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In 1818 [his father] John James Ruskin (age 33) and [his mother] Margaret Cock (age 37) were married.
On 8th February 1819 John Ruskin was born to John James Ruskin (age 34) and Margaret Cock (age 38) at 54 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square.
In 1827 Bowerswell House, Kinnoul [Map] was sold to [his future father-in-law] George Gray (age 29). The house had previously been rented by [his grandfather] John Thomas Ruskin which connection brought the Ruskin and Gray familes together. John Ruskin (age 7) visited Kinnoul during his childhood staying with his 'Aunt Jessie' who lived at Tayside House, Kinnoul [Map]. George Grays daughter [his future wife] Effie Gray was born, and spent her childhood, there.
George Gray: In 1798 he was born. Before 7th May 1828 he and Sophia Margaret Jameson were married. They had fifteen children. In 1877 he died.
John Thomas Ruskin: In 1809 Bowerswell House, Kinnoul.
On 10th April 1848 John Ruskin (age 29) and Effie Gray (age 19) were married at Bowerswell House, Kinnoul [Map]; her childhood home.
On 20th June 1850 [his wife] Effie Gray (age 22), wife of John Ruskin (age 31), was presented to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (age 31).
1851. Thomas Richmond (age 49). Portrait of John Ruskin (age 31).
1852 to 1853. John Everett Millais 1st Baronet (age 22). Portrait of John Ruskin (age 32).
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
On 7th March 1854 [his wife] Effie Gray (age 25) wrote to her father: "... To go back to the day of my marriage I went as you know away to the Highlands. I had never been told the duties of married persons to each other and knew little or nothing about their relations in the closest union on earth. For days John [John Ruskin (age 35)] talked about this relation to me but avowed no intention of making me his Wife. He alleged various reasons, hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and finally this last year told me his true reason (and this to me is as villainous as all the rest) that he had imagined women were quite different to what he saw I was, and that the reason he did not make me his Wife was because he was disgusted with my person ... then he said he would marry me when I was twenty five. This last year we spoke about it, he then said as I professed quite a dislike to him that it would be SINFUL to enter into such a connection, as if I was not very wicked I was at least insane and the responsibility that I might have children was too great, as I was quite unfit to bring them ..."
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1854. 21st April 1854. Ruskin (age 35) and his father called. They admired Rossetti's (age 25) drawings much, especially the Dante and Beatrice one. They praised also the Welsh sunset study I have promised Dante Rossetti, the study of the twisted birch tree, and Ruskin commended the portrait of Miss Nicholl in hat and feather. On my expressing my liking for after sunset and twilight effects, he said I must not be led away by them, as on account of the little light requisite for them, they were easier of realisation than sun-light effects. He was very friendly and pleasant and encouraging in manner, and showed no conceit, grandeur, or patronising mien. A most delightful feeling seemed to exist between himself and father. He said he would be glad to call again and see my drawings.
On 15th July 1854 the marriage of John Ruskin (age 35) and Effie Gray (age 26) annulled by the Commissary Court of Surrey on the grounds of John Ruskin being "incapable of consummating the same [marriage] by reason of incurable impotency".
On 30th July 1854 the Session Kinnoull Parish Church [Map] agreed that the "proper steps be taken to notice in the Sessions Records of Kinnoul that the following entry of marriage on Page 64 of the Records of Proclamations viz John Ruskin (age 35) of Denmark Hill London and [his former wife] Euphemia Chalmers Gray (age 26) in this Parish were proclaimed and married on the 10 day of April 1848 by the Revd John Edward Touch Minister of Kinnoul" had been declared null and void by the Commissary Court of Surrey" in a suit promoted by the said Euphemia Chalmers Gray".
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1854. 9th December 1854. Dec. 9. To Architectural Museum, Cannon Row. Ruskin (age 35) gave an excellent lecture on colour to a crowded audience. After the lecture I spoke to him and he immediately asked when he might come and see my drawings, I said in about a fortnight. He said, "Not before? Pray don't go and botch them in the studio." Hoped I was a confirmed Pre-Raphaelite, etc.
