Social Victorians/People/Poynter

Also Known As

• Family name: Poynter
• Knighted 1896
• Baronet Poynter
  • Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Bt. (24 July 1902 – 26 July 1919)
  • Sir Ambrose Macdonald Poynter, 2nd Bt. (26 July 1919 – 1923)
  • Sir Hugh Edward Poynter, 3rd Bt. (1923–1968)

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Edward John Poynter

• Frederick Leighton
• James McNeill Whistler
• George du Maurier's Trilby: "The picture of the old student life in Paris (Sir Edward says) is very faithful, except that there was no 'Trilby.'" (7)

Organizations

Edward John Poynter

• Royal Academy
  • Associate (1869)
  • Member (c. 1877)
  • President (1893–1918)
• Director, National Gallery of British Art (later, the Tate Gallery (1894–1904)

"PRA" — Edward Poynter — by "Spy," Vanity Fair 4 March 1897

Timeline

1866 August 9, Edward John Poynter and Agnes Macdonald married in a double wedding with her sister Louisa Macdonald and Alfred Baldwin.

1897 July 2, Sir Edward Poynter (#546 on the list of people who were present) attended the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball.

Costume at the Duchess of Devonshire's 2 July 1897 Fancy-dress Ball

Sir Edward Poynter was "Notable" "as Titian" at the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball. His wife Agnes Macdonald Poynter is not mentioned in any newspaper accounts of the ball, but that does not mean she was not there.

A caricature of Poynter (right) was published in the 4 March 1897 issue of Vanity Fair. By Leslie Ward ("Spy"), the portrait is Number 675 in Vanity Fair's series of "Men of the Day." The title of the image, PRA, may refer to Poynter being the President of the Royal Academy.

Sir Edward John Poynter's portrait of "Susan Margaret (née MacKinnon), Duchess of Somerset as Jane, Queen of England, wife to King Henry VIII and mother to King Edward VI" in her costume for the ball is #261 in the album presented to the Duchess of Devonshire and now in the National Portrait Gallery.

Demographics

• Nationality: British

Family

• Sir Edward John Poynter, 1st Bt. (20 March 1836 – 26 July 1919)
• Agnes Macdonald (1843–1906)
  1. Sir Ambrose Macdonald Poynter, 2nd Bt. (1867–1923)
  2. Sir Hugh Edward Poynter, 3rd Bt. (1882–1968)
  3. [third child]

Relations

• Agnes Macdonald's sisters were important in the community of artists (but not apparently in the social networks of the Prince of Wales or the Duchess of Devonshire):
  • Georgiana Macdonald and Edward Burne-Jones married on 9 June 1860.
  • Alice Macdonald and John Lockwood Kipling married in March 1865 (Rudyard Kipling was their son).
  • Writer Louisa Macdonald and Alfred Baldwin married on 2 July 1866.
• Edward John Poynter's sister was translator Clara Courtenay Bell (1834–1927), whose social network overlapped Poynter's and who had prominence in her own right. (Citing The Oxford History of Literary Translators in English.)

Notes and Questions

1. Sir Edward Poynter was at the ball, so where was Agnes Poynter?