprising, however, that in that age he was

elected to Parliament. The Delaval gaiety included a passion for the theatre. At a cost of £1500 Francis played Othello at Drury Lane, assisted by two brothers and his mistress. Notoriety packed the house and later gave Francis more obituary space than was given Thomas Gray the poet. There is some history here and material for the his»

torian.

A.

M.