Description

The provenance of the ashtrays shown here is attributed to the Elgar family (Tennants, 2016). It was published alongside the 1906 edition of Dr. Lancaster’s book, Half-hours with the Microscope (Lancaster, 1863), one of the popular textbooks for Victorian dilettante microscopists. Elgar, in his later years, can serve as a type model for such an amateur. After moving to Hampstead in 1912, he developed a keen interest in microscopy and was fascinated by all things microscopic, including diatoms and even measuring the heart rate of Daphnia. After the death of his wife in 1920, Elgar became even more immersed in his hobbies. With no significant public interest in his musical works and lacking his wife’s support, he detached himself from composition. His daughter later wrote that he inherited from his father a reluctance to “settle down to work on hand but could cheerfully spend hours over some perfectly unnecessary and entirely unremunerative undertaking (Moore, 1984, p. 17). From his early interest in chemistry, which sometimes involved using a laboratory in his back garden, he transitioned during these later years into amateur microscopy. Elgar owned several microscopes, one of which can be seen in his birthplace cottage. He also had a laboratory where he examined prepared slides and specimens that he collected from Hampstead Heath and Highgate Ponds (Elgar Birthplace Museum, 2015). As Compton Mackenzie recalled in his centenary published to mark Elgar’s century of birth, he quotes Elgar’s reflection on his decline in popularity amongst young music critics by commenting that “Not that I care, I take no more interest in music. You’ll find, as you grow older, that you’ll take no more interest in literature. The secret of happiness for an artist when he grows old is to have a passion that can take the place of his art. I have discovered the joy that diatoms can give me. This miraculous world of beauty under the ocean revealed by the microscope is beyond music.” And he went on to expatiate on the exquisite patterns formed by these fossilized algae and the spiritual comfort that observing them brought to mind (Mackenzie, 1957; Wotton, 2013).

Sources

Elgar Birthplace Museum. (2015). Retrieved from The Quekett Microscopical Club: http://www.quekett.org/about/outreach/2015-elgar-public

Lancaster, E. (1863). Half-hours with the microscope; being a popular guide to the use of the microscope as a means of amusement and instruction (1906 ed.). London: R. Hardwicke. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/halfhourswithmic00lank

Mackenzie, C. (1957, June). Elgar remembered. Gramophone. Retrieved from http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/elgar-remembered

Moore, J. N. (1984). Edward Elgar: a Creative Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tennants. (2016, September 30). Brass Microscope Formally The Property Of Edward Elgar (Lot 2213). Retrieved from Musical & Scientific Instruments, Cameras & Tools: http://www.tennants.co.uk/Catalogue/Lots/348348.aspx

Wotton, R. (2013, June 21). Gosse, Elgar and the wonders of microscopy. Retrieved from Natural History, Creation and Religious Conflicts: http://rwotton.blogspot.co.il/2013/06/gosse-elgar-and-wonders-of-microscopy.html