C. Drury E. Fortnum
London, 1820 - 1899, Stanmore
under private tuition, his health having been enfeebled by severe illness when young, it was thought that the rough life of a public school, in those days, would be too severe; other subsequent circumstances prevented his going to either of the Universities. By his Father's wish he entered a merchant's house in the City, but found, after a fair trial, that he disliked in practice what he had objected to in theory, his tastes leading him rather to the natural sciences, Chemistry & Entomology being his chief studies. (Journal of the History of Collections, 269–70)
In 1840 Fortnum emigrated to Australia, where his half-brother Charles Stuart was already settled; the two shared a land order in the new colony of South Australia. From there he sent back natural history specimens to the Revd F. W. Hope, and others to the British Museum; several Australian insects published by Hope were given the specific name fortnumi. In 1845 Fortnum returned to England and on 7 March 1848 married his second cousin Fanny Matilda Keats (1808–1890), who had recently inherited wealth from the profits of Fortnum and Mason of Piccadilly. Thereafter, Fortnum's interests shifted from science to art and he could live as a gentleman collector and scholar. In 1852 the Fortnums bought the Hill House, Great Stanmore, Middlesex, which was to be his home for the rest of his life.
Fortnum and his wife travelled abroad and his first recorded art purchases were made in Italy in 1848. His principal areas of collecting were sculpture, bronzes, maiolica, and rings; the collections were of wide chronological range, with a bias towards the arts of Renaissance Italy. Fortnum was a ground-breaking enthusiast in England for Renaissance applied arts. In the 1850s he was among a group of collectors whose guiding lights were A. W. Franks of the British Museum and J. C. Robinson of the South Kensington (later Victoria and Albert) Museum. He lent to the ‘Special exhibition of works of art’ mounted by Robinson at South Kensington in 1862 and to exhibitions of the Burlington Fine Arts Club. After various disputes led to Robinson's dismissal from South Kensington in 1867, Fortnum acted as ‘Art Referee’, advising on acquisitions and making purchases for the museum on the continent; he received fees but, insisting he was an ‘amateur’, not a dealer, accepted no commission. Parts of his collection were lent to South Kensington, but he came to have a low opinion of its management.
Fortnum was invited to undertake South Kensington catalogues renounced by Robinson, who wrote to him that ‘Catalogues of any kind would be entirely useless and superfluous in the state of disgraceful confusion, which reigns at present in that institution’ (Robinson to Fortnum, 5 March 1869, Fortnum MSS, AM Oxf.). In 1873 appeared Fortnum's Descriptive Catalogue of the Maiolica, Hispano-Moresco, Persian, Damascus, and Rhodian Wares in the South Kensington Museum, and in 1876 his Descriptive Catalogue of the Bronzes of European Origin in the South Kensington Museum. His later writings on maiolica include Maiolica (1896) and a catalogue of his own collection (1897). Articles in Archaeologia include two on the diamond signet of Henrietta Maria, which he discovered, acquired, and in 1887 presented to Queen Victoria. His writings show a characteristically South Kensington concern with technique, together with the careful observation, meticulous data accumulation, and classificatory skill of a scientist; they remain landmarks in the study of their subjects.
Fortnum was characterized in The Times (11 March 1899) as the ‘second founder’ of the Ashmolean Museum. In 1868 he discussed with J. H. Parker, keeper of the Ashmolean from 1870 to 1884, the possibility of supporting a broadly conceived ‘archaeological’ museum in Oxford. In 1882 he approached the vice-chancellor, Benjamin Jowett, about giving his collections, but felt slighted by the response. In 1884 Arthur Evans, the newly appointed keeper of the Ashmolean, won Fortnum's confidence, and received parts of his collection on loan. These became a gift in 1888, and in 1889 Fortnum was made a ‘visitor’ of the Ashmolean and DCL. In 1891 he offered an endowment of £10,000 to enable the fast growing collections in the old Ashmolean to be rehoused in new buildings adjoining the University Galleries. After tortuous negotiations the offer was accepted, and the collections were moved in 1894. In his will he left most of his remaining collections to Oxford, and porcelain to the British Museum (to which he had previously given some important objects), with endowments to both institutions.
Fortnum was elected FSA in 1858 and was a vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Archaeological Institute. He was elected a trustee of the British Museum in 1889, and was also an alderman and deputy lieutenant of Middlesex. After his first wife's death, he married, on 22 October 1891, Mary Fortnum (1822–1899), another second cousin. Fortnum had no children. He died at the Hill House, Great Stanmore, on 6 March 1899, and was buried in Highgate cemetery.
Timothy Wilson
(“Fortnum, Charles Drury Edward (1820–1899),” Timothy Wilson in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eee online ed., ed. Lawrence Goldman, Oxford: OUP, 2004, accessed August 19, 2015. www.oxforddnb.com)
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