For the last 14 months of his life Thomas Atkinson was seriously ill and almost unable to work. He continued as best he could to complete his final book, Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower Amoor, but to all intents and purposes he was housebound, unable to travel much. A final visit to his birthplace at Cawthorne in Yorkshire in the autumn of 1860 was one of the last journeys he made. He spoke about his travels at a meeting in the village on the 1^st November, where no doubt he took the time to visit his mother’s grave in the churchyard, the headstone of which he had carved himself many years before.

He also met up again with the Spencer Stanhope family and stayed for a few days at Cannon Hall from where he visited Sprotborough, the home of Sir Joseph Copley and also Wentworth House, where he was guest of Earl Fitzwilliam, and says Lucy in a letter, “the lion of the evening”. The Reverend Charles Spencer Stanhope, who was a particular friend and had encouraged and supported Thomas in the early days when he was starting out on the road to becoming an architect, was also present.

But what happened after Thomas died in August 1861 at Walmer in Kent? What became of Lucy and their son Alatau? The full story is not yet clear, but there are a few clues. This article will explain Lucy’s predicament and how she survived the various storms that broke over her during those first few years following her husband’s death.

The first – and most profound – shock for Lucy following Thomas’ death came when she was informed that her husband already had a wife who was alive and well in Chelsea, London and seeking his estate. So shocked was Lucy that at first she could not believe it was true. In fact, Thomas had married Rebecca Mercer, from Halifax, in April 1819 whilst he worked at the quarries in the town. They had three children – Martha, John and Emma – and lived together until the late 1830s.

Details of the circumstances leading to their separation are unknown, but it is possible that she and Thomas parted following Thomas’s bankruptcy in the late 1830s. According to an entry in the 1901 Dictionary of National Biography: “He remained at Manchester until 1840, after experiencing some reverses, owing probably to a too liberal expenditure on works of art.”

Evidence for their separation is limited, but the 1841 Census shows Thomas living in Chorlton cum Hardy, Manchester with his daughter Emma, but provides no clear evidence of his wife Rebecca or their son John. Their other daughter, Martha, had married the previous year and was living locally with her new husband James Wheeler. There is a ‘Mrs Atkinson’ living nearby in Chorlton on Medlock. Her occupation is given as washerwoman, but although she is the right age, we cannot be sure it is Thomas’ wife. If it is, she had clearly fallen on hard times. For some of his bankruptcy hearings and as correspondence addresses for his watercolour exhibition entries to the Royal Academy and elsewhere in the period 1839-40, Thomas gives locations in London.

At some point in the 1840s Rebecca moved to Chelsea, possibly after Thomas had set out for India in the early 1840s. She is recorded there in the 1851 Census, living as an annuitant, along with several other women, in a boarding house in Beaufort Street run by a Mrs Palmer and her two spinster daughters. In fact, she stayed there until she died in 1872. She may have been following her daughter, Martha, who had married solicitor James Wheeler in July 1840 and moved to London from Chorlton sometime before 1847, when her third child had been born in Pimlico, London. Wheeler’s business – he became a leading lawyer specialising in railway company law – took off and he was soon a very rich man.

On his return from his Indian trip, in 1842 or 1843, Thomas moved to Hamburg to work as a jobbing architect, taking with him their son, John, who was probably suffering from TB. They stayed in Hamburg until John died on 3^rd April 1846 at the young age of 22. His death was noted by the Manchester press, which stated he had died after a four-year illness and that he has shown promise as an artist: “His talents were various: as a marine painter they would have been great, as shewn by his sketches, one of which, the Phantom Ships, is of a very high order.” Sadly, the sketches are lost.

Soon after, having decided to give up his work as an architect and become an artist, Thomas left Hamburg for good, first for Berlin and then for Russia, where he stayed for the following 12 years. It seems reasonable to assume that his marriage to Rebecca had effectively ended some years before. Rebecca’s annuity may be evidence that he set up a fund for her, although evidence is scant. In his diary for 1847 there is a note that states “Ordered Mr Wheeler to pay £24 into Coutts Bank for Mr Drury”. The diary also lists the business address for James Wheeler. Of course, such payments could have been a leftover from his bankruptcy, but there is just a chance that they were connected to Rebecca’s annuity. Either way it shows that he was in touch with Wheeler, even when he was in Russia.

