Julian Levett Baker was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at its Isis-Urania temple in London on 16 June 1894. Three other people were initiated in the same ceremony: Jean Brash Gillison, Henry Herbert Weltch, and Harold N Lancaster; but I don’t think Julian Baker knew any of them before that evening.
Julian chose a Latin motto that reflected his profession: ‘Causa scientiae’. Although he worked full-time (which a lot of other members didn’t) Julian Baker had a head start over many new initiates in undertaking the study required of them before they could get into the GD’s inner, 2nd Order and start doing some practical magic. He was initiated into the 2nd Order less than two years later, on 18 March 1896. Julian Baker is best known now for having been the first member of the GD to meet Aleister Crowley.
UPDATE MAY 2018
When I first wrote up my file on Julian Baker, I was sure he was probably related to one other GD member, but I couldn’t find any evidence of exactly how. Thanks are due to two grand-daughters of the artist Percy Buckman for explaining the relationship.
THE BAKERS AND THE BUCKMANS
GD members Julian Baker and Katherine Julia Buckman were related through Julian’s mother, Bessie Helen Buckman. Their family trees meet at John Buckman of Cheltenham and his wife Mary, née Bishop. John and Mary had a large family. Katherine Julia’s father James Buckman, the naturalist and supporter of Charles Darwin’s theories, was one of their sons. Thanks to the descendants of Percy Buckman, I can now (May 2018) say that Bessie Helen Buckman’s father, John Bishop Buckman, was another of them. So Katherine Julia Buckman, and Julian Baker’s mother, were first cousins.
Through a third son of John and Mary Buckman - Edwin Buckman - Katherine Julia Buckman and Bessie Helen Baker were also first cousins to the artist and lithographer Edwin Buckman, who spent several years as art tutor to Queen Alexandra and her daughters; and to his brother, the wood engraver Harry Buckman. Katherine Julia’s brothers were the artist and art teacher Percy Buckman, and the palaeontologist Sydney Savory Buckman. So: a very interesting family for Julian Levett Baker to be related to, on his mother’s side.
The Bakers: not so interesting perhaps. They worked in the tea trade and in a bank, and had - like John Bishop Buckman - family connections in south Wales.
BESSIE HELEN BUCKMAN
Bessie Helen Buckman was the only surviving child of John Bishop Buckman and his first wife Albinia. John Bishop Buckman was born in Cheltenham in about 1817. John Buckman was a shoemaker in Cheltenham but none of his sons went into the business. I don’t know how John Bishop Buckman’s working life began but by 1851 he had taken on the lease of Cheltenham Spa’s Assembly Rooms, at 392 High Street; he also acted as the Cheltenham agent for at least one insurance company. He married Albinia Crole in Swansea in 1843. Bessie Helen was probably born in 1844 but I can’t find a birth registration for her.
Albinia Buckman died, probably in childbirth, in 1847. The baby Charles, who would have been Bessie Helen’s younger brother, died too. In his grief, John Bishop Buckman registered both the birth and death of his son, but not the death of his wife. Bessie Helen was left motherless at three: not such an uncommon fate in the 19th century. A common response to the situation in the 19th century was for a family to select a woman - an unmarried sister, for example - to keep house for the widower and bring up his children; but I don’t know whether the Buckmans did this. John Bishop Buckman might have sent his daughter to grow up with her Crole relations in Swansea, instead.
In 1851, Bessie Helen’s father got married again, to Eliza Burrows Oakey; although he had no more children. Whether Bessie Helen lived with John Bishop Buckman and his second wife I don’t know; I think possibly not, but perhaps I was just unlucky that she was never at home with her father and step-mother on census day. She was at a boarding school in Portishead Somerset on the day of the 1851 census; and at Mary Ann Smith’s school in Shire Hall Lane Worcester on the 1861 census day. Mary Ann Smith’s school was a large one, as girls’ boarding schools went at that time: there were 20 pupils, taught by four teachers, all women (of course), one of whom had been born in Switzerland and probably taught French and German; and a large staff of servants. So no money was being spared by John Bishop Buckman to fund his daughter’s education; although he didn’t go so far as to send her to the newly-founded Cheltenham Ladies’ College. He was investing in his business at this