Clarence Bicknell, the Victorian polymath, and Nottingham
- Art - Culture - Tourism
- Aug 9
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 27
By Marcus Bicknell
26 August 2025
Buckinghamshire and Bordighera
Nottingham has an enduring academic relationship with Clarence Bicknell, the Victorian polymath, and his adopted hunting ground in Liguria, north west Italy, and it’s likely that the two will meet again soon; an exhibition (seen in Bordighera, Nice, Cambridge, Boston and elsewhere) with a conference in Nottingham on Bicknell are at the early planning stage.
The University of Nottingham has a 25-year history of teaching partnerships, including an annual field trip to Varese Ligure in the Val di Vara, co-taught with Prof. Diego Moreno from the University of Genoa and don Sandro Lagomarsini, parish priest of Cassego. Topographical art, landscape history, and comparative species of wild mountain animals in Liguria have been the subject of theses by
Nottingham PhDs. Nottingham worked with Genoa and the EU on the Pitoti project in Val Camonica above Bergamo, where the rock engravings of prehistoric times were brought alive in animations (image right). University of Nottingham worked with seven other institutions around Europe 2013-2015 on putting together a multi-disciplinary study on Bicknell, even if EU
funding was not forthcoming. Similarly, Genoa professors of archaeology, environmental history, human geography, zoology, botany and biodiversity have based research projects on the principles which Bicknell espoused.
Le Sorcier, rock engraving of the Vallée des Merveilles.
Bicknell had identified, copied and logged over 11,000 rock engravings in the Vallée des Merveilles and the Val Fontanalba on the French-Italian border; he published the work in 1902 in The Prehistoric Rock Engravings in the Italian Maritime Alps using the Bordighera publisher, Pietro Gibelli. His finds had also been reported in 1901 by Arturo Issel, Professor at the University of Genoa, who had visited Bicknell in Casterino and had climbed with him up into the mountains. The two men developed such a close bond that Bicknell gave to the University of Genoa 3,165 rock engraving rubbings, his nine field notebooks, 10,146 pressed flowers and 3,248 botanical watercolours. The collections are highly prized by the present generation of scholars there including Prof. Mauro Mariotti (the first to describe Bicknell as a Citizen Scientist) and Prof. Stefano Schiaparelli (whose 2023/4 exhibition CHRONOS – The Human Footprint in Liguria – featured Bicknell’s work and an avatar of him speaking in Italian).
Dssa. Daniela Gandolfi of the Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri / Museo Bicknell in Bordighera has recently offered new support to the studies; recent acquisitions by IISL, a collections of landscape watercolours by Bicknell and nine photo albums documenting his travels in Italy and abroad Clarence could be of interest to the field of landscape history.
Clarence Bicknell (1842-1918) was a man of letters, an artist, author, traveller, botanist, archaeologist, pastor, humanist and Esperantist. Born at Herne Hill near London, Clarence was the 13th child of Elhanan Bicknell, whale oil magnate and art patron. Clarence's mother, Lucinda was the aunt of the artist, Hablot Knight Browne, "Phiz", the illustrator of Charles Dickens's novels, and taught Clarence the art of botanical watercolours.
In 1862 Clarence went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, to read mathematics. At the university he was much influenced by an enthusiastic group of young churchmen; and soon after he had graduated in 1865, he took orders in the Church of England. For some years he was curate at Walworth, a tough parish in the slums of south London which supported the Order of St. Augustine, a passionate, ritualistic community, mysteriously linked with Rome. Here he lived a simple life, devoting himself and much of his income to the poorest people - notably during a devastating outbreak of smallpox. This pattern of simplicity, generosity and service was to be with him for life. He left Walworth and joined some of his Cambridge friends in The Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit in the village of Stoke-on-Tern in Shropshire, 70 miles west of Nottingham, where he lived in a high church community devoted to the mission of preaching.
Bicknell treasured the eagle logo of The Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit
After thirteen years he began to have serious religious doubts, and decided to avail himself of his inherited private means to see the world. He came to Bordighera, on the Italian Riviera, in 1878 (image, below), invited by the
Fanshawe family to act as chaplain to the English church. But his religious doubts were growing. He found the church too ritualistic, too dogmatic and too chauvinistic. Within a year he had resigned. He gave up any active participation in church matters, asked not to be referred to as 'The Rev.', and ceased to wear a dog collar. He was later to say in a letter to a friend, "I fear I have become rather narrow about all church things, having become convinced that the churches do more harm than good & hinder human progress, and look upon the pope, the clergy & the doctrines as a fraud, though not an intentional one."
Though disenchanted with the church, Clarence had become enchanted by Bordighera. At that time Bordighera was almost an English colony. Foreign visitors, many of whom became residents, flocked there for the winter sun in a climate which was considered particularly beneficial for sufferers from the still incurable disease of tuberculosis. Clarence immediately became involved in
the activities of the English colony - activities leading to the building of his Museo Bicknell (image, right, with Clarence in 1888), the foundation of the International Library, the building of a hospital, the organising of lectures and concerts and so on. But he was also deeply involved in giving generous active and financial help to the poorer of the resident Italians, notably after the severe earthquake in 1887. The Museo Bicknell has been expertly managed as part of the International Institute of Ligurian Studies since 1937 so the museum holds its position as a star in the Ligurian firmament.
Clarence's principal passion was the study of botany and a love of flowers. The richness of the flora of Bordighera and its neighbourhood was for him one of its main attractions. He immediately set about collecting the plants and recording them in explicit and attractive water colour drawings. By 1884 he had made over a thousand of these drawings, 104 of which he selected as illustrations for his Flowering Plants and Ferns of the Riviera and Neighbouring Mountains, published in 1885. They show his highly developed sense of design combined with skill in producing accurate and informative botanical images, like this Iris in the collection of the University of Genoa.
