Representatives from authors’ and musicians’ homes and museums from around the United Kingdom visited Knebworth House in November for the 15th annual LitHouses Conference. Sir Walter Scott and James Boswell were represented from Scotland, Dylan Thomas from Wales, John Ruskin from the Lake District, the Brontës from Yorkshire… all the way to Benjamin Britten from the far east coast of East Anglia, Jane Austen from Hampshire and Thomas Hardy from Dorset. A truly nationwide gathering.
The LitHouses Group at Knebworth House ~ November 2018 ~ www.lithouses.org
The topic was literary homes as an education resource and we had speakers from the Universities of Hertfordshire and Cambridge. A portrait of Edward Bulwer Lytton watched over proceedings and – as a great patron of writers and writer’s causes who, with his friend Charles Dickens (also represented), created The Guild of Literature and Art (now part of the Artists’ Benevolent Fund) – I know my great-great-great-grandfather would have approved, and been delighted that his home was hosting such an august group representing the country’s greatest authors and composers. I suspect he was present.
As his good friend wrote – exactly 175 years ago – “A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us every one!”
Henry Lytton Cobbold
@HenryCobboldKH