Early in 1903 due to a continuing reduction in his financial circumstances, Massey was forced reluctantly to make a last move to a smaller semi-detached house not far from Warminster Road.  At ‘Redcot,’ 46 South Norwood Hill, (now number 24), he settled finally to complete his writing.  Using an upstairs room as a study that overlooked a vista of trees towards the Crystal Palace, he had a speaking tube fitted to connect with the drawing room downstairs.  Before venturing down during the day, this room had to be at a temperature of 60 degrees, so as not to exacerbate his increasingly severe attacks of bronchitis during the winter months.  Compared with the previous two works, his last book took a long while to complete, due to his frequent interruptions by illness.  Because of the unforeseen expense he was compelled in 1904 to apply yet again for a Literary Fund grant.  Supported by John Churton Collins and George St Clair, a member of the Palestine Exploration Society and Society of Authors who had reviewed his Book of the Beginnings favourably in the Modern Review, he received £150.  By July 1906 with his book nearing completion, he was obliged to consider the costs of publication.  The property that had provided him with a small rental had been sold some years earlier, and he was left with the annual £100 Civil List pension as sole source of income.  However, with backing from Dr Albert Churchward and John Tannahill, a previous neighbour from Warminster Road, the Royal Literary Fund allowed him £100 towards the publication of his book.  Author friend James Milne, editor of the Bookman and literary editor of the Daily Chronicle visited him in 1905, and again in early 1907 just as Ancient Egypt was being prepared for publication.  He saw that Massey was cheerful and fresh in mind, although frail and weary.  In comparing the writing of poetry with that of prose, Massey said that he found the writing of verse more exhausting, sometimes spending a night in getting a stanza, though he wrote very little poetry now.  It was necessary to feel a thing vitally before giving it out in words.  Mentioning his visit to Tennyson whom he had met in London when Tennyson was in bed with poor health, he remembered his frank bluntness, almost roughness of his personality which did not seem to agree with the Italian suavity of his poetry.  If he himself had been a poet of society, he might have been supping with duchesses instead of living apart and writing books about the origins of civilisation.  He remembered sending a poem at one time to either the Morning Herald or Standard which replied that although they liked the piece very much, they wanted something milder on the same lines.  They did not get their poem as he always refused to do anything to order.  Concerning his earlier Book of the Beginnings he found a reference to a review [stated to be in the Dutch Litteraturzeitung] by Richard Pietschmann (1851-1927) a German scholar and Egyptologist who had written that:

“This book belongs to the most advanced reconstruction researches, by which it is intended to reduce all language, religion, and thought to one definite historic origin . . . The author, however, differs from all similar writers in that he is an Evolutionist, holding that he who is not, has not begun to think for lack of a starting point . . . This view, of which modern philology has not yet dreamed, has not hitherto had any Egyptian researches brought to bear in its support. This the author saw, and saw also that not only must one be an Egyptologist, but also an Evolutionist, and one of the newer theology.”

    Replying to a question as to his next work, Massey gave a cheerful laugh, and quoted a verse:

Then, as if speaking to himself, he added, ‘In this life or some other.’[23]  There was a hint of regret that he had been unable to devote sufficient time to the younger members of his family:

    In the Norwood area Massey was still regarded as a notable Victorian poet, and just prior to his 79th birthday a reporter from the Norwood News went to obtain an interview.  As Massey did not feel well enough at that time, his daughter Christabel supplied the reporter with a brief history of her father's early life.  Unfortunately Christabel's memory was not always accurate, and the reporter had to supplement his article from the introduction to My Lyrical Life.  The outcome, apart from some publicity, was therefore devoid of any anecdotal interest.[24]  The Daily Mirror also noted that latest period of ill-health which confined him to bed for several weeks, and mentioned that some of his friends were attempting to procure him a grant from the Royal Bounty Fund.[25]

    Ancient Egypt. The Light of the World. A work of reclamation and restitution in twelve books was published on the 30 September 1907, financed in part with his grant from the Literary Fund.  Even so, he could afford only to have 500 copies printed.  Totalling just under a thousand pages, the ‘twelve books’ were subject sections.  The Book of the Beginnings had dealt principally with comparative philology, the Natural Genesis with typology, and he wrote Ancient Egypt as being necessarily more fundamental to the two, being based to a great extent on astronomical mythology and its development through to the Christian religion.  Massey's thesis, as follows, is primarily Afro-Egyptian in foundation.  Postulating that man, who was continually evolving, had his earliest origins in Africa around the area of the great lakes, Tanganyika and Victoria, he considered that there were several migrations via Egypt which gradually extended to Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas.  The earliest was of the paleolithic negroid pygmy people, who were pre-Totemic.  At least two further migrations by Nilotic Negroes followed, who were Totemic, believed in a Great Mother and propitiated elementary (superhuman) powers and ancestral spirits.
 

