Moberly Road is to the north of Salisbury, just outside the ring road, and directly off from Castle Road.
It is named after George Moberly, who was the Bishop of Salisbury from 1869 until his death in 1885.
Contents
It is close to other roads which are also named after Bishops:
- Hamilton Road, which is probably named after Bishop Walter Hamilton (1854-1869) [1]
- Wordsworth Road after Bishop John Wordsworth (1885-1911)
- Ridgeway Road after Bishop Frederick Ridgeway (1911-1921)
- Donaldson Road after Bishop St. Clair Donaldson (1921-1935)
George Moberly
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George Moberly was born in Russia in 1803 [2]. He was educated at Winchester College and Oxford University, where he came into contact with some of the members of the ‘Oxford Movement’ of the 1830s, which wanted to move the Church of England closer to the Catholic Church.[3]
Moberly became headmaster of Winchester College in 1835 and he stayed there until 1865.
In 1869, Gladstone appointed him Bishop of Salisbury
The Moberly family and the May family from Charlotte Mary Yonge’s ‘The Daisy Chain’
According to the Dictionary of National Biography’s piece on Charlotte Mary Yonge, the May family in her novel ‘The Daisy Chain’ was named after the Moberlys’ youngest daughter May [4]. Charlotte Mary Yonge was friendly with the Moberly family – the Dictionary says that she was an ‘intimate friend’ of George Moberly [5]
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I think I’ve seen something to the effect that the May family in the novel was inspired by the Moberlys, but I’ve not been able to find the reference and I’m afraid I don’t know enough about either to be able to say.
‘An adventure’ – the Moberly-Jourdain incident
Perhaps more famous than the Moberly family’s connection with Charlotte Mary Yonge is Charlotte ‘Annie’ Moberly’s involvement in what is often known as the ‘Moberly-Jourdain’ incident.
Charlotte ‘Annie’ Moberly
Charlotte Anne Moberly (known as ‘Annie’) was the Moberlys’ tenth child. When George Moberly became Bishop of Salisbury in 1869, Annie was his personal secretary, and as his health failed towards the end of his life, she became his nursemaid.
After the Bishop’s death in 1885, Annie, her mother and two other unmarried sisters moved to a ‘dull street in Salisbury and faced a future of genteel poverty’[6]
In 1886, however Elizabeth Wordsworth, the sister of the new Bishop, John Wordsworth asked Annie to run a new Oxford college for women, Saint Hugh’s Hall. Annie moved to Oxford,and remained there until her death, at the age of 90, in 1937.
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She published two books – ‘Dulce Domum’, which was a family memoir, and, with Eleanor Jourdain, ‘An Adventure’.
‘An Adventure’ was her account of a supposedly supernatural event which occurred at the palace of Versailles, near Paris. It was published in 1911 and became a best-seller, being reprinted several times (the latest re-print being in 1988)[7].
The Petit Trianon ‘timeslip’
The book ‘An adventure’ was an account of a visit to Versailles by Annie Moberly and her ‘headmistress’ at St Hugh’s College, Eleanor Jourdain.
In brief, Jourdain and Moberly visited Versailles in August 1901. It was a ‘hot and somewhat overcast’ day [8].
The two women got lost in the grounds of Versailles. They met people dressed in what turned out to resemble 18th Century clothing.
Most of the people they met were seen by both Moberly and Jourdain, but at least two people were seen by one of the women, but not both of them. One man urgently directed them towards a house, where Moberly saw a finely dressed woman sketching. They both found the atmosphere ‘oppressive’.
When they discussed the occurrences that evening, they agreed that they believed the gardens to be haunted.
They then discovered that some of the features of the gardens which they had seen, in particular a rustic bridge and a ravine, did not exist.
They investigated further and found that some of the features of the garden that they had seen, including the rustic bridge had existed in the past. Moberly recognized a particular portrait of Marie Antoinette as the woman that she had seen sketching. They found that many of the things they had seen which no longer existed did correspond with the time of Marie Antoinette.
An exception to this was the ravine that they had crossed. On the maps known of in 1901 there was no trace of such a ravine. However an older map was subsequently discovered in 1903 which showed it.
The two women did more research over the next few years, and in 1911 published their account of the day, and of their research as ‘An Adventure’.
Moberly and Jourdain published the book under pseudonyms – Elizabeth Morison and Frances Lamont respectively.
Subsequent editions of ‘An Adventure
- 1911: First edition [9]
- 1913: Second edition – adds the original letters written describing the event. Refutes suggestions that they had stumbled onto a film set (‘preparations for a cinematograph film’!), or had dreamt the episode [10]
- 1924: Third edition – some additional material [11]
- 1931: Fourth edition – edited by Edith Olivier (after whom Olivier Road is named) – authorship is revealed
- 1955: Fifth edition – preface and edited by Joan Evans. Author’s real names used in the text
- 1959: French translation published with an introduction by Jean Cocteau
- 1988: Most recent edition, as far as I know
Reactions to the book – the afterlife of ‘An Adventure’
There is a large amount of written discussion of ‘An Adventure’. I’ve only found snippets of this on the internet, but they do give an indication of how much attention the incident has attracted over the years.
For the time being, I’m going to list the books and articles I know of – when and if time permits I’ll fill this out with more detail.
I’d like to stress here that although I have a copy of ‘An Adventure’ I haven’t read any of the commentaries on it listed below, as yet.