In April 1855 John Ruskin (age 36) proposed to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 26) that he do a series of seven pictures illustrating the Purgatorio of which Rossetti executed two: Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah and Dante's Vision of Matilda Gathering Flowers.
On 3rd July 1855 John Everett Millais 1st Baronet (age 26) and [his former wife] Euphemia "Effie" Gray Lady Millais (age 27) were married at Bowerswell House, Kinnoul [Map]; see Life and Letters of Millais. They spent their two-week honeymoon in Argyleshire, Bute and Arran - see Life and Letters of Millais.
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1855-1857. 27th June 1857. To P.R.B. Exhibition in Russell Place .... I found my little "Sunset" sketch in North Wales mounted in a preposterously wide gilt flat, whereas I had left it in my room mounted on white paper. A lot of the foreground is covered by the mount which completely spoils the sketch and looks ridiculously pretentious besides. Saw (at Hogarth's) a rather clever caricature-etching founded on Millais' "Dream of the Past" picture, to which the outlines were pretty strictly kept to. Millais (age 28) himself is the old Knight, Rossetti (age 29) the girl in front, Holman Hunt (age 30) the child behind. Ruskin (age 38) the ass on which they are riding and which is by far the best thing in the etching in every respect.
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1855-1857. 30th June 1857. Wm. Rossetti (age 27) told me that Roughskin (age 38) had married his wife [[his former wife] Euphemia "Effie" Gray Lady Millais (age 29)] when she was very ill ....
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1855-1857. 19th November 1857. Adjourned to Millais' (age 28) house, just taken, No. 16 York Terrace, at about 4, and not finding him in waited and had a long and very pleasant chat with his wife [[his former wife] Euphemia "Effie" Gray Lady Millais (age 29)], who has a lovely and passionate face, and whose manner is particularly engaging and ladylike withal. At her request, and afterwards backed by Millais, stayed to dinner, after which she left and I had a long chat on divers subjects with him. He spoke about Ruskin (age 38), whom he thinks desperately ill off, and of the portrait he painted of him in Scotland, which he thought the finest thing in the way of portraiture he had yet done, and said he wanted it for the exhibition (R.A). He seemed astonished when I told him I had seen it in Ruskin's bedroom?
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
The Diary of George Price Boyce 1855-1857. 21st December 1857. Ruskin (age 38) came and stayed an hour. He seemed a good deal taken with several of my Giornico drawings and one of the Venice tomb drawings, and said I should apply myself earnestly to drawing with the point, should put more detail in my drawings; give distinction to distant parts by quantity of mysterious detail. He said he should come again.
On 21st October 1861 Philip Burne-Jones 2nd Baronet was born to Edward Coley Burne-Jones 1st Baronet (age 28) and Georgiana Macdonald Lady Burne-Jones (age 21). He was baptised at Manchester Cathedral [Map] with his godfathers, by proxy, being John Ruskin (age 42) and Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 33). See Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones.
On 3rd March 1864 [his father] John James Ruskin (age 79) died. He was buried in the churchyard of St John the Evangelist Church, Shirley.
In 1871 [his mother] Margaret Cock (age 90) died.
In 1878 James Anderson Rose (age 58) represented James Abbott McNeill Whistler (age 43) in his libel trial against John Ruskin (age 58) for having described his painting Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket as "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face". Whistler won the case and was awarded one farthing, the smallest coin, to Whistler. The court costs were divided between the two. Ruskin's were paid for by a public subscription organised by the Fine Art Society. Whistler was declared bankrupt.
In 1882 Francesca Alexander (age 44) met John Ruskin (age 62), who was deeply impressed by her compilation of Tuscan songs. Ruskin purchased the manuscript that she had entitled Roadside Songs of Tuscany and had illustrated with drawings done in a fine and highly personal style. He also bought a second manuscript and published it in 1883 as The Story of Ida, attributing it to “Francesca.”
1894. Frederick Hollyer (age 55). Photograph of John Ruskin (age 74).
On 23rd December 1897 [his former wife] Euphemia "Effie" Gray Lady Millais (age 69) died at Bowerswell House, Kinnoul [Map]. She was buried at Kinnoull Parish Church [Map] next to her son George Millais.
On 20th January 1900 John Ruskin (age 80) died.