We don’t know if there was any direct contact between Rebecca and Thomas in the intervening years. They never divorced and so when in 1848 Thomas married Lucy, in strictly legal terms it was a bigamous marriage. However, he had been living abroad by this point for at least six or seven years and bearing in mind the extraordinary difficulties of obtaining a divorce in Victorian England, it does not, in my consideration at least, appear to be such a serious crime. That, of course, is not the way it would have seemed at the time, when bigamy was punishable by up to five years in prison.

Thomas’ failure to tell Lucy about the marriage was more serious. It certainly affected the way he wrote his books, as he could hardly mention the fact that he was accompanied by a new wife – and child – for most of his travels. Only when Lucy published her own account of their travels, in 1863, do we hear anything about her part in their remarkable six-year journey. Nor could Thomas travel with Lucy without marrying her, even in Russia. In the circumstances, he chose to marry Lucy and tell her nothing, a secret he kept until he died. Hence Lucy’s disbelief when confronted by Rebecca’s claims for Thomas’ estate after he died.

Although there was not much in Thomas’ estate – it was listed at “under £300” in October 1861 shortly after his death and then resworn as “under £20” in March 1863 – Rebecca successfully claimed it all, relying on the legal skills of her solicitor son-in-law James Wheeler, one of the most prominent lawyers in London and himself a very wealthy man by this time.

Wheeler was very diligent in seeking to obtain anything he thought was Thomas’ and appears to have launched a relentless campaign against Lucy, suggesting that she and Thomas had never married. In doing so, of course, he was also defending the reputation of his mother-in-law, who would have been scandalised by the fact that her husband was a bigamist.

We know about James Wheeler’s actions because in May 1862 Lucy replied to a letter written by Lord Ashburton – now lost – to explain what had been happening. Ashburton was president of the Royal Geographical Society from 1860-64 and had known Thomas and bought some of his paintings. She wrote:

“I am well aware and have also made acquainted those who had interested themselves in me, that the son-in-law of my husband had made statements to the effect that there is another wife, besides myself living, and further, he has taken out letters of administration – all my solicitor demands is proof that there is such a person existing, in the absence of which I am his legal wife and act as such. We are doing our utmost to bring this unfortunate affair to an issue. My friends, the gentlemen to whom we are indebted, are now going to sue Mr Wheeler. They are doing this not so much for their own benefit as to obtain justice for me.”

So even nine months after Thomas’ death Lucy still found it hard to believe that Thomas had a previous wife who was still alive. Her ‘friends’, by whom she meant the great geographer Sir Roderick Murchison, the publisher John Murray, Lord Ripon, the scientist Francis Galton and the scientist and publisher William Spottiswoode, were even considering suing Wheeler for libel.

As Lucy explained: “Mr Wheeler has written to all the principal persons at the Geographical and though not in direct terms still has worded his communications in many instances so as to lead them to conclude I had been living in an improper way with Mr Atkinson. Having done so, it is just possible he may have written to your Lordship. The way Mr Wheeler has attacked my character is the more despicable and cowardly as I told him whence he (my husband) had married me. The manly way would have been to attack the culprit if such there was, and not the poor victim.”

The reason that Lucy had written to Lord Ashburton was in reply to a query she had received from him in connection with the paintings he had bought from Thomas and which were hanging in his residence at Bath House, Piccadilly. Having no doubt heard from James Wheeler, he was unsure if he had title, as he had bought them from Lucy. She reassured him that the paintings had been given to her by Thomas “some years hence” and that therefore she had been entitled to sell them. It was not the only challenge concerning the ownership of Thomas’ paintings; a few weeks after Lucy wrote to Lord Ashburton a posthumous sale of Thomas’ paintings at Christie’s, due to be held on 16^th June 1862, was cancelled on the morning of the sale, presumably because there was a dispute over ownership.