Mrs Henry Sidgewick
Mrs Henry Sidgewick attacked the book in her review for the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research in 1911 [12], saying that it added nothing ‘of interest on the positive side of Psychical Research’ [13]
J.W.Dunne – preface to 1931 edition of ‘An Adventure’
John William Dunne invoked Einstein, saying:
Hence, if Einstein is right, the contents of time are just as `real’ as the contents of space. Marie Antoinette– body and brain–is sitting in the Trianon garden now. [14]
JR Sturge-Whiting – ‘The Mystery of Versailles: A Complete Solution’ 1938
JR Sturge-Whiting publishes the first book attempting to ‘debunk’[15] Moberly and Jourdain’s account.
At the time of writing Sturge-Whiting’s book is available on Amazon here
GNM Tyrrell – ‘Apparitions’ 1942
GNM Tyrrell mentions the case in his 1942 book ‘Apparitions
David Landale Johnston – ‘The Trianon Case: A review of the Evidence’ 1945
‘The Trianon case;: A review of the evidence’ is mentioned in a footnote in Marie-Antoinette by Dena Goodman
It’s available from Amazon, at the time of writing, here
WHW Sabine – Second Sight in Daily Life 1950
In the 1950 book, Second Sight in Daily Life
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Leon Rey – ‘Une Promenade hors du temps’ 1952
Published in the Revue de Paris, December 1952.[18]
WH Salter – ‘An Adventure: A Note on the Evidence’
W.H. Salter in an article in the ‘Journal of the Society for Psychical Research’ [19] argued that some of the details that were supposed to have been written down in 1901 were actually later additions. This would be fairly significant because a major aspect of the story was that the women saw things of which they had no prior knowledge – after 1901 they researched Versailles in some detail.
1952 broadcast
According to a 1957 article by Laura Ragg, the book was ‘attacked in a broadcast in 1952′. [20]. I’m afraid that I don’t have any further details about the broadcast, but I would assume that it was on the BBC radio.
Update:There’s a reference in Lucy Iremonger’s book to her having spoken about the case on the radio – perhaps this was the 1952 broadcast.
Lucille Iremonger writes ‘The Ghosts of Versailles’
Lucille Iremonger, the wife or the Conservative MP for Ilford, wrote a book called ‘The Ghosts of Versailles’ in which she portrayed the Moberly family ‘as riddled with superstition’[21]. She particularly focussed on the relationship between Moberly and Jourdain.
At the time of writing, ‘The Ghosts of Versailles’ is available from Amazon here:
I’ve also seen it in Salisbury Reference Library.
Laura Ragg’s article ‘An adventure: some personal recollections of Miss Moberly 1957
From the first page of the article [22], in the journal ‘English’ it appears Ragg defends Moberly and Jourdain, especially with reference to Lucille Iremonger’s criticisms.
John Cocteau – prefaces to the French edition of ‘Les Fantomes de Trianon’ 1959
Jean Cocteau wrote an introduction to ‘An Adventure’ in 1959 [23] in which he praises the book, if my French is any good, as ‘a non-conformist scandal of the highest valour’[24]
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Terry Castle – Various writings 1991-1995
Terry Castle, who is a Professor of English at Stanford [25], discussed Moberly and Jourdain in:
- The Female Thermometer: Eighteenth-Century Culture and the Invention of the Uncanny (Ideologies of Desire)
- The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (Gender and Culture Series)
- “Contagious Folly: An Adventure and Its Skeptics.” (Moberly and Jourdain). Critical Inquiry 16 (Summer 1991).
C.S. Lewis – The Dark Tower
In C.S. Lewis’ time travel book ‘The Dark Tower
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J.R.R Tolkein
According to the book ‘A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Road to Faerie
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The film “Miss Morison’s Ghosts”
The story of ‘An Adventure’ was filmed as ‘Miss Morisons Ghosts’ [28], with Wendy Hillier and Hannah Gordon.
The naming of Moberly Road
I would be interested to know whether the ‘Adventure’ had any effect on any discussions around the naming of Moberly Road.
In a sense it should not have done – the road is named after Bishop Moberly, not his daughter, but the timing is interesting.
The houses in Moberly Road were built, I think, in the 1930s.
As I’ve said the first edition of ‘An Adventure’ was published in 1911, but the story remained in the public eye for some time after that.
In particular, although it was supposed to have been an ‘open secret’ in some circles [29] that Moberly and Jourdain had written the book, their identities were only revealed to the wider world with the publication of Edith Olivier’s 1931 edition of the book.
So, if the name was linked inextricably to the controversial ‘Adventure’, I wonder whether anyone at the time had misgivings about giving the road the name of ‘Moberly’?
I would like to investigate further at some stage.
The Bishops’ Birds of Salisbury
Finally, for the time being, a few words on another ‘event’ that bring together Annie Moberly, her tendencies towards the supernatural and her father the Bishop.
There is a superstition in Salisbury, which I remember hearing about as a child, that the death of a Bishop is augured by the appearance of large white birds.
The legend of the ‘Bishops Birds’ seems to have begun in 1414 [30]
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The only other mentions that I’ve found of it [31], so far, are:
- Annie Moberly, who saw the birds on the day of the death of her father in 1885
- Edith Olivier, who saw the birds on the day of the death of Bishop Wordsworth
It may be relevant to mention that Moberly and Olivier knew each other well. Olivier edited one of the versions of ‘An Adventure’, wrote a biography of Moberly in ‘Four Victorian ladies of Wiltshire’[32].
Sue Ironmonger’s book was also the inspiration for the famous novel Picnic at Hanging Rock (Melbourne, 1967), by Lady Joan Lindsay, according to her intimate friend Phillip Adams. That may account for the strange, unaccountable atmosphere, transported to an omphalos-like rock in Australia. It is one of the masterpieces on female relations under pression and budding sexuality.
I have some follow up questions?
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Hello, I’m afraid I can’t get through to your email address. Is it correct? Matt