The Vicar

    and the

Heiress

THE REV. RANDOLPH HUMPHREY MCLAUGHLIN MA (1844-1922), educated at Trinity College Dublin, was the godson of his cousin John Winston Spencer-Churchill, the 7th Duke of Marlborough, who was the grandfather of Sir Winston Churchill.

Randolph was the Vicar of Sidcup, a Kentish town just outside London. One of his parishioners was Henry Hulse Berens JP (1804-83), of Sidcup Place, Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company and a director of the Bank of England.

In 1877 Randolph married Henry's daughter and heiress Ellinor Frances (1842-1924). At the same time he adopted the surname McLaughlin-Berens by Deed Poll. In 1885 Randolph changed his surname to Berens by Royal Warrant.

Another thing that Randolph changed was his mode of dress, from clerical garb to stylish elegance, as shown by the photographs on either side.

Randolph became, like Ellinor, a passionate collector of Egyptian antiquities. His newfound wealth enabled him to buy some large Egyptian stone figures of lions and birds at what the famous archaeologist Flinders Petrie enviously called impossible prices.

DO YOU HOLD THE SECRET OF QUEEN NEFERTITI'S CHARM? The Berens owned four beaded collars, now in the University of Swansea Egyptology Center. Some experts believe they came from the tomb of a princess in Armana, looted about 1880. If so, the collars may have been given to the princess by her mother, Queen Nefertiti, and if this one's central charm (shown magnified) is Beset, goddess of childbirth (see left), the depiction is 1,000 years older than any previously known. Anyone with evidence of this collar's provenance is asked to email cherylhart at tiscali dot co dot uk.

In 1915, the Royal Asiatic society published Randolph's monograph The Babylonian tablets of the Berens collection. Many of his prehistoric Egyptian vases are illustrated in a Burlington Fine Arts Club exhibition catalogue and in an article in The Connoisseur. As described in another Connoisseur article, the couple had many other collections, including books (see the bookplate below), old masters and furniture. They owned a bedside table that once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte, scorch marked where he burnt pastilles to purify the air. The table was auctioned for £96,500 at Christie’s in 2008. Cabinetmaker George Bullock originally sold it for £3 10s.

The gun that Randolph is holding was inscribed "A. Selkirk" & "Largo." It was probably the authentic flintlock musket owned by Alexander Selkirk of Largo, Scotland, whose adventures became Daniel Defoe's inspiration for Robinson Crusoe. In 1910 Randolph told the New York Times how he acquired the gun for twenty shillings (£1). On 21st May 1924 it was sold at auction in London for £250. Selkirk's musket was rediscovered and returned to his family in Largo by Richard Wilson, former editor of the Scotsman Magazine; the story is in his 2009 book The Man Who Was Robinson Crusoe.

Sotheby's auctioned most of Randolph's collections in 1923, though many objects were donated to the British Museum, the V&A and other museums, including the British Library. The next year the remainder was sold, including this St. Cecilia with an Angel by Orazio Gentileschi, now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

In the photograph of Ellinor drawing a bow she is bedecked with medals won in archery tournaments. At the age of 77 she had won 536 prizes and was still shooting every Monday afternoon on the West Kent Archery Society grounds at Bickley. Ellinor wrote the chapter on the practice of archery in The Sportswoman's Library (pages 206-232).

Randolph's house was a short walk from the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) at 14 Princes Gardens. It is now owned by the University of London's Imperial College. The lower floors are offices, while the upper floors provide accommodation for postgraduate students with families. My grandfather Major George McLaughlin died at 14 Princes Gardens. Presumably he had come up from Lyston Hall to be attended at his brother's home by the fashionable physician and surgeon Robert McQueen, LRCP, who signed the death certificate.

           © 2006 G. Harry McLaughlin.
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