tive panels. One such decoration was made for the Duke of Bedford’s dairies at Woburn; another, in which the tiles were used with startling success, was planned by Mr. Halsey Ricardo for Mr. Ernest Debenham’s house in Addison Road. The decoration of the steamships was of a late period, the first work of the sort having been done for the Tsar’s yacht Livadia, years before. Six liners were thus decorated, the Arabic, the Palawan, the Sumatra, the China, the Malta, and the Persia. De Morgan wrote of some of these designs: ‘My pictures represent a voyage of a ship round the world and all the strange dangers she meets with. First she runs on a rock—then an earthquake shakes her off—then I propose to do her dangers from the Sirens and the Sea Serpent, only the Sea Serpent will also be attracted by the Sirens and eat them—so the ship will get off scot free....’ De Morgan’s Italian work had no connexion, as is sometimes supposed, with the Cantagalli works in Florence, beyond the fact that certain experimental pieces were fired for him there, and that a few were painted and produced from his design.
There is a large collection of De Morgan’s drawings and plans in the Victoria and Albert Museum, given by his wife before her death (1919). Among the designs are many fugitive sketches full of spontaneity and movement, and of humour too. Superb as is the achievement of the pottery, the drawings themselves should be studied to realize to the full the quality of De Morgan’s work. His love for the sea shows itself in many of these designs which give curious effects of transparencies and imaginative renderings of the ‘depths of the sea’. There are some fine examples of his work in the ceramic galleries of the museum.
De Morgan had a strong scientific bent, and all through his life took pleasure in problems and experiments mostly in connexion with his work. One of his inventions was a mill for grinding clay for the pottery to an extreme fineness; in fact, as Mr. Ricardo says, ‘the factory was equipped with machinery (for power), and the ovens, kilns, mills, and the appliances were built and devised under his superintendence and from his designs. His power of invention was boundless: almost every article and tool in the place was the outcome of his observation and invention.’
De Morgan had great personal charm and a sweetness of nature that endeared him to all. With a level and sober judgement on men and events, he was never known to speak bitterly, talking of people with whom he had troublesome dealings with a quaint indulgence of human weakness. He was full of jokes and quips, but the streak of tragedy that seemed to cling to the De Morgan family was at times apparent in himself. William was the only one of the large family that lived to old age; these losses and the shadow of ill-health could not fail to leave their mark. He wrote to a relative some three years before his death: ‘You know, I daresay, how queer a life I have had. I was seized with the unhappy fancy that I had a turn for the Fine Arts. I paid no heed to the wisest and best man I have ever known—my father of course—and went my own headstrong way. His words to me were, “If you work hard and read, Willy, especially Latin and Greek, you will live to write something worth reading. But as to painting, how can I tell, knowing nothing of it.” Well! I went my own way and wasted an odd 40 or 50 years. All one can say is, things have turned out better than I deserved. I put a good deal of myself into Charles Heath in Alice-for-Short.’
A portrait of De Morgan, painted by his wife in 1909, was bequeathed by the artist to the National Portrait Gallery. De Morgan is shown in full face, clasping an iridescent jar made by himself.
[Mrs. A. M. W. Stirling, William De Morgan and his Wife, 1922; private information; personal knowledge.]
DENNEY, JAMES (1856-1917), theologian, was born at Paisley 5 February 1856, and was brought up at Greenock, whither his family removed when he was four months old. He came of Cameronian stock; his father, John Denney, who was a joiner, was a deacon in the Reformed Presbyterian Church. His mother’s maiden name was Barr. James Denney was their eldest son. In 1876 the family, with the great majority of the members of the denomination, joined the Free Church of Scotland. He attended the Highlanders’ Academy, Greenock, where for four years he served as a pupil teacher, with John Davidson [q.v.], the poet, for a colleague. He entered the university of Glasgow in November 1874, where he had a brilliant career in classics under (Sir) Richard C. Jebb, in philosophy under Edward Caird. He graduated in 1879. He studied theology at the Glasgow Free Church college under James S. Candlish, Alexander Balmain Bruce, and
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