Beatrix Potter (1866 - 1943) is best known for her children’s books Peter Rabbit and company but how did these books come to be written? How did failure lead to such an outpouring of these beloved children’s books?
Beatrix, from a very early age was very interested in the natural world around her. With her brother Bertram she would wander around the family garden and when on holiday at Wray Castle, the nearby woods collecting various plants and animals including hedgehogs, rabbits, bats and mice and many types of plants and mushrooms which they would take home and study intently and then draw representations of these finds.
Wray Castle
She is what we would call today a self-taught natural scientist. In fact, she taught herself just about everything with the help of home tutors as she never attended school. School for women during this time in England was considered a waste of time and money.
Beatrix Potters Laboratory
Beatrix came from a wealthy and educated family. Her uncle, a chemist allowed her to use his microscope and she would spend days looking at the various fungi, plants and insects that they had collected and making drawings and paintings of them.
Just like that other great Victorian self trained scientist. Charles Darwin. She used her local environment as her laboratory. Darwin spent 5 years in his back garden studying earth worms.
Entrance hall - Beatrix's holiday home
Beatrix grew into a fine natural scientist, writer and illustrator and spent over 13 years doing research on the interactions between various lifeforms or symbiosis. Beatrix wrote up her findings in a scientific paper and proposed a theory on the connection between fungi and algae and how their life cycles where intertwined.
Ceiling detail
Floor detail
The Failure of male dominated science
The failure of the male dominated scientific community at the time to recognise the work of women as having any scientific value led to years of rejection of her research and findings.
Beatrix was dismissed as a ‘Blue stocking’ a derogatory epithet which suggests ‘an intelligent and well-educated woman who spends their time studying which was not approved of by some men’
Beatrix Potter’s epic work On the Germination of the Spores of the Agaricineae was eventually presented to the scientific community via her uncle to the Linnean Society as they to did not allow women into their establishment.
Imagine sitting by this fire on a cold and windy night with Beatrix and discussing her latest discovery? It must have been very difficult for her to carry on against such ignorance?
Fire side chats
Comfy chair?
Adding value to the community?
When people talk about the ‘value’ of something. It is invariable connected to their own cognitive bias. In this case a piece of ground breaking research in the field of mycology was considered to have no merit or value as it was written by a woman.
It transpired that Beatrix potter was the first person in Britain to postulate the theory of symbiosis in lichen.
How must she have felt to be rejected just because of her sex? It must have been infuriating to say the least.
Turning rejection into success may seem pretty simple to us with 20/20 hindsight. Her work was not appreciated by the adult male scientific community so she switched to a different audience. Children.
Inspirational views
The narrow view she was given
The view she imagined - mulitple options
All of Beatrix Potters stories have a lesson built in and all are based on observations and illustrations that she made of the various creatures that inhabited her environment, and also with the Victorians preoccupation with death.
Peter Rabbit’s father was indeed killed, cooked and eaten in a pie by Mr McGregor.
Beatrix was born in London but spent some holidays with her family here at Wray Castle in the Lake district.
Castle keep
Looking out across this landscape who knows what went through her mind but from this vantage point you can see all the little humans in all the little villages that are around the castle.
Maybe it was from this vantage point that she had the inspiration to create her own worlds where she was in total control of what happened to who, where and when.
Maybe she had her lightbulb moment right under this very chandelier?
Lightbulb moment
Beatrix loved this region and as her books became popular, which was instant by the way. She began to see a way to change the world around her and to protect the environment and wildlife of the region she so loved.
She bought a large farm (Hill Top Farm) in the Lake district and began breeding an endangered breed of sheep. The Herdwick. Her scientific background and knowledge helped to bring this breed back from the brink of extinction. They have evolved as a species to suit this particular environment.
Herdwick Sheep saved from extinction
As the Beatrix Potter book collection grew and made her more money, she bought more farms in the area and eventually owned a huge tract of the region which she bequeathed to an organisation now known as the National Trust in her will.
During her latter years in Cumbria she would often be seen walking around the villages with a coal sack wrapped around her shoulders for protection from the weather.
She would stop and talk to people regardless of their social position in life. There is one story of her chatting with a tramp who was wandering about the village penniless and shunned by all but accepted by Beatrix as just another human being in need of a little humanity and warmth.
Coffee time
Beatrix Potter was a remarkable woman on so many fronts and her determination to be heard is astonishing. An outstanding scientist, environmentalist, acclaimed author and humanitarian are just a few of her attributes.
Her books have been translated into 40+ languages and are just as popular today as when they where written.
Her legacy in terms of the joy she has brought to so many children and adults via her books is impressive enough on it's own but she has also helped to preserve the Lake District in Cumbria so that future generations can enjoy the environment that she so loved and cherished.
Time
It is a beautiful part of the country and will remain pristine thanks to a truly remarkable woman. Beatrix Potter.
More in this series
A Waterfall in the Lake District
A cruise around Windemere
Rowing boat on the shoreline
Canadian Goose
Tame Swans
We've arrived at our 16th century Air B&B
The beautiful Lake District
Coniston Water in Cumbria
A Steamer on Coniston Water
Sailboat on Coniston Water