Lucy explained to Lord Ashburton that she had not benefited in any way from Thomas’ estate:

“All my husband’s property I have delivered over to the principal creditors, but as I fear those will not arise sufficient funds to liquidate the debts, I am endeavouring with my feeble efforts to make the wherewithal to do so, and if I am successful it will be the proudest day of my existence.”

Still sceptical about whether or not Rebecca was alive, Lucy was clearly loyal to her deceased husband’s memory, as this extract from the letter makes clear:

“Should this man (Wheeler-ed) be able to prove (which I doubt) that the first wife is living, still I look upon myself as the one entitled to pay my husband’s debts and clear his memory. In the sight of God I am his wife and I have to the best of my ability acted the part of one to him. I never deserted him for an instant either in sickness or in poverty, and I have followed him through danger which many a man would have shuddered to encounter, and he has ever been to me a good husband, during a period of 14 years that I have been married to him.”

Considering the circumstances, it is a remarkable letter. Hounded by creditors and a powerful solicitor acting for a former wife, she is strong and determined and still faithful to Thomas.

But the fact remains that Lucy was by this point almost destitute. The £500 she had inherited from her uncle, Joseph Sherrard, in 1837 (see previous blog below), appears to have gone by this point, and she had no other source of income. An appeal to members of the Royal Geographical Society, launched by Sir Roderick Murchison in September 1861, had raised several hundred pounds to pay for Thomas and Lucy’s son, Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson, to be educated at Rugby School, although he did not actually attend the school until August 1864.

Lucy had also started work on her book, Recollections of Tartar Steppes. Although not published until 1863, a letter she wrote to her publisher John Murray and dated 23^rd January 1862 survives in the Scottish National Archives. We don’t know when a contract was agreed, but the letter makes clear that she had already sent him some draft chapters, written in the form of letters to a friend. She had waited anxiously for a reply: “To speak frankly, your letter lay some short time on my table ere I dared to open it, to know my fate. In the style I have sent you I can write more letters, equally, if not more interesting. I so feared you would say they were trash.”

Murray had asked her specifically to write more about the Siberian exiles, those men who had been banished to Siberia following the unsuccessful Decembrist Uprising against Tsar Nicholas I in 1825: “As regards the Exiles I presume you would like me just to tell how I found them. You must know I was received by them all as a sister, I having lived in the Mouravioff family during eight years.  When I entered the houses of Mouravioff and Iakooshkin (Mattvei Muravyev and Ivan Yakushkin, two of the exiles-ed) and mentioned my maiden name, I was immediately recognised. I was always considered part of the family. Others of the exiles with whom I had no acquaintance received me with open arms so soon as I said where I had been living. The name acted as a talisman.”

But a small book advance, whenever it arrived, was not going to be enough to keep her and Alatau. Lucy therefore decided to seek funding from various other institutions. In March 1862 she approached the Royal Literary Fund for help. Founded in 1790 and supported entirely by donations, over the years the Fund has helped thousands of writers and their dependants who have fallen on hard times, including such prominent names as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Love Peacock, James Hogg, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Hood, Richard Jefferies, Joseph Conrad, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Mervyn Peake and Dylan Thomas.

Lucy’s application letter, preserved in the archives of the Fund at the British Library, is both fascinating and very moving. Fascinating because it settles once and for all the birth date for Thomas – in her own hand she writes 6^th March 1799 – and moving because it also reveals the extent of Thomas’ illness in the last year or so of his life. “My Lords and Gentlemen”, she began:

“I should not have applied for relief from this fund but for the death of my husband, the late Thomas Witlam Atkinson, owing to which circumstances I am left with an only son, totally unprovided for, he having expended the whole of his own means during his researches in Siberia, Mongolia and Chinese Tartary, whither, after our marriage in Moscow in 1848, I accompanied him over a period of six years. It was during our wanderings in Chinese Tartary that our only son was born under peculiarly difficult and trying circumstances.

This journey was performed without the aid of any society whatever and entirely at his own cost.

For fourteen months before his death my husband was quite incapable of undertaking any kind of occupation owing to illness brought on from over-working himself and taxing his strength beyond its endurance.