Gerald Massey in his study at Redcot.  The last year. From Book Monthly, 4, 1907. (The British Library)

    Three other main migrations followed, which could be determined by the type of myth they had developed up to that time.[26]  At the beginning when the earliest myths were shaped in the equatorial region, when heaven rested on the earth, there was equal division of night and day, thus making the first division of a circle.  This tradition was maintained in the Egyptian ‘Book of the Dead’ where the twelve hours of darkness were imaged by twelve gates of the underworld in Amenta.  The pole stars were on the two horizons, with the risings and settings of the stars being vertical.  During northward migration the heaven of that pole, or tree, would appear to rise up from the mount of earth, while the southern pole star and constellations would sink below the south horizon—an astronomical ‘deluge’ or ‘fall from heaven’—the beginning of sign language constellated in the stars.

    Passage of time was reckoned by the precession and circling of the seven pole stars, represented by the seven souls of the god Ra, and the seven steps for ascending heaven which the souls climbed to reach their eternal rest among the never setting stars.[27]  This imagery was maintained in the book of seven seals in Revelation, the Watchers in the Book of Enoch, the seven footsteps of Buddha, the seven Stations of the Cross, etc.  The northern heaven, therefore, depicted the Egyptians' primeval homeland in objective uranographic picture form.  Another example of the duality present in Egyptian representation was that of the water cow, the mother of earth.  Symbolised in part as a thigh, it was constellated in the northern heavens both as the place of birth on earth, and rebirth in heaven.  It is important in following Massey's thesis to remember that many of the Egyptians' earliest representation of forms of power were as zootypes.  Therefore the serpent was later translated in mythology as a form of renewal, and developed in the eschatology as eternal life.  The jackal was the seer in the dark, and became the guide of the soul in death.  Similarly, the hawk became the soul of the sun, and later Ra, the divine spirit.  Solar-based mythology developed to denote the subterranean path of the nocturnal sun.  The soul's road to the heaven of eternity was now through, and not round, the subterranean earth, which now had a firmament - the celestial water—both above and below it.  One pillar supported the firmament above the earth, another below.  There was therefore a dual plan, both stellar and solar, upon which the Egyptian temples were built.  The soul travelled through twelve gates, corresponding to the twelve hours of darkness, from the gate of glory at sunset with a first weighing and judgement of the soul in the great hall of Amenta, to the gate of glory at sunrise.  By means of the Milky Way the soul travels by boat, climbing a ladder of seven steps—figured on earth in the seven-stepped pyramid of Saqqara—to join another boat for the final journey to the circumpolar paradise.

    The pyramid, as a form of mount by which the soul ascends to heaven, is represented also by the Great Pyramid, where the north shaft in the king's chamber showed the way to heaven, focused on the then pole star Alpha Draconis, and above the constellation Cassiopeia.  The Sphinx is a commemorative and representative image of the solar god of the ‘double horizon’, or two equinoxes.  Humanly male in front, and female as a lion behind, it shows the Pharaoh as the lion-image of solar glory.  It is a compound image of the mother earth, and young god whom she brought forth upon the horizon of the resurrection.  Massey considered that the Sphinx, or an earlier representation built on the same site, was older than the pyramids.[28] Identification of Egyptian deities as gods, goddesses and zootypes that are depicted in the constellations can be made in the Dendera zodiac which, although drawn by Greeks, are earlier Egyptian in type.

