Journal of a tour of Palestine containing landscape and architectural sketches by the wealthy Catholic priest Anthony Hutchison as he visited the holy places in 1857, with an eye for the history and culture of the towns, villages, synagogues and mosques that he visited, and their inhabitants. A friend and London-based supporter of John Henry Newman’s mission (Hutchison was ordained at Brompton Oratory and helped to purchase its site) but still only in his 30s, Hutchison had by the mid 1850s spent £30,000 on charitable causes but finding himself no longer able to administer the ragged schools in Holborn and Drury Lane due to ill health, he journeyed to the Holy Land.
Hutchison describes how he found himself in the company of the Bishop of Pennsylvania during the boat journey from Malta, landing in ‘Jaffa’ - modern day Tel Aviv - before travelling across modern day Israel via numerous stopping off points - Tyre, Sidon, Sanur, Nablus, Jenin, and Tiberias to Nazareth, today’s Bethlehem.
This substantial journal is written in two formats: first there are Hutchison’s scribbled notes and sketches made hour by hour (often with timings - ‘6.45 camped just after sunset’) as he travelled usually by mule (and it shows in his handwriting). These include interpolated sketches such as ‘Joseph’s Tomb’ and ‘Sam[uel] Synag[ogue] did not enter but boy brought the roll of the law to the door kept in a brass case [sketch] The parchment was not very old; the writing very clear and black’. There are sketches of mountains, buildings and Tiberias itself seen from across Galilee. These accounts which form the bulk of the manuscript offer further research potential as the text is detailed, interwoven with drawings but at times difficult to parse as Hutchison weaves his way through the landscape and towns. There are also more considered pieces of writing made in an easily legible hand, presumably written at a desk, which include his lyrical account of ‘Jenin - sunset view. On right the town with Mosque… gardens thick with foliage run from town Westward, among the trees a few palms’ that can continue over several pages.
Hutchison’s sketches are made in pencil but the more ambitious efforts such as the double page spread of Tyre have been over-drawn in pen. Alongside the landscapes (such as ‘Tell Hattin’ - Horns of Hattin) are architectural sketches - the ‘E End of Great church at Tyre’ - and plans that include his drawing of St Peter’s Church, Tiberias which he paced out after he drew it: ‘1 altar in painted apse… 16 paces long & 2 for apse, 6 wide, painted roof. Convent very small recently rebuilt only room for one Fratre - but they intend enlarging it.’
Written from the other end of the journal are practical notes which include post times to England times, useful phrases; notes on staying with ‘Mr Heald Beyrout’ - Beirut ‘Money.. Price for Mules per day, Tobacco... about passports fr. Consul.’ Hutchison even sets himself a question to answer during his visit: ‘What was the mount where He [Christ] appeared after resurrection. S Matt. 28’ - the answer usually offered is Mount Arbel.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Small oblong notebook (7.5cmx12.5cm) bound in dark maroon roan with a working clasp; recently restored with spine renewed and corners strengthened. Marbled endpapers and stationer’s label for ‘TJ & J Smith’s… Metallic Paper Memorandum Book’ followed by two pages of price lists. Pocket to lower pastedown. Hutcheson writes mostly in pencil, using the pages in portrait format except when sketching landscapes. There are 72 leaves, 144 pages, c6000 words with numerous sketches throughout.
PROVENANCE: ‘rough notebook used by Father Anthony Hutchison during his tour in the east and visits to Loreto and Nazareth in 1857 - given to Bro[ther] Vincent by Father Felix Philpin de Riviere in August 17 1902’.
FATHER ANTHONY HUTCHISON was the son of George Hutchison, cashier in the Bank of England, who was received into the Roman Catholic Church on 21 December 1845 and ordained a priest in 1847, becoming a member of the Congregation of the Oratory in London’s Brompton Road. He was a close friend of Father Frederick William Faber and of John Henry Newman, later Cardinal Newman - there is surviving correspondence as well as records of their friendship. Responsible in part for securing the site of the Brompton Oratory, Father Antony Hutchison suffered from poor health from at least 1855, possibly resulting from a tumour at the base of his brain, he died, aged 40, on 12 July 1863, at the Oratory, Brompton.