I am now reduced to the necessity of disposing of any wardrobe and a few little valuables I possessed for our maintenance. And moreover I may add even before my husband’s death we have commenced doing so – always hoping he might recover and be able to resume his labours.”

Her application included supporting letters from Murchison, Murray, Lord Ripon, Spottiswoode and Francis Galton. Galton’s letter revealed that Thomas was planning further journeys until his illness stopped him in his tracks: “She was her husband’s devoted companion and helpmate in all his Asiatic wanderings (which I need not dwell upon here, as they are well known to the public). She was, as I can testify from direct personal knowledge, the supporter and encourager of his artistic and literary labour and she is now by his premature death – I say premature for he was planning new journeys as an artist-traveller when his illness commenced – reduced to the greatest financial embarrassment.”

The result was an award of £80, no mean sum in 1862, which was enough at least to tide her over. The following year she also made an application to the Civil List for a pension. These pensions were given to people who had made a contribution to science and literature. Lucy was awarded £100 a year and her citation says: “In consideration of her husband’s contributions to geographical science, the fruit of six years’ exploration in Eastern Siberia and Mongolia, during which she accompanied him, and aided him in preserving a record of his researches; and of his having expended all his means in these efforts, leaving his widow totally unprovided for.”

What is interesting about this citation, which must have given Lucy great pleasure, was the fact that it named her as Mrs Lucy Atkinson and made clear that she was Thomas’ widow, despite the fact that Rebecca Atkinson was still alive at this time. (In 1870 Lucy, listed as Mrs Lucy Finley, was to receive another pension from the Civil List, this time for £50 “in consideration for her services to literature”.)

So by 1863 Lucy had at least kept the wolf from the door. She had enough to pay her rent at 9 Lilly Terrace – now part of Goldhawk Road – in Hammersmith, which allowed her to finish her book. And whatever the legal situation, in some quarters at least she had been officially acknowledged as the widow of her husband, despite the fact that his first wife – and two of his children from that marriage – were still alive. Her son Alatau was soon to be sent to Rugby School, where he would stay for two years. And then what? That will be the subject of further postings.

I have now completed a detailed report (Return to the Great Steppe) about the recent trip of the Atkinson descendants to Kazakhstan. If you would like a copy in pdf format, just click on the link.

You may be interested to look at some of the press coverage arising from the visit. Articles include this piece from a Kazakh news organisation; this report in Kazakh from Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Education; this report in English from kazinform; this report from the website of Kazakhstan’s National Academic Library; this report in the Western Gazette about Pippa Smith’s experience in Kazakhstan; and here on the BBC’s Uzbek service. And this is from the Astana Times.

The ten Atkinson relatives, myself and photographer David O’Neill flew back to London from Almaty on Tuesday after a hugely successful visit to Kazakhstan. None of us could have imagined the reception that we would receive, both in the capital, Astana, and in Almaty region in the south.

It will take  a while for the full impact of the trip to sink in, but for now I think we can say that the significance of the journeys undertaken by Thomas and Lucy Atkinson in the territory of what is now Kazakhstan has been recognised in that country. The most eloquent expression of that came in the speech from Professor Myrzatay Zholdasbekov, at the National Academic Library, who said that South to the Great Steppe should be translated into Kazakh and Russian, so that it can be more widely known.

The prime minister, Mr Karim Massimov, personally met representatives from the family, as did Almaty governor Mr Amadyk Batalov.

Wherever we travelled, people came up to us, having seen coverage of our journey in the newspapers and on television. The government expressed its support for our programme by presenting wonderful plaques to myself and Paul Dahlquist, on behalf of all the descendants.

Thomas and Lucy, through their writings, have left us with a unique picture of life on the steppes 168 years ago. They met many of the leading khans, sultans and bis (judges) during their travels – not to mention humble shepherds and their womenfolk – and as well as writing about them, Thomas also produced numerous landscape paintings and portraits. There are few, if any, other representations of these places and characters from Kazakhstan’s distant past.