    Identified with the last division of heaven into twelve parts are the Sumerian legends of the solar Gilgames, the Greek twelve labours of Hercules, and the voyages of Jason and the Argonauts.  The journey of the soul from human death to eternal life has many parallels in world mythology, and formed the basis for development of religious eschatology.  All the Egyptian religious writings are therefore of particular interest during the Middle Eastern diaspora with its fusion of Greek and Semitic systems.  This is particularly so in the development of Christianity, with specific regard to the influence of the Egypto-Gnostics.

    Massey considered that the Egyptian ‘Book of the Dead’, although being the latest development of Egyptian religious belief and solar based, combined some of the previous modes of thought illustrated in the earliest pyramid texts and intermediate coffin texts.  It became ultimately the Egyptian book of life, and the pre-Christian word of God.

    There were only a few reviews of his book, which he did not live to see. Nature, in common with reviews of his earlier works, dwelt on his philology which they thought particularly suspect, and suggested, strangely, that he had not read deeply enough.  It considered his statement that mythology was not to be fathomed to its depth by means of the folk-tales in Frazer's Golden Bough, did not accord the right of Massey to criticize Mr Frazer.[29]  Massey had commented in vol. II, p. 672 that “… mythology is not to be fathomed in or by a folk-tale, and the Golden Bough is but a twig of the great tree of mythology and sign-language - a twig without its root … it was hailed as if it had plumbed the depths instead of merely extending the superficies …”  Massey continued, giving examples of comparisons.  In vol. I, p.9 and in his ‘A Retort’ (Lectures, ‘The Seven Souls of Man’, 1887), he replies, very abrasively to critical comments made by William Coleman, Prof. Le Page Renouf and Prof. A.H. Sayce.  He had already presented his theories, which he had taken a stage earlier in time than Fraser, that in the most primitive phase mythology is a mode of representing certain elemental powers by means of living types that were superhuman, like phenomena in nature. Mythology exhibits a series of types as the representatives of certain natural forces from which the earliest gods were evolved.  How these were thought and expressed of old in this language constitute the primary stratus of what is called ‘Mythology’ today.  Early man made use of things to express their thoughts, and those things became symbols, the beginnings of gesture sign-language by imitation being earlier than words.  Myths were founded upon natural phenomena and remain the register of the earliest scientific observation.  Massey treats mythology as the mirror of prehistoric sociology (Natural Genesis, I, xiv and section I).  A brief mention in the New York Times noted his wide knowledge and elaborate treatment.[30]  The review by George St Clair, for the Literary Guide, complained yet again about his philological renderings, particularly on his interpretation of Hebrew proper names.[31]

    Presentiment that his work had been completed became reality only a few weeks later.  On 9 October he developed pneumonia.

    Despite the devoted attention of his daughter Christabel and the aid of Dr Churchward, he succumbed gradually to exhaustion and died on 29 October.  Obituaries in the Athenæum, Literary Guide, Daily News, Times and Two Worlds all praised his poetry.[32]  The Literary Guide made brief favourable note of his subversions of the Christian faith, and Two Worlds focused on his Spiritualistic activities.  At local level, the Norwood News summarised his life, and considered that the moral of his life was the power of genius to triumph over the most adverse circumstances.  From the Town Hall, Croydon, H. Keatley Moore mentioned that when the library purchased Massey's Ancient Egypt, he autographed the copy and wrote a verse for them, adding that it was not every borough that could boast of a living poet amongst its burgesses … [33]  The following week a local resident, A. R. Speake, sent a poem in praise of Massey:

THE STAR OF EVE MAY SET BUT HOW IT
SHINES THE STAR OF MORNING NOW
AND SMILES WITH LOOK OF LOVE THAT DRIES
ALL TEARS FROM OUR UPLIFTED EYES.

    The funeral, a quiet family affair with about fifteen people being present, took place in Southgate Cemetery on the 4 November.  Mrs Massey together with her daughters and a few friends arrived in two carriages, and the coffin with twelve wreaths was carried straight to the grave where James Milne, at Christabel's request, gave a brief address prior to the interment.  An epitaph added later by the family referred to Massey as ‘Poet, Author, Spiritualist, Egyptologist’, and his uncompromising allegiance to the Spiritualist's view of death by the inscription, ‘Born May 29 1828.  Reborn October 29 1907’.[35]

    Massey's will, made on 13 October, witnessed by Dr Churchward and a neighbour, disclosed the extent to which he had been reduced financially. The Leader reporting his death had commented:

