Isabella Banks née Varley.
Professionally known as Mrs G. Linnæus Banks.
Mancunian Author and Poet
25th March 1821 – 4th May 1897
Introduction
Isabella Banks was a Victorian author and poet. Though not a member of the Manchester Literary & Philosophical Society herself, she was born and bred in Manchester and she sounds like the kind of strong and opinionated woman who would embody the Man Lit & Phil’s value of intellectual curiosity. Known for her most famous book, ‘The Manchester Man’ she wrote twelve novels and three volumes of poetry as well as being a prolific contributor to the Notes and Queries section of the ‘Manchester City News’. Between 1878 and 1897 (the year of her death) she wrote comments on over 150 Notes and Queries. These included lamenting, after her husband’s death, to having changed her name to that of her husband’s (who was also an author). Replying in a Notes and Queries article in the ‘Manchester City News’ in 1881 she remarked that there was “no reason that a woman should drop her maiden name” and that whoever came up with the new system of a woman keeping her name (in a double barrelled fashion) had done a “good service to her sisterhood, it not only preserves a woman’s individuality but tends to keep alive association with her own kith and kin.”
Early Life and Background
Isabella Banks was born Isabella Varley on the 25th March 1821. Some of the biographical details we know about her are from her very own copy of ‘The Annals of Manchester’, an 1886 record of the history of Manchester by W.E.A. Axon which includes mention of local people of note.
E.L. Burney, a local Didsbury biographer of Isabella Banks, was gifted a copy of the ‘Annals of Manchester’ with her bookplate and inscription, and observed she had added extensive handwritten notes in the book’s margins. On finding her own omission from the chronicles of notable births in 1821, Isabella had annotated the book to add her own biographical information. She wrote in the margins, “I was born on Oldham Street 25th March…” and was “…baptised by Joshua Brookes” – whom she later chronicled in The Manchester Man. We also find out, through her own annotations, that she was born during a “13 week frost.”
Isabella lived in Manchester from her birth, to Amelia and James Varley, until she was around 27 years old, publishing her first poem, age 16, titled ‘A dying girl to her mother’ in the ‘Manchester Guardian’. From references in E.L. Burney’s book, there is mention of her “commencing” a School for Young Ladies in Cheetham at only 17 years of age. No reference to the exact school can be found, but it seems she ran it until she left both the school and Manchester in 1848. She married fellow author George Linnaeus Banks in December 1846, at Manchester Collegiate Church, subsequently taking his name for her publications.
Key contributions and achievements
Isabella Banks was one of only 36 female members (out of around 1000 in total) of the Manchester Mechanics Institute which had the aim of enabling Mechanics and Artisans to be acquainted with science. Many members were also members of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. She was also a member of the Ladies Committee of the Anti-Corn Law League – which was itself established in Manchester. The Corn Laws imposed tariffs on imported grain to keep prices high to protect British farmers and landowners from cheaper foreign imports following the end of the Napoleonic War. A consequence of this was that bread became more and more expensive and unaffordable – especially to the poor. The law became increasingly unpopular with ordinary people, as well as to employers, who had to pay workers a higher wage to keep pace with price increases. It even contributed to the deaths seen in the Irish Potato Famine as there was a lack of surplus wheat available to help feed people. The law was repealed in 1846 – a victory for the Anti-Corn Law League and advocates of free trade, but led to Sir Robert Peel resigning as Prime Minister the same day due to opposition from his Conservative Party and British landowners.
Isabella was a member of the Sun Inn group of poets, named after the pub on Long Millgate in Manchester (opposite what is now Chetham’s School of Music in Cathedral Gardens) where a, mainly self-taught, group of writers met between 1840 and 1843. The group is attributed to have been started by the pub’s landlord William Earnshaw, (a friend of Isabella’s father), who, when realising he was onto a good thing, is said to have set up a new sign of ‘Poet’s Corner’ on the front of the inn – welcoming men of the literature and the arts to the upstairs snug. ‘Poet’s Corner’ articles were common in most newspapers of the time, allowing aspiring poet’s to submit their works, get published and help with the paper’s sales. This is probably how Isabella got her first poem published aged 16. She was encouraged to write poems to be included in the ‘Oddfellow’s Quarterly’ (where she met her husband) and ‘Bradshaw’s Journal’ by the then editors who were also members of the group. She also has a contribution called ‘Love’s Faith’ in the groups only published anthology, ‘The Festive Wreath’ a collection of original contributions read at a meeting on 24Th March 1842. It was noted by Michael Powell (past chief librarian of Chetham’s library) that Isabella was too shy to actually present any of her poems, instead “hiding behind a velvet curtain at the back of the room” and asked others to read her works. It appears that the Poet’s Corner meetings were often rowdy, male dominated, affairs with much singing and drinking. Not the usual hang out of a Victorian lady!