The warmth felt by the Kazakhs towards the Atkinsons was most clearly felt in the little town of Kapal in the Djungar Alatau region, where in November 1848 Lucy gave birth to her son, Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson. Kazakhs are deeply touched that they chose this name for him and that even when he had settled far away in Hawaii many years later, he refused to shorten or change it, but stuck to the original. The pageant – known in Kazakh as a shildekhana and held in honour of a newborn child – presented by the residents of Kapal will long live in the memory of all who were there. It was followed by a magnificent feast accompanied by local musicians and singers.

We were also able to visit the foothills and stunning river valleys of the Djungar Alatau region, following closely in the footsteps of Thomas and Lucy. This, more than anything else, brought home to everyone the full extent of the couple’s achievements. We could see for ourselves the distances they travelled, the imposing heights of the mountains they crossed and the open emptiness of the steppes themselves.

Of course, this trip will not be the end of the matter. There will be further events and more connections to make. We want to find the descendants of the people the Atkinsons met on the steppe and to introduce them to each other once again. This is only the beginning….

We arrived at Lake Alakol late on Saturday evening. The following morning, as the bad weather set in, with constant rain and cloud, we headed for the beach.

Alakol was an important place for Thomas and Lucy. They arrived there after spending around three months exploring the valleys of the seven rivers of the Semirechye region in the summer of 1849. It was the last point at which they would have been able to see the Djungar Alatau mountains before they made their way north towards Barnaul in the Altai region. The German nineteenth century geologist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt had always believed that an island in the middle of the 1,020 square-mile lake, Ul’kun-Aral-Tyube, suggested the lake’s origins had been volcanic. Thomas was able to show that this was not the case.

With little prospect of the weather lifting, the decision was taken to return south to Taldykorgan that evening. The Atkinson descendants had now seen most of the range visited by Thomas and Lucy, and although they had not been able to get high into the mountains, they had at least got a flavour of the terrain and the beauty of this remarkable area.

After the exhilaration of yesterday’s events in Kapal, the 10-strong group of descendants of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson moved on to Sarcand, just outside the Djungar Alatau National Park. The route took them over unmade roads across the Hasford Pass from Arasan to Zhansugarov – a spectacular journey from which they could see the vast extent of the Djungar Alatau chain of mountains. It was exactly the route taken by Thomas and Lucy, along with their six-month-old baby Alatau in the late spring of 1849.

In Sarcand, officials from the national park led the party into the foothills of the mountains, and after crossing the Great and Little Bascan Rivers, they divided into a horseriding group and another group of non-riders who travelled over the rough tracks in vehicles. Their starting point was a section of the Terekte River – known in Thomas and Lucy’s day as the Terric Sou. A picture of this river, painted by Thomas, now hangs in the dining room at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

For those on horseback, a two-hour ride brought them to a cabin high in the apple forests that cover this part of the Djungar Alatau, including the famous wild Sivers apple (Malus siversii), from which all apples are believed to have descended.

Having returned to their starting point, the Atkinson descendants were taken first to an exhibition of local natural products from the park and then on to a celebratory meal. They then left Sarcand for the four-hour drive to Lake Alakool to the north.

This very special day started with a meeting in Taldykorgan with the governor of Almaty region, Mr Amandyk Batalov, who presented the delegation with gifts including a dombra, Kazakhstan’s national musical instrument. Mr Batalov was remarkably well informed about Thomas and Lucy Atkinson and emphasised their importance to the history of Kazakhstan. He told the family members that Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, had taken a personal interest in the story and asked rhetorically if it could be the case that the Atkinson family members were in fact Kazakh citizens, as their ancestor had been born in the country.

After another press conference, the delegation left for Kapal, the town where Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson was born on 4 November 1848. This was the culmination of this very special visit to Kazakhstan and it did not disappoint. The family members were greeted by musicians and singers dressed in national costume, before a magnificent 2-metre granite memorial was unveiled to much applause from the large crowd. After a visit to the Tamchiboulac Spring itself, a pageant recreating the events leading up to Alatau’s birth was enacted by a large number of actors, musicians and dancers. The pictures speak for themselves.

