When Henry Savile Clarke died in 1893, his wife Helen Weatherill was 53 years old. During the 1880s, she had developed an artistic career of her own.
By 1880, when Helen reached the age of forty, her family had become sadly diminished.
Helen Savile Clarke with one of her daughters |
Her eldest brother George Jackson Weatherill had died in 1872, the year of her daughter Kitty’s birth; his conduct had brought his married life to an end when his wife divorced him and he seems to have died in Australia. Her father died the following year, and her mother in late May 1880.
It seems that her younger sister Emma, who had never married, then came to London – she died at Helen’s house on 26 September, aged 38. Her elder sister Anne Louise, whose first marriage had been to Henry Savile Clarke’s father, was to die in Guisborough in 1882.
There was a younger brother, John Charles Weatherill, of whom little is remembered or known. He seems to have encountered difficulties, as their mother had left to Helen the “Prize books” given to him by the Corporation of Plymouth and £5 to be given to him at Helen’s discretion. Anne Louise’s Will, made in 1881, left £1,000 in trust for John Charles “for his personal enjoyment and not to become the property of his alienees or creditors”, so possibly he was a bankrupt.
Three of Helen’s four close cousins in Guisborough (their mothers being sisters, and their fathers brothers) had died, and her cousin Kate was to die leaving three small children in 1884. Only Helen’s eldest sister Margaret Elizabeth survived into the 20th century.
It must have seemed to Helen all the more important to follow and develop her own talents as an artist while she could. Perhaps she took advice on her plans from her relatives, the artists Mary and Sarah Ellen Weatherill [cf blog post of 29 November 2012]. They were five or so years older than she, and they both studied in London.