If the late Gerald Massey had lived in Johnson's time, he would probably have incurred, as Milton had done, the Doctor's ungenerous condemnation, by doing what the Doctor himself did—accepting aid from the state.  Few men could claim to have earned their modest Civil List Pension more thoroughly than Massey … [36]

    But the annual Civil List pension ceased with his death, and his wife and three unmarried daughters, two of whom were invalids, found that they had £106 0s 1d (in today's value this would be equivalent to some £6,000) to live on for an indefinite period.  Acting on the advice that had been suggested to them just prior to their father's death, they applied for a grant from the Royal Bounty Fund and, in January 1908, were awarded £200 by the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman.[37]  The following March, Christabel made application for assistance to the Royal Literary Fund.  She received strong backing from James Milne and Claude Montefiore, and sent the committee a copy of review extracts from a circular issued for one of Massey's lecturing tours.  The Literary Fund responded with a final grant of £100.

    Earlier that year, James Robertson of Glasgow; a Spiritualist friend, had suggested that a subscription fund be commenced on behalf of Massey's widow and daughters.  They were hardly in a position to refuse.  Robertson commenced this in May by making a personal donation of £10, distributing a printed circular to friends, and publicising the fund in Two Worlds.[38]  The subscription was headed by the Bounty Fund grant, and it was hoped that a sum in excess of £1,000 would be donated in order to provide the family with a small yearly income.  Although the final total of the subscription has not been traced, it is likely that the target figure was reached.

    Christabel and the family remained in ‘Redcot’ until 1912, when Massey's widow Eva, and daughters Maybyrn, Cecilia and Evelyn moved to 43 Casewick Road, Norwood.  Maybyrn died of tuberculosis on 22 June, 1919.  Due to Eva's increasing senility, Christabel joined them in 1923 but the family was unable to cope.  Eva was then placed in a nursing home at 129 Tulse Hill, where she died on 12 March 1924.  She was buried in her husband's grave at Southgate, but is unnamed in epitaph, due probably to the family's straitened financial circumstances.  Cecilia died of pleurisy on 30 November 1932 at 7 Stodart Road, Penge, where she had moved with Christabel following Eva's death, and Christabel died at 214 Anerley Road, Penge, on 24 February 1934 from chronic bronchitis (for an article by her see under Christabel Massey in the Miscellanea section).  Massey's last daughter, Evelyn, who was living then with her daughter Helena at 26 Palace Road, Streatham, died in Weir Hospital, Balham, on 1 June 1940 of lung cancer.  Following the death of Helena on 26 February 1988, Massey's direct line had come to an end.

    Of Massey's (known) siblings - additional information to the Family Tree diagram:

•     Edwin was the brother whom Massey had referred as “never able to look after himself.”  Following a few years in the army, he became an itinerant hawker, dying in the Union Workhouse, Lincoln, on 1 February 1904.  His death certificate states that he was “accidentally killed by being knocked down by Pony and Cart”.  Edwin appears to have had 4 children—Elizabeth, b 1856, Mary, b. 1862, Joseph, b. 1867, Lydia, b. 1870, none of whom are believed to have reached adulthood.  The last record of Edwin's wife, Mary, is in the 1901 Census which shows her an inmate of the Berkhamsted workhouse.
   

•     Frederick, then 68 years, appears in the 1901 census as a “Ladies' Hatter”, a job that seems appropriate taking account of the importance in Tring, during his childhood, of straw plaiting to the nearby Dunstable and Luton-based straw hat industry.  In 1901 he lived at 2 Draper Street, Newington, London, with his wife, daughter and two in-laws.  Frederick died of pneumonia in Forest Hill, London on 10 November, 1910.  He had 10 children including 4 sons—Frederick William, b. 1859 (he set up the cab drivers' union in South London), Henry, b. 1861, Thomas Jerrold, b. 1864, and Percy, b. 1882 (died in infancy).
   

•     Henry Massey is recorded in the 1861 Census as an “Author in Prose”, but no publications have been traced.  At that time he was staying with the Massey family in Rickmansworth, but does not appear to have been resident in that locality.  Henry died of pulmonary tuberculosis in Marylebone, London, on 12 July, 1875, the occupation entered on his death certificate being a "painter's labourer".  He appears to have had 3 children —  William, b.1867, Percy, b.1872 and Bertha, b. 1873.