The memorial states: “Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson, the son of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson, who were the first British explorers to come to Kazakhstan in the 19th century, was born here on 4th November 1848.”

After the pageant, we were all invited to a special meal to celebrate the ‘birth’ of Alatau. It was exactly the kind of meal that Kazakh’s prepare for such a festive occasion.

The meal included sheep’s head and horse meat, along with quails, koumiss, laghman, caviar and dozens of specially prepared dishes. It was accompanied by songs and tunes from local musicians. This extraordinary day will long live in the memory of everyone who was there.

At the end of the day, as the Atkinson descendants prepared to make their way across the steppe to the town of Sarcand, there was a moment or two for them to reflect on a truly amazing experience.

No official engagements on the fourth day of this incredible visit by the relatives of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson to Kazakhstan. It started with a visit to the Kasteyev Museum in the morning, where the delegation was shown Kazakh jewellery, textiles and paintings.

That was followed by a visit to the very rateable Arba winery about 75 kms outside Almaty, where they have resurrected vines that were thought destroyed during the Soviet era as part of an anti-drink campaign. Very good wines – red, white and Rose – that are now making an international name for themselves.

Later, we enjoyed a great outdoor meal in the countryside, alongside a fast-running stream, before an arduous six-hour drive to Taldykorgan in the Zhetiysu region.

Day three of the Atkinson descendants’ trip to Kazakhstan was every bit as exciting as the two previous days. Imagine our surprise today when we arrived at Almaty airport from Astana to be greeted by members of the Kazakh Geographical Society – KazGeo – all kitted out in specially made T-shirts and driving a van with this wonderful slogan on the side. It was the beginning of yet again another amazing day.

From the airport we were taken to Shymbulak, an alpine resort (alt.2,300m) above Almaty, where we were given a wonderful lunch.

 

That was followed by a drive to downtown Almaty to the offices of the British Council, where I delivered a speech to launch the book South to the Great Steppe to an enthusiastic meeting of around 60 people. Most of those who attended had heard about the event on social media.

Then it was on to Kok Tobe, on the mountainside above the city, for dinner – and the most incredible thunderstorm many of us had ever witnessed. Trees came down around us and we were forced to take shelter inside whilst the storm raged.

However, it did not stop the celebrations. KazGeo Presidium member Nuridin Tudakhanov presented members of the delegation with wonderful gifts – scarfs for the ladies and chapans and hats for the men.

What an incredible time was had by the delegation of Atkinson relatives in Astana on the second day of their visit to Kazakhstan! A meeting with the mayor of Astana was followed by the launch of South to the Great Steppe at the National Library. Later, there was a visit to the site of Expo 2017, after which the American members of the delegation were hosted at their embassy in the city. Below are a few memorable images from a truly fantastic day:

Amid great excitement, ten descendants of Thomas and Lucy Atkinson arrived in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan this morning, courtesy of Air Astana, on the first stage of their visit to the birthplace of their ancestor, Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson.

The relatives – who live in Hawaii, Florida, New Zealand and England – were greeted by traditional Kazakh musicians and gifts of sweetmeats, local tubeteika hats and felt bags. Mrs Umutkhan Daurenbekovna Munalbayeva, director of the National Academic Library, was present to personally welcome the Atkinson relatives to her country. Pictured above are Mrs Belinda Kapiolani Brown from England and Mrs Molly Kinau Fay from Florida, as they made their way through the terminal at Astana airport.

Later, the group was taken to visit the Museum of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and also the National Museum. Several members of the group were also taken to a meeting with Kazakh prime minister Mr Karim Massimov. He told them how delighted he was that the Atkinson family delegation had arrived in Astana and wished them well for the rest of their journey. As the meeting got underway, one of the relatives, Paul Dahlquist, gave a traditional Hawaiian greeting which was highly appreciated by the gathering. He is a direct descendant of Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson, who settled in Hawaii in 1869.

In a few days the family members will make their way south to Almaty and from there will visit the exact spot where Lucy Atkinson gave birth to her son, Alatau. It promises to be an amazing trip.