Denham Jordan

Denham Jordan (baptized April 10, 1836 in Milton Regis , Kent , † May 15, 1920 in Dorking ) was a British craftsman, draftsman and nature writer. He published under the pseudonym A son of the marshes , German "A son of the marshes ", an allusion to the landscape around his place of birth.

Life

Denham was the eldest son of George and Sarah Jordan, who were part of a ramified family of artisans. He spent childhood and youth in Milton Regis, roaming the northern Kenyan marshland, which was incorporated into his 1890 book Annals of a Fishing Village . In 1849 the family moved to Dorking south of London . He worked as a painter and decorator, including restoring country estates such as Clandon Park near Guildford , and was active within about 30 miles of Dorking. In 1866 he married Mary Martin; the marriage remained childless. Mary died in 1903, Denham had dementia in 1920 in Dorking old people's hospital.

plant

From an early age he showed a great love for nature in the counties in the south of England and an unusual talent for depicting it in drawings and paintings. Pictures painted by him hang in the Dorking and District Museum .

He first wrote in magazines, including Blackwood's Magazine . His publications were edited and edited by the writer Jean Allan Owen (1841-1922), later Visger. The presumption that Jordan dictated it to Owen is considered refuted by the manuscripts in Jordan's handwriting and for stylistic reasons. His ten books, most of which were published by Blackwood & Sons , also contain the magazine texts. An unprinted manuscript has also been preserved. After 1898, Jordan stopped publishing, but continued to paint.

His descriptions of animals that have almost or completely disappeared from the region, such as the black grouse , hen harrier , night swallows or otters on the banks of the River Mole , and also those of birds such as carrion crows or herons that belong to him, are of documentary interest Were rare in time, but are common today. Jordan observed the destruction of the habitat of animals and developed into a conservationist. Because he refused to include birds and eggs in natural history collections by amateurs, which was popular at the time, he described some of his sites only imprecisely. Unlike many contemporary nature writers, he was considered humorous.

Literary World magazine reported in 1894 that Jordan was a carpenter by trade and that his wife kept telling Owen that his writing was a waste of time. According to his wife, he should take better care of his work. In addition, she was of the opinion that his authors' fee was not based on honest work.

Publications

Books

• Woodland, Moor and Stream. Being the notes of a naturalist. London 1889
• On Surrey hills. Blackwood & Sons, London 1891
• Annals of a Fishing Village. Drawn from the notes of "A Son of the Marshes". Blackwood & Sons, London 1891
• Within an Hour of London Town. Among Wild Birds and their Haunts. Blackwood & Sons, London 1892
• Forest tithes and other studies from nature. Smith, Elder 1893
• With the Woodlanders and By the Tide. London 1893
• From spring to fall, or when life stirs. Blackwood & Sons, London 1894
• The wild-fowl and sea-fowl of Great Britain. Chapman and Hall, 1895
• In the green leaf and the sere. Kegan Paul, 1896
• Drift from longshore. London 1898

photos

• Slideshow on BBC website, accessed July 29, 2011

Literature and Sources

Bibliography:

• Denham Jordan. In: Joanne Shattock: The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature. Cambridge 1999, Vol. 4, pp. 2669 f.

Representations and reviews:

• GM Chapman: Son of the Marshes. In: Blackwood's Magazine. June 1975, pp. 516-525
• Denham Jordan, "Son of the Marshes". In: Coffey Holland: Dorking people. Dorking 1984, pp. 28-29
• Wallace Harvey: Denham Jordan, 'a son of the marshes'. In: Dorking and Leith Hill District Preservation Society Historical Group Newsletter. Typescript, edition 3 (autumn) 1975, p. 3
• JB: A book for nature lovers. (Review of On Surrey Hills. ). In: The Selborne magazine. Volume 2, No. 22, October 26, 1891, p. 196 f.
• o. Vf .: The Poetry of Rural Life. In: The Edinburgh review. January 1894, pp. 61-75, especially 74 f.

Illustration:

• Portrait drawing, 1864. In: Coffey Holland: Dorking people. Dorking 1984, opposite p. 28

Documentation :

• Sources are in the Dorking Museum and the Archives of Canterbury Cathedral, as well as the family historian Clifford Uwins, Redhill, Surrey

Individual evidence

1. ^ The Times , December 13, 1895
2. ^ GM Chapman: Son of the Marshes. In: Blackwood's Magazine. June 1975, p. 517 f. - George Frampton: Denham Jordan's Milton Regis. In: Bygone Kent. Volume 17, No. 4/1996
3. ^ ^{A b} Wallace Harvey: Denham Jordan, 'a son of the marshes'. In: Dorking and Leith Hill District Preservation Society Historical Group Newsletter. Typescript, edition 3 (autumn) 1975, p. 3
4. ^ The Evening Standard, May 21, 1921 (obituary)
5. ^ GM Chapman: Son of the Marshes. In: Blackwood's Magazine. June 1975, p. 516 f.
6. ^ Christopher Wright et al: British and Irish paintings in public collections. New Haven, Connecticut 2006, p. 473. Slideshow on a BBC website, ( Memento of the original from December 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on July 29, 2011 
7. ↑ RS Scragg: Nature expert had to 'talk' his books to authoress. In: The Dorking Advertiser , May 29, 1970. Against: GM Chapman: Son of the Marshes. In: Blackwood's Magazine. June 1975, p. 520
8. ^ Coffey Holland: Dorking people. Dorking 1984, p. 28 f.
9. ^ GM Chapman: Son of the Marshes. In: Blackwood's Magazine. June 1975, pp. 522-524
10. ^ The Literary World. Volume 49, May 25, 1894, p. 485