The William Holman Hunt sketch: the Mortlake Ommanneys

William Holman Hunt, Scene at Sheen. Pen and brown ink and brown wash on writing paper stamped 'The Planes, East Sheen', watermark '1862', inscribed 'Scene at Sheen/Holman Hunt' (lower centre). 8 x 6 3/8 in.

Helen Ommanney, née Gream (far left), and five of her children: Georgiana, Charlotte, Frederick, Annie Maria and Mildred. Of the children, we can only identify Frederick (seated) and Mildred (with the dog) on the basis of sex and age respectively. Georgiana, Charlotte and Annie Maria are indistinguishable. 

The father of the family, Octavius, is absent; it is quite easy to imagine Captain Ommanney would not have seen eye-to-eye with the artist. Or perhaps he was too busy drilling his recruits on Sheen Common. Others of the children are also absent, including George Campbell Ommanney and (Admiral) Robert Nelson Ommanney.

The watermark on the sheet dates the drawing to 1862 at which point Hunt was actively looking for a wife; it is conceivable he was thinking of one of the Ommanney daughters in that connection.


William Holman Hunt, Self Portrait (1867)



 


Helen Gream was born on 13 September 1814 at Rotherfield, Sussex, the seventh child of Rev. Robert and Maria Gream. She was christened on 23 January 1815. 

Her upbringing would have been profoundly religious. Here is a description of her sister Katharine later in life, taken from A Greater Guilt: Constance Emilie Kent and the Road Murder by Noeline Kyle:

The woman who met Constance in the modest entrance to St Mary’s Convent was Miss Katharine Anne Gream, Lady Superior of the convent since 1857. The tenth child of the Rev. Robert Gream, Anglican Rector of St James, London, and then of Rotherfield, Sussex, Katharine Gream was forty-one years of age in 1864. Like Constance, she had been born into an Anglican family, but she and her siblings were baptised Roman Catholic. Educated at home by her father, she left to enter the sisters of St Mary, Sisterhood and Obedience at St Mary’s, Brighton. Although Constance stood outside the religious and spiritual fervour of the convent and its associated fanatical Anglo-Catholic doctrine, she could not help but be affected by it…

Helen’s siblings included two Mothers Superior and the Accoucher to the Princess of Wales.

Incidentally a Sir Francis and Lady Ommaney appear as characters in Charlotte M. Yonge's novel Stray Pearls (1883). Yonge has been called ‘the novelist of the Oxford Movement’; one has to wonder if there was a connection.

Georgiana Isabella Ommanney was born in 1843 and christened on 12th December. She married Henry J B Kendell and died on 23 August 1923 in Hertfordshire.

Charlotte (later Dame Charlotte) Helen Ommanney was born in 1845 and christened on 26th June. She went on to marry her distinguished cousin Sir Montagu Ommanney, who became Permanent Under-Secretary for the Colonies under the Campbell-Bannerman government. She died on 13 March 1913 at Wokingham.

Frederick Gream Ommanney was born in 1847, and christened on 11th December. On 26 April 1871 he married Emily Sophia Graham at Barnes. Frederick was at that time recorded as a navy agent.

He died at 42, on 5 June 1889:

Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald, 15 June 1889
Walmer has been in mourning, in consequence of the sudden death of Mr F G Ommanney, which took place at his residence, Sheen House, Upper Walmer, about eight o’clock on Wednesday evening, from typhoid fever contracted at Brussels. Mr F G Ommanney was a partner in the firm of Messrs Thompson and Son, brewers, at Walmer. Despite his busy life he found time to devote to parish matters, filling the office of churchwarden, and recently that of Chairman to the Walmer Local Board and the Deal and Walmer Conservative Association. In all public matters he took a prominent part. 

His father, Octavius, is known to have been a frequent visitor to Brussels, but the reasons are obscure. Frederick bequeathed to his wife the plate presented to his father – presumably this refers to that given to Octavius Ommanney on his leaving Mortlake (of which more in another entry).

Annie Maria Ommanney was born in 1849. 
On 1 November 1866 she married Charles Thomas Harrison of the Royal Engineers. Charles soon died, and the 1871 census already has Annie as an ‘officer’s widow’ at age 22.
The following announcement of her second marriage, in 1877, appeared (curiously) in the Australian press: 

Sydney Morning Herald, June 26th, 1877 
SEWELL — HARRISON. —April 10, at St. Mary's, Bloxham, by the Rev. G. C. Ommanney, M.A., brother of the bride, assisted by the Rev. J. Hodgson, M.A., Vicar of the Parish, Samuel Frederic Sewell, Esq., late Captain 61st Regiment, youngest son of the late Francis Theodore Dudley Sewell, Esq., of Wickhill House, Bracknell, Berks, Lieutenant, R.N., to Annie Maria, widow of the late Charles Thomas Harrison, Esq., Royal Engineers, and third daughter of Octavius Ommanney, Esq., J.P., of Bloxham, Oxfordshire, England.

By the time of the 1891 census she was again a widow. She died in 1922.

Mildred Dunine Ommanney was born and baptised on 8 August 1852.
She married Edmund F T Bennett, and died on 25 October 1933.