    Of Massey's other known relatives of the time, the 1861 census shows Elizabeth Massey, a niece then aged six (Edwin's daughter), staying at Tring Wharf with Massey's parents.  Born in Sydenham, no registration has been traced.  Another niece, Adelaide Massey (Frederick's daughter), aged 39 and described as an “Assistant High School Mistress”, is listed in the 1891 Census staying with the Massey family in London.

Photo, thought to be of Frederick Massey,
one of Gerald Massey's brothers.
(Photo: Heather Massey.)

    There is no major holding of Massey's correspondence, which is dispersed in UK and American libraries.  The Location Register of 20th Century English Literary Mss (British Library, 1988) is incomplete and the 1995 edition contains no further Massey entries.  All other items of relevance have been sourced and are cited in footnotes.

    Two references to Massey are made in areas in which he had resided.  Grove Road, Southgate, has an entrance to the New Southgate Roundabout named ‘Massey Close’, at the corner of which are ‘Massey Close Flats’.  The original houses and Baptist Chapel in the road have been demolished.  The name of Massey is remembered also in his native town of Tring, where a luxury block of flats in Brook Street—not far from the Silk Mill in which Massey was employed as a child—is named Massey House in his honour.  From 2005 the Tring and District Residents' Association commenced funding an annual Lyric Poetry Competition open to pupils at Tring School.  The winner accepts the ‘Gerald Massey Prize for Lyric Poetry’.  At his last residence in Norwood it is hoped that the borough will eventually provide a commemorative plaque under their Croydon Heritage Plaques Scheme.

    A number of Massey's early, more pious poems were incorporated for use as hymns, including number 47 in the Labour Church Hymn Book, 313 in Songs of Praise, and three in the Spiritualists Hymn Book.  A slightly altered verse from his poem ‘Today and Tomorrow’ was used by the Welsh miners' Cambrian Combine Strike Committee in their manifesto of 1911.[39]  In 1915 his poem ‘That Merry, Merry May’ was set to music by Christabel Baxendale (Ricordi & Co.).  See also fn. 39 for further listings of his poems that were set to music.

    No evidence of a Spiritualistic post-mortem communication has been found, although he did appear some years later in front of his grand-daughter—in the form of a motto in a Xmas cracker:

While this would no doubt have appealed to Massey's sense of humour, his grand-daughter was constrained to comment, ‘How have the mighty fallen!’ Following that, he put in an even more physical appearance as the subject of a cigarette card.

This was one of a series of personalities issued by Cousis & Co., Malta in the early 1900's.  The picture was part of a larger one published in England in the late 1890's.

[Chapter 9]


NOTES
 

1.

Medium and Daybreak, 17 Jun. 1887, 377-8.

2.

Ibid. 22 Jun. 1887, 454-5.

3.

The Great Cryptogram: Francis Bacon's cipher in the so-called Shakespeare plays by Ignatius Donnelly, 2 vols. (London, Sampson Low, 1888). In support of the cypher theory in the plays, see also E. Johnson's Shakespearean Acrostics (London, Cornish, 1942).  Against the theory, see W. and E. Friedman's The Shakespearean Cyphers Examined (Cambridge, U.P., 1957).

    So far (at least) as the Sonnets are concerned, Massey was unequivocal in “Admitting as we all do that Shakspeare wrote his Sonnets  …”

    Delia Bacon's (unsigned) article, William Shakespeare and his Plays; an Inquiry concerning them appeared in Putnam's Magazine, Vol. VII., January—July, 1856 (pp 1-19).  Following publication of her first article, the magazine received such negative comment and criticism that the proposed series did not materialize.  Delia Bacon later published her theories that Shakespeare was authored by Sir Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser (receiving some support from, among others, Ralph Waldo Emerson) in The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded (London, Groombridge, 1857).  She died in 1859.  The politician William H. Smith also wrote a book on the theory that Bacon authored Shakespeare. Bacon and Shakespeare: an Inquiry … (London, Smith, 1857).  The “Oxford" theory of Shakespearean authorship was apparently first proposed by J. T. Looney in his ‘Shakespeare’ identified in Edward De Vere, the seventeenth earl of Oxford (New York, Stokes, 1920).  Looney's theories regarding de Vere promoted, in 1957, the establishment of the ‘Oxford Society’, which has since gained many supporters.