It was in 1881 that the son of Clarence's sister Ada, Edward Elhanan Berry, came to Bordighera as manager of a bank, as Thomas Cooke's agent, and later as British vice-consul. Edward and his wife Margaret became essential team support to Clarence’s enterprises. The relationship between Margaret and Clarence is beautifully illustrated by the story of the vellum albums. Shortly after her marriage Margaret saw in Lorenzini's shop in Siena some exquisite books of superior drawing paper elaborately bound in white vellum. She bought one and gave it to Clarence. He was delighted. A few months later he gave it back to her, now filled with flower designs. This became a ritual. At least once a year until the outbreak of war in 1914 an album was exchanged and dedicated to Margaret Berry. Seven of these are now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, as part of their outstanding collection of flower paintings, many using arts-and-crafts motifs (image of Gentians, left).
Each album has a theme - for instance, one is a Book of Marguerites for Margaret; one is a Book of Berries for the Berrys. The album dated 1911 is a Coronation Procession of the Flowers of Fontanalba to celebrate the coronation of King George V. The last dated 1914 is an elaborate fantasy, The Triumph of the Dandelion in which the flowers compete for the crown of the Beauty Queen of Fontanalba (image, right). Page by page each flower presents her claim in enchanting drawings, supported by descriptions of her charms (sometimes medicinal) in prose and in verse (often facetious).
The largest and finest of the albums is that of 1908 which is a complete botanical catalogue of 400 wild plants that grew in the garden of the Casa Fontanalba. The book ends with the couplet, "Now if you say, Oh what a show of plants. I beg your pardon. This book is finished; not so the treasures of my garden."
Clarence continually expressed his preference for wild plants rather than garden varieties. His delight in playful fantasy has much in common with the nonsense of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. He loved puzzles, riddles, jokes, puns and parlour games. For Margaret Berry he made a botanical version of the popular Victorian game of Happy Families. His childish sense of fun often invaded the area of scientific order. His drawing of a cat on a log is the title on the cover of his catalogue of the 10,000 rock engravings which he identified in the Vallée des Merveilles (image, left).
The humane rational spirit which Clarence Bicknell showed, particularly in old age, was characteristic of liberal progressive thinking of the period. He was a pacifist who devoted himself to works of charity in times of war; an enthusiastic supporter of women's suffrage who deplored the excesses of the suffragettes; a vegetarian who never embarrassed others with his prejudices; a man of means who lived in simplicity and devoted his means to others; a master who treated his servants as friends, and embarrassed hosts and hotels by expecting his companion Luigi Pollini to be treated and accepted as a guest and not a servant.
It was not till 1905 that Clarence embarked on the enterprise of building a house for the summer at Casterino, 4,500 feet up in the Alps, the Casa Fontanalba (image, right). He had first visited the Vallée des Merveilles on the west side of Mont Bego in 1881. With further visits in 1897, 1898, 1901 and 1902, and the discovery of more rock engravings in the upper Fontanalba valley, on the Casterino side of Monte Bego, the study and recording of the engravings had become almost as absorbing of his energies as the flora; and Casterino was an ideal base for the field work of both activities.
Clarence had become enthusiastically involved with Esperanto, the international language which had been thought up in 1887 by Dr. Zanenhof, an oculist in Warsaw. In it Clarence saw a medium which could unite mankind in peace and loving friendship in a way which the Christian faith had failed to do. With characteristic energy he devoted himself to the cause, organising an Esperanto Centre in Bordighera, annually attending conferences from Cracow to Barcelona (generally accompanied by Luigi), translating into Esperanto poems such as Macauley's Horatius, and winning prizes for his own Esperanto poems.
Clarence painted the shutters of the Casa Fontanalba with flowers and inscriptions in Esperanto. This one says "Pro multo da arboi, li arbaron ne vidas" - "He does not see the wood for the trees".
It was at the Casa Fontanalba, for the 4 months of the year that the house was accessible, that he spent the happiest days of his old age. Luigi Pollini, who had become his gifted and efficient assistant, was his constant support. Clarence remained amazingly energetic. He would spend the day with his friends, energetically showing them the Vallée des Merveilles and the flowers, entertaining them enthusiastically. Then when they had retired exhausted he would get down to serious drawing, letter writing, or some other task. Next morning he would be up long before them, collecting specimens or drawing again.
Marcus Bicknell
This article/blog is published by Marysia Zipser, Founder of Art Culture Tourism & ACT Ambassador
Please feel free to share this blog via social media icon links and/or write any comments or questions in the Comment Box below. Thank you..
With thanks to Clarence Bicknell's great-nephew, Peter Bicknell (Lecturer in Architecture, University of Cambridge) for the inspiration provided by his 1988 paper.
Marcus Bicknell is the great-grand-nephew of Clarence Bicknell, curator of the family collection, editor of www.clarencebicknell.com and chairman of the Clarence Bicknell Association. He was awarded Bordighera’s 2017 Parmurelu d’Oru prize and the 2025 medal of the City of Genoa for services to culture. After his Masters in Physical Anthropology from Cambridge University in 1969 he was a marketing executive in the media business all his career; he managed Genesis and worked for CBS, A&M Records, television satellite operator SES Astra and the BBC. He supports the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the Royal Academy of Music and other community associations. He was born in the USA, is a British national, motor-racer, horse-rider, has lived in 7 countries, speaks German and French and lives with his family in the Chiltern Hills.
Comments