Poems, Letters and Memories of Philip Sidney Nairn. E. Eddison R.
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II
FAMILY, BIRTH, AND SCHOOL LIFE
Mr Henry Nairn, who has taken some pains to investigate the early history of the Scottish house to which he belongs, has been led to the conclusion that all of the name of Nairn or Nairne are probably of common descent, going back to one Michael de Nairne, who lived at the end of the fourteenth century. This Michael signed as a witness, in his capacity of Shieldbearer to the Regent Albany, the compact of battle between the rival Clan Quhele and Clan Chattan before their fight described by Scott in his Fair Maid of Perth. The line has been carried back yet further, though with less certainty, to one Murdochus Nairne whose son, Hercules, witnessed a charter in 1211. It is matter for speculation whether the origin of the family was Keltic or Italian. Whatever may be the truth as to this, it is certain that the family is ancient, began with considerable dignity, and flourished for some centuries. Later it fell on evil days, and most of the estates passed into the female line.
The branch which concerns us made its home in Northumberland. William Nairn, the son of William Nairn who was Baillie of Dalkeith, appears to have left Scotland and settled in the parish of Kirkwhelpington, a remote village in the Cheviots near the Scottish border, in or before 1737. In the following generations the family moved to Rothbury and thence to Newcastle-on-Tyne, where, about the year 1800, was established the commercial firm well known in the North for over half a century as Philip Nairn & Sons, shipowners and corn importers. Philip Nairn of Waren, the son of the founder of this firm, was a man of distinguished personality, well known, popular, and respected by all classes of people with whom he came into contact in Northumberland, where for many years he enjoyed the distinction of being the largest farmer and the largest grain merchant between the Forth and the Tyne. In politics a Whig of the old school, he was a powerful supporter of Lord Grey when Prime Minister, of his son Lord Howick, and of Sir George Grey of Falloden. This political connection created an intimacy with the many sons of the Prime Minister, all of whom were frequent guests at the Waren dinner parties, which Mr Nairn’s lavish hospitality and the charm, intellectuality, and social gifts of his wife made famous throughout the county. Nor were the guests at these dinners limited to his own political party. He practically kept open house; nobody, whatever his rank or position, left Waren without partaking of its well-known hospitality, and the servants’ hall was rarely empty. In the early fifties a series of disastrous losses of uninsured property, combined with the effect of the introduction of telegraphy which militated against the somewhat old-world methods of Philip Nairn & Sons, and nullified the advantage hitherto enjoyed by Mr Nairn as indisputably one of the best judges of corn in England, brought an end to this prosperity. He moved to Wetheral, near Carlisle, where he died somewhat suddenly in 1859. His son, Mr Henry Nairn, moved to London to take up the clerkship in the Government Service which he held for over forty-two years.
One point, perhaps the most interesting of all, must be mentioned before I pass to the main subject. The descent of the Nairns of Northumberland from William Nairn, Baillie of Dalkeith, though it rests on the strongest circumstantial evidence, probably could not be proved in a court of law. If, however, as seems reasonable, this descent is taken as established, it connects the family by direct succession in the female line with William Drummond of Hawthornden, the poet and friend of Ben Jonson, and one of the most brilliant men of letters of the late Elizabethan times. If this be so, the poetical gifts which produced the verses which form this volume may reasonably be attributed to heredity throwing back in the ninth generation to Drummond of Hawthornden. fn1
Philip Sidney Fletcher Nairn was born at Bromley, Kent, on December 11th, 1883: the only son and youngest child of Mr Henry Nairn, late of H.M. Civil Service. His mother died when he was only seven years old. She was a woman of singular charm, beloved by all who came into contact with her. From her, her son inherited the charming personality which made him so popular with all who knew him, and also his linguistic talent; for, born in Naples and educated in Germany, she spoke with equal facility English, French, German, and Italian. Through her he descended from a branch of the Campbell family. His great-grandfather, an officer in a Highland regiment, on retiring from the Service settled at Naples, and married a Sicilian lady. Much of the Sicilian blood showed itself in Nairn in his childhood; from the earliest age he gave signs of those dramatic, poetic, and imitative powers which there is little doubt descended to him from that histrionic race. His home was at Wimbledon from the time of his mother’s death until he left England sixteen years later for the East.
FIVE YEARS OLD.
[From a photograph by Lavender, of Bromley, Kent.]
At the age of seven he went to a dame’s preparatory school at Wetheral, and two years later to Rokeby School, The Downs, Wimbledon, an excellent preparatory school managed by Mr C. D. Olive, M.A., of Christchurch, Oxford. In 1896 he obtained a Foundation and a House Scholarship at the King’s School, Canterbury. This is the oldest school in the British Empire, founded in the sixth century in the time of St Augustine, and ideally situated in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral. fn2
The Dean of Canterbury when Nairn was at school there was the well-known writer, Dr Farrar. As an old Headmaster the Dean took a great interest in the King’s School, of which, in his capacity of head of the Cathedral Chapter, he was principal Governor, and it was his custom always to have one of the sixth form boys to act as his unofficial and part-time private secretary and assist him in his correspondence. On Nairn’s entering the sixth form he was selected by the Dean for this post. The Dean took a great personal interest in him, and often asked him to meet his distinguished guests at the Sunday morning breakfasts which were a feature of the Deanery hospitality. It was good for him intellectually, as well as entertaining, to listen to the conversation between his host and the celebrated divines, politicians, writers, and statesmen who were present on these occasions.
Nairn was very happy at Canterbury, where, as elsewhere, he was successful in his studies and in his games. He rose to be Head Monitor, and was also Captain of the Rugby Fifteen and Champion Swimmer and Diver. Cricket he never excelled in, because of his defective eyesight. He was Vice-Captain of the school, and just missed becoming Captain.
His summer holidays were generally spent abroad – principally in Normandy – with his father and sisters, and were thoroughly enjoyed. In this way he came to know most of the north of France, besides parts of Belgium and Germany. His visits to Lindenfels and Eppstein in Germany covered the Odenwald and Bergstrasse, Frankfurt, and the Rhine from Rotterdam to Mayence; from Éprave and Hastière he journeyed over all the Forest of Ardennes, and visited Dinant, Brussels, and Bruges; while his holidays in Normandy at Arromanches, Langrune, St Pierre, and at St Jacut and elsewhere in Brittany, made him acquainted with nearly the whole country, including the ‘Suisse Normande’.
Nairn came up to Trinity College, Oxford, in October 1902, and by virtue of being a Scholar (he had won two Exhibitions at Trinity, the Ford and the Rose) was given rooms in College at once, an advantage which is denied to many freshmen. He first had rooms on the Bell staircase in the Chapel Quad, and later in Kettle Hall, where he was a near neighbour to certain of the elect of the year immediately senior to his own, who had, according to compact, made their quarters in the New Buildings in close proximity, and among whom he was to form some of the most valued friendships of his Oxford days.
’Varsity life is a peculiar and precious growth of English soil – it were truer to say of Oxford and Cambridge soil. It is easy to miss getting from it the full measure of what it has to give, and these golden four years between boyhood and manhood may be wasted not less by undue application to study than by over-addiction to those distractions which abound by day and by night in and about our universities. Happy the man who can so spend those halcyon days as to feel, looking back in later years, regret indeed that they are past, but no remorse