Introduction

ONE of the highlights of Alice's Memoir, in which the lives of Joanna, George and – eventually – Henry too, are told largely in their own words, is her own commentary. Although she was only five when her mother died, her father had ensured that Joanna's memory was kept alive in all her children: it is apparent from the commentary that Alice had absorbed an enormous amount of family history, which, even in old age, she was able to bring to bear on her parents’ story and that of their respective families.

Joanna Mary Boyce began her art training early, encouraged by her father. She was not yet 12 when, in the summer of 1843, she studied landscape and architecture under Charles John Mayle Whichelo, and her first drawing book (now in the British Museum's Prints and Drawings Collection) is full of increasingly complex and sophisticated studies of castles, cottages and Gothic churches. In the very first pages are architectural sketches, shaded boxes and a round house with a conical roof. On page 14 there is a beautiful sketch of a ruined abbey and cottage – her first drawing to include people. It is signed and dated 4 May 1843, and next to it, in the centre of the page, Joanna has written: ‘My darling father was pleased with these figures.’

Though sketching tended to be regarded primarily as a social and practical accomplishment for young women (Charles's brother, Henry Mayle Whichelo, was the author of a popular students’ guide to sketching landscape, designed to help the young traveller abroad), the maturity of Joanna's style, even at that age, is impressive.

The Memoir begins with the childhood letters of Joanna and her elder brothers, George and Matthias, which reflect a charmed existence. They include Matthias enthusing to Joanna about the visit to Brighton of the ‘Ioway’ Indians, probably brought to England by George Catlin, while George lectures her in a lordly fashion on the history of the area of Shropshire in which their maternal relations lived: the celebrated ‘Bone Well’ – a holy spring near Ludlow – went on to have both sad and happy memories for Joanna. George also took pleasure in testing her on her French, while his passion both for the theatre and for music is already apparent, as is her love of singing.