Sir George

Sir George is the Bailey family figure whose papers and responses connect Maud Bailey and Roland Michell’s research to the family history of Christabel LaMotte. He is consequential less as a visible participant than as a custodian and source: the researchers wait for him before deciding what to do, while the surviving archive associated with LaMotte reaches Maud through generations of women in her family.

Identity and Archival Role

Sir George is linked to materials relevant to the investigation of LaMotte and Ash, including family papers and evidence that Maud and Roland hope to pursue. His absence is tangible: after the researchers send their thanks in January, they hear nothing further from him for a time. They agree not to disclose their discoveries or take further action until they either hear from him or meet again. Their pause shows how scholarly inquiry depends not only on interpretation but also on access to privately held records and on the cooperation of their custodians.

The archive’s history is described by Maud through the Bailey family. When LaMotte died in 1890, her sister Sophia sent papers to her daughter May, Maud’s great-great-grandmother. Sophia’s accompanying letter reportedly said that LaMotte had wished May to receive her papers and poems, and believed in passing such things down through the female line. The transfer preserved manuscripts and poems within the family, although May appears to have shown little interest in them. The family’s custody thus safeguarded the material without guaranteeing that it would be studied or carefully maintained.

The Family Archive and Its Gaps

The surviving collection is modest but significant: manuscripts of LaMotte’s tales, undated lyrics on loose scraps, repeated revisions of Melusina, a commonplace book, a few letters from friends, and a three-year diary by Blanche Glover. Maud explains that LaMotte rewrote Melusina at least eight times, continually changing it. The papers had been associated with LaMotte’s desk and were entrusted to the archive by Maud after she persuaded her father to allow their deposit. The record is incomplete; the family cannot say whether there were once more papers, and none beyond those known has surfaced.

That incompleteness matters to the investigation. Maud says LaMotte almost certainly kept no journal and had advised a niece against habitual self-examination, arguing instead for ordering thought into art or living within daily obligations. Elsewhere, Maud considers whether Ellen Ash destroyed letters to protect private life: although Mortimer Cropper attributes some burnings to Patience and Faith, Maud believes Ellen may have burned them, and notes that some were buried with her. Such uncertainty makes the archive a history of decisions as well as a store of documents: inheritance, neglect, concealment, and destruction all determine what later scholars can know.

Custody, Silence, and Consequence

Sir George’s delayed response leaves Maud and Roland in suspense while their professional and personal circumstances continue. Maud has taught a difficult term; Roland has applied for posts in Hong Kong, Barcelona, and Amsterdam, with little confidence that he will be appointed. Their agreement to wait for Sir George or for another meeting binds their next steps to a family source whose silence they cannot interpret. The episode gives archival access a practical consequence: the researchers’ work is shaped by the timing and willingness of those who control or mediate the evidence.

The broader family history also exposes the fragility of transmission. Sophia’s papers passed to May amid strained relations between the families, reportedly connected to the disapproval of a first-cousin marriage by the then Sir George. Sophia nevertheless sent the papers and expressed hope that they would be kept safely. Maud’s later archival work continues that transfer, placing LaMotte’s manuscripts and other surviving materials in a Women’s Studies Resource Centre. Sir George’s significance lies in this network of custody and dependence: family-held evidence can make recovery possible, but silence, loss, and selective preservation leave the recovered past necessarily partial.