Isabella Banks’s most famous book is undoubtedly ‘The Manchester Man’ which is a very engaging and highly recommended read even for a 21st century audience. The book was initially published in 1874 as a series of articles in ‘Cassell’s Family Magazine’, a popular general interest periodical. It was then published in book form in 1876, with an updated illustrated version published shortly before Isabella’s death in 1896. It follows orphaned Jabez Clegg through his life and ascent through Manchester society. Guiding the reader through Jabez’s trials and successes plus a love triangle with his nemesis along the way, the book includes the description of a number of historical events. One incident of note being the Peterloo Massacre of 16th August 1819 at St Peter’s Field (now St Peter’s Square, in Manchester) where a peaceful assembly of around 60,000 protestors gathered in favour of political reform, demanding parliamentary representation for the industrial North at a time when less than 3% of the population had the vote. The magistrates of the day became increasingly worried about the (still peaceful) protesters who were waiting for the political orator Henry Hunt to speak, and ordered, initially the amateur yeomanry cavalry, and then the army – on horseback with sabres – to disperse the crowd (events described in Isabella’s book). It is estimated that at least 15 people died from sabre cuts and trampling, and nearly 700 people were injured. The term “Peterloo” was coined to mock the soldiers who killed unarmed civilians as a contrast to the men seen as heroes from the Battle of Waterloo.
The original manuscript of ‘The Manchester Man’ is held at Chetham’s Library, Manchester. Other items that once belonged to Isabella and a marble bust of her in her youth, are held in the E.L. Burney collection in John Ryland’s library.
Isabella was involved with the 1864 tercentennial (300th year) commemorations of the birth of Shakespeare on Primrose Hill in London. She “christened” the oak tree planted by actor Samuel Phelps, on the hill during the ceremony with “water from the River Avon” as “Shakespeare’s Oak.” The poet Eliza Cooke had written a poem and was meant to give the address, but was unwell, so Isabella deputised for her in front of a crowd estimated at around 10,000. According to a newspaper report she gave a “short and exceedingly well-worded speech, the only defect of which, was that, as might have been anticipated, its delivery was marred by the nervousness natural to a lady addressing so large and so public an audience for the first time.”
Some lesser-known facts
- Jabez Clegg, “The Manchester Man” of her book’s title was also the name of a (now closed) pub near Manchester University.
- A pub named after Joshua Brooks, the chaplain who baptised Isabella and whom she wrote about in The Manchester Man, has been a well-known City Centre bar for over twenty years.
- Isabella Banks Street (M15 4RL) runs between Tony Wilson Place and Medlock Street in the centre of Manchester.
- Isabella was noted to have paralysis of the sixth (cranial) nerve of her left eye -reportedly caused from “inflammation” as a baby due to the use of a “smoky chimney that was impossible to repair…during a 13 week frost”. As a result her left eye would have been unable to look outwards to her left.
- Though Isabella started writing poetry as a teenager her writing career took a backseat during the first part of her marriage whilst she looked after the surviving three of her eight children. She, however, had to become the main family breadwinner and started writing again – aged 43 – when her husband, suffering from cancer, turned to alcohol to try and relieve his pain.
- A quotation from her book ‘The Manchester Man’ appears on “Broadcaster and Cultural Catalyst” Tony Wilson’s gravestone in Southern Cemetery, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester.
“Mutability is the epitaph of worlds
Change alone is changeless
People drop out of the history of a life as of a land
though their work or their influence remains”
(The Epitaph is from the start of Chapter The Seventeenth – In the Warehouse)
- Isabella herself died aged 76 on 4th May 1897 and is buried in Abney Park cemetery Stoke Newington.
- As well as writing novels and short stories, Isabella was a well-regarded poet and so to finish, here is a favourite, which still resonates today:
Deceived!
By Mrs G Linnæus Banks
On the Banks of a tranquil lake
A maiden reclined and dream’d
Of the hearts she would win and break
While that summer sunlight beam’d;
She mused o’er her victories past,
Of her captives yet to be;
And the spells she would round them cast
To bring them down to her knee
On the shore of a troubled lake
A maiden wander’d alone,
‘Mong the hearts she had vow’d to break
She had not counted her own;
But a brighter eye than her own,
A tongue as false and as fair,
Won her soul with a look and a tone,
Then left her to love and despair.
Lit&Phil Member – Nicola Barnes
