Courtesy the British Library
Exhibition Preview: Bloomsbury Below Stairs - Grace Higgens at Charleston, 1920-1970, at the British Library, until April 20 2008.
When the Bloomsbury Group, a renowned collective of talented writers, artists and thinkers - its membership most notably featuring Virginia Woolf and EM Forster - needed respite from propping up the West End’s arts and intelligentsia scene, they often retired to members’ Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant’s Sussex haven, Charleston Farmhouse, near Lewes.
It was here that Grace Higgens (1903-1983) worked below stairs as an all round factotum to the Bell family and thier circle of talented friends. For more than 50 years, she was housekeeper, nurse and cook, gaining a unique insight into the world of one of the most celebrated creative groups since Shelley, Byron, et al converged on Villa Diodoti on Lake Geneva.
Above: courtesy the British Library
The importance of the Bloomsbury Group is arguably greater, however, as they were also deep philosophical thinkers, advocates of the basic artistic virtues of truth and beauty, and notable for their combined and individual pro-feminist, anti-imperial, liberal and socialist stances.
The British Library has recently acquired an extensive collection of private photographs, personal diaries, letters, and mementoes belonging to Grace Higgens during her 50 year tenure at Charleston Farmhouse, that provide an intimate portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s daily life from a personal perspective.
Courtesy the British Library
The Grace Higgens archive features diaries, recipes, scrapbooks of press cuttings on the Bloomsbury Group and, most notably, a great number of letters, cards and telegrams from Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, as well as other members of the group.
A postcard from Virginia Woolf compliments Grace’s cookery, and asks for a recipe from her: “Many thanks for the delicious cake which we both enjoy every day at tea. Could you be so good some time as to write out the recipe, as I can’t get any cakes made except yours that I like to eat?”- indicating that those who are, indeed, afraid of Virginia Woolf, might attempt to placate her with a nice, moist Victoria sponge.
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