    Scholarly theories continue to be published that assign differing authorship to Shakespeare's works, either complete or in part. In his large work on the Sonnets (The Monument: Shake-Speares Sonnets, Meadow Geese Press, Mass. USA., 2005), Hank Whittemore identifies the author of the Sonnets as Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, whose objective in writing them was to preserve a record of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.  In Whittemore's view, Henry Wriothesley was the unacknowledged son of Edward de Vere and Elizabeth I, and thus had the right to be King Henry IX of England, a claim that would have been treasonable unless concealed within the historical parts of the Sonnets.  Whittemore identifies the “Fair Youth” as Southampton and the “Dark Lady” as Elizabeth I (whereas Massey identifies Lady Penelope Rich, sister of the Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, as the Dark Lady).

    The authors of The Truth Will Out. Unmasking the Real Shakespeare (Brenda James and William Rubenstein, Longman, 2005) claim a new contender, Sir Henry Neville, wrote Shakespeare's works.  They assert also that Neville addressed the ‘Dedication to the Sonnets’ to Southampton, identifying him as the ‘Mr. W.H.’, the mysterious dedicatee of the work, and that ‘Mr. W.H.’ was Neville's affectionate nickname for Southampton.

    To Shakespeareans, all scholarly theories on authorship have their own validity and, as such, are worthy of some attention rather than outright dismissal.  While such theories continue to cast some doubt on the subject, until positive supporting primary material is discovered they remain a matter of interesting speculation.

4.

Punch, 95, (10 Nov. 1888), 221.  Donnelly did not wilt too much.  In 1899 he published The Cipher in the Plays and on the Tombstone [of Shakespeare] (London, Low).

5.

St. James' Gazette, 7 Jan. 1889, 7.

6.

Quoted in Medium and Daybreak, 5 Feb. 1892, 91.

7.

Times Literary Supplement, 30 Oct. 1937, 803. Massey's remarks are on p.420 and in fn. 163 of his Shakspeare's Sonnets.

8.

National Review, 12 Oct. 1888, 238-59.

9a.

See the Daily Chronicle, 28 May 1888, 5, and 18 Sep. 1888, 3.

9b.

(i) W.H. Cundy was a printer and publisher in Washington Street, Boston. During Massey's first American tour, Massey was hosted at a meeting of the Franklin Typographical Association in 1874. Cundy was then president of the society. (ii) The reference to which Massey refers is not clear. His 10 lectures had been published privately in 1887.  (iii) The Shakspeare book to which he refers would be his Secret Drama of Shakspeare's Sonnets, 1888.

10.

Cited in Banner of Light, 17 Nov. 1888. Lecture report in the issue of 24 Nov.

11.

Banner of Light, 15 Dec. 1888, 4. H.P. Blavatsky's journal Lucifer, 1888, vol. III, 74-78 under 'Gerald Massey in America' gives the titles of these lectures.

12.

Athenæum, 9 Nov. 1889, 629-30.

13.

Saturday Review, 31 Aug. 1889, 245-6.

14.

Medium and Daybreak, 17 Apr. 1891, 247, and 24 Apr. 264.

15.

Ibid. 10 Nov. 1893, 709-10.

16.

Thomas Lake Harris' Hymns of Spiritual Devotion (New York, 1857) referenced in Massey's Concerning Spiritualism, 20-21.

17.

Memoirs of a Social Atom, op. cit., 1, 161-2.

18.

The Harney Papers, letter 214. Massey's inscribed copy of My Lyrical Life that he sent to Harney is in Vanderbilt University Library.

19.

Harney's biography is excellently presented by A. R. Schoyen in The Chartist Challenge (London, Heinemann, 1958). John Saville's introduction to the reprint of Harney's Red Republican and Friend of the People 2 vols. (London, Merlin, 1966) also has much information.

20.

The Bookman, Nov. 1897, 33-36.

21.

Ibid. Jan. 1898, 121-24.

22.

British Library Add. Mss. 4644 1.f. 154.

23.

