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The father of George who married Elizabeth Balchen was John Cumberland. John was baptised on 18 June 1674 at Holy Trinity the Less, London, a year after his sister Sarah who was baptised there on 1 April 1673 [see IGI (Batch No C023312)]. Their parents were William and Ann Cumberland. The parish church in which John and Sarah were baptized (Holy Trinity The Less) was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 and yet these baptisms occurred almost ten years after that event. It mat be that the parish records were maintained even without an actual parish church. In 1676 there begins another series of births to William and Ann Cumberland at Nicholas Cole Abbey (IGI batch No. C022632). St Nicholas was just opposite Holy Trinity the Less and it took over the role of parish church probably after 1674. The baptisms of William and Ann's children that occurred at St Nicholas included the following: Elizabeth on 10 January 1676, Francis on 23 October 1678. Benjamin on 21 January 1680, Joseph on 4 July 1682, Nathaniel on 15 March 1684, and Thomas on 8 November 1686. As for the baptism of George who married Elizabeth Balchen we have so far not had any success finding a record of this, however we have found George's siblings (parents John and Hannah Cumberland) who were all baptised at St Botolph Without Aldgate as follows: Susannah in March 1703, John on 22 November 1705, and Sarah in October 1707 (See IGI batch number C025555). The will of George Cumberland's grandfather William can be found HERE (<--- 2 page pdf). Below is the marriage announcement for George Cumberland and Elizabeth Balchen although with an error in the name of the bride.
In the space of three consecutive generations there are three George Cumberlands. To help distinguish among these three were are calling the George who married Elizabeth Balchen George (I). Their son, the artist and writer, we call George (II) and the son of this George is George (III). The Cumberland brothers and their aunt Mary (Balchen) Man had a stormy relationship which is described in a series of letters between the two brothers, some of which have been published as: 'The Cumberland Letters'. The entire edition of The Cumberland Letters edited by Clementina Black and published in 1910 can be read here. Those letters dealing with the family have been extracted and can be read here. A major piece of correspondence is missing from 'The Cumberland Letters' and that is the disagreement between George (II) and David Ricardo over what happened to Ricardo's servant girl when she met George (II)'s youngest son Sydney. The letters can be read here. The record of Sydney's marriage to Frances Fasson (at the time a minor) on 30 July 1818 at St. Mary's Lambeth can be viewed HERE. Below the last of William Blake's engravings - a visiting card prepared for George Cumberland and which he picked up from Blake's widow Catherine after the artist's death. George (II) was a frequent contributor of letters and some poems to the Monthly Magazine from 1800-1825. These have been collected and can be read as follows: from 1800 to 1809; from 1811 to 1815; and from 1816 to 1825. An article describing George (II)'s description of the Woodcock bird can be read here. A review of George (II)'s book 'Some Anecdotes on the Life of Julio Bonasoni' can be read HERE. George (III) accompanied the Duke of Wellington on his campaign in Spain and Portugal and produced a beautiful book of watercolour illustrations in 1823 called 'Views in Spain and Portugal' which can be viewed HERE.
The Cumberland bothers were quite close to their Man cousins. For example James Man's Will contains the following: '[I] ... bequeath twenty pounds to each of my particular friends the Reverend Richard Dennison Cumberland of Cirencester, George Cumberland (II) of Bristol.' When James' brother John Man died, John's son William sent a letter to George describing his father's death. Both Cumberland brothers subscribed to the publication of Henry Man's 'Miscellaneous Works' (1802). George Cumberland (II) is today remembered, in part, for his close and life long friendship with the poet and artist William Blake.
The son of Richard Cumberland the play write who was the 3rd or 4th cousin of "our" George and Richard Dennison Cumberland in turn had a son also Richard who married Albina Hobart whose sister Charlotte Hobart married Edward Disbrowe (1754-1818) whose son was the diplomat Edward Cromwell Disbrowe whose letters are in the possession of Ed Man.
Notes for RICHARD DENISON CUMBERLAND From The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle (January to June 1825) Vol. XCV. p. 378, April. Rev. R. D. Cumberland, LL.B. Jan, 31. At Driffield, near Cirencester, after long and severe sufferings from the stone, aged 72, the Rev. Richard Denison Cumberland. He was of Magdalen College, Cambridge; was presented to the Vicarage of Driffeld, with the annexed Chapelry of Harnhill, by T. Smith, esq. in 1776, and took his degree of LL.B. in 1780. During his long ministry he scarcely ever quitted the care of his churches, contributing always willingly to the comforts of the labouring poor, and fulfilling the necessary duties of a good Magistrate and Rural Dean. Liberal to others on all occasions, and temperate in the use of the goods of fortune himself, he died without having created an enemy by his own fault.
Notes for SUSANNA TIMBRELL (RDC's wife) Leonard Stanley Manor estate was sold between 1736 and 1738 when it was divided among more than twenty purchasers but the manor and a large part of the land were bought in 1738 by Robert Sandford of the Priory. Robert Sandford died in 1769, and was succeeded by his son, also Robert (d. 1804), who devised the manor to Robert Timbrell (d. 1811). It passed to Robert Timbrell's sisters, Rebecca Holland (d. 1815) and Amy Timbrell (d. 1818). Land-tax for the estate was paid until his death c. 1825 by the Revd. Richard Denison Cumberland, the husband of a third sister Susannah, and until 1832 by his widow, but in 1830 the estate was said to be held by trustees under the will of Amy Timbrell and Rebecca Holland, who were the owners at inclosure in 1834. In 1856 it was owned by the Revd. John Price Jones who had married Susannah Willet Cumberland, the daughter of Richard and Susannah. Jones was dead by 1863 and his widow held the estate until her death c. 1875. The manor passed to her son Richard Denison Jones (d. 1903), whose son Richard Denison Cumberland Jones (d. 1916) was succeeded by his sisters Katherine Anna (d. 1940) and Lucy Elizabeth who c. 1959 sold Priory Farm with 310 a. to F. E. Pullin, the farmer since 1932. From: 'Leonard Stanley: Manor and other estates', A History of the County of Gloucester (Volume 10) Westbury and Whitstone Hundreds (1972), pp. 259-61. As far as we can tell there are no living descendants of Richard Dennison Cumberland. His grandson Richard Dennison Jones has been found on the 1861 census, on the 1871 census and on the 1881 census. To view the recently acquired watercolours by George Cumberland (five pages in pdf) please click here. (<--- a large file of 21.35MB)
List of Works by and about George Cumberland (II) |
Recently uncovered is the fact that George Cumberland
(II) committed his daughter,
Lavinia, to the care of insane asylums. Records in the National Archives
indicate several sojourns in different asylums with the most extensive records
indicating Lavinia's confinement to Cottingham Retreat in East Yorkshire where
she was committed on Aug. 4 1830 at the age of 36. Her status is given as
'widow' and she had been previously confined at at two other asylums: Summergangs and the Refuge. The
person who committed her to Cottingham was her father 'George Cumberland of Bristol'. She was admitted four days after her commitment and discharged two
years later on May 8 1832. We know that Lavinia had married a Major Green and
that they had a daughter Lavinia who seems to have married a German man called Brodelmann. Cottingham is today a students' hall of residence at the
University of Hull known as Needler Hall pictured left. 
The following is extracted from the Grove Dictionary of Art.
"Cumberland, George (London, 1754; Bristol, 1848). English writer, collector and
amateur artist. He became a clerk on the death of his father in 1771, until
freed from financial necessity by a legacy in 1785. In 1788 he left for Rome,
where he studied the London, 1754; Bristol, 1848). English writer, collector and
amateur artist. He became a clerk on the death of his father in 1771, until
freed from financial necessity by a legacy in 1785. In 1788 he left for Rome,
where he studied the work of Raphael, Marcantonio Raimondi and Giulio Bonasone,
and collected prints and curios. Cumberland returned to England in 1790 and
lived near Southampton, adding to his collections and corresponding with Thomas
Johnes (1748 - 1816) of Hafod in Cardiganshire (now Dyfed), who praised his
Poem on the Landscapes of Great Britain, written in 1780 but not published
until 1793. By this time he was living near Windsor and proximity to London
allowed him greater intimacy with William Blake, whom he had met through Thomas
Stothard before 1788. In 1793 he published Some Anecdotes of the Life of Julio
Bonasoni, prefaced by A Plan for the Improvement of the Arts in England, which
urged the establishment of a national gallery. An Attempt to Describe Hafod
(1796), Johnes’s estate, contains a folding map engraved by Blake, who also
provided eight of the 24 plates illustrating ‘Thoughts on Outline’(1796), a
subject to which he returned in Outlines of the Ancients’(1829), which contains
three further Blake engravings. In 1808 Cumberland settled in Bristol, where he
became an influential figure in artistic circles. His landscape sketches and
watercolours produced at this time have a simple directness of vision,
reminiscent of those of his friend John Linnell (e.g. Bristol, Mus. & A.G.).
He catalogued his collection of prints, which he presented to the Royal Academy
and the British Museum, in the Utility of Collecting the Best Works of the
Ancient Engravers of the Italian School (1827)." Right Edward Bird
RA, portrait sketches of George Cumberland & Thomas Stothard, pencil on paper,
after 1807.
His descent was from Denison Cumberland, Archdeacon of
Northampton, whose son was the celebrated Richard Cumberland, Bishop of
Peterborough, the author of Sanchoniathe's Phoenician History, the Law of
Nature, and a Treatise on Hebrew Weights and Measures, &c. He was also grandson
to John Cumberland, whose noble invention of Bending ship timber by means of
steam in cases of sand, has been the means of saving millions to this country,
and in which he expended a large fortune, without receiving any adequate reward.
His descent on the maternal side was equally honourable, being in a direct line
from the renowned Admiral Balchen, who was lost in the ship Victory, and to
whose memory Government erected a monument in Westminster Abbey. He was left a
widow [Susanna], and one only daughter, married to the Rev. J.P. Jones, A.M. of Brecon.
(Pictured left is Richard's brother George (II), sketched by Edward Bird).