Book Monthly, 2, (Jul. 1905), 703-6. 4, (Sep. 1907), 845-51. (Referred to also, and expanded in an article by W. H.Simpson in Two Worlds, 7 May 1906.)

24.

Norwood News, 25 May 1907, 5.

25.

Daily Mirror, 21 May 1907, 4.

26.

See Churchward, Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man (op. cit.) 437, for a chart of these proposed migrations. See also his Origin and Evolution of the Human Race (1921). He closely follows, and summarises Massey.

27.

Massey used the (then) up-to-date information in Sir J. Norman Lockyer's Dawn of Astronomy (London, Cassell, 1894), the first book to demonstrate an astronomical basis in Egyptian temples. Massey reprinted the diagram on p. 127 showing the precession of the equinoxes. In a letter to Lockyer dated 30 June 1906 written by his daughter Christabel and signed by him, he requested permission to publish that and two other diagrams. Ms. Exeter University.

28.

Ancient Egypt, 1, 336-39.

29.

Nature, 77 (30 Jan. 1908), 291-2.

30.

New York Times, 15 Feb. 1908, 89.

31.

Literary Guide, 1 Feb. 1908, 21-22.

32.

Athenæum, 2 Nov. 1907, 553. Literary Guide, 1 Dec. 1907, 183 and 187-8. Daily News, 31 Oct. 1907, 4. Times, 30 Oct. 1907, 8. Two Worlds, 8 Nov. 1907, 558-9.

33.

Norwood News, 2 Nov. 1907, 8.

34.

Ibid. 9 Nov. 1907, 3.

35.

Grave No. W.164. The grave was initially prepared and used for Massey's daughter, Hesper, as the main headstone depicts. See photo.

36.

The Leader; 30 Oct. 1907, 3.

37.

Acknowledgement in British Library Add. Mss. 412401.215.

38.

Two Worlds, 8 May, 1908, 23 1.

39.

Benn, Tony, (ed.) Writings on the Wall. A Radical and Socialist Anthology 1215-1984 (London, Faber, 1984), 157. The poem was used in the context of a manifesto by the South Wales miners, 16 June 1911, in their minimum wage dispute. Further poems of Massey's that have been set to music are held at the following Libraries (see also 'Sheet Music' under Miscellanea):

• No Jewelled Beauty is my Love, poetry by Gerald Massey. This is a single copy of 'In Happy Moments' ballad, from W. Vincent Wallace's Grand Opera Maritana performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and dated 1845. The original words by Edward Fitzball have been covered in manuscript by part of the first two verses of Massey's 'No Jewelled Beauty is my Love.' The top of the score carries the citation: 'The Poetry of this Ballad is by Gerald Massey Esq.r'. This copy of the Ballad was obtained by the British Library in 1873, and the origin and date of the copy is not known. British Library Shelfmark H 1654.q.(14). Photocopy in The Gerald Massey Collection, Upper Norwood Joint Library.

• Before Sebastopol, poetry by Gerald Massey, music by Joseph Frederick Leeson. Published by J. Purdie, Edinburgh; Chappell, London, c. 1855. (British Library).

• Desolate, music by Flora, published by Chappell & Co, London, 1875 (Cambridge University Library).

• A Maiden's Song, music by William Shepherd, published by Weekes & Co, London, 1877 (Cambridge University Library).

• O! Clasp thy hands little one, music by Beta, published by Metzler & Co, London 1877 (Cambridge University Library).

• That merry, merry, May, music by Charles W. Thomas, published by Novello, Ewer & Co, 1878 (Cambridge University Library).

• The People's Advent: a new Quartette for the Times. Words by Gerald Massy [sic]; music by James G. Clark. (1830-1897). Published by H.M. Higgins, Chicago c. 1864. (Rare Books & Special Collections Division, Library of Congress). Copy available in the Gerald Massey Collection, Upper Norwood Joint Library.

• Together. Song for Medium Voice. Words by Gerald Massey, music by J.A. Parks, published by J.A. Parks Co, York, Nebraska. (Kilgore Memorial Library, York, Nebraska.)

• Down in Australia. Two-part song. Words by Gerald Massey, music by Clara Angela Macirone. Published by J. Curwen & Sons, London, 1903 (British Library).

40.

From the first verse of his poem 'The Welcome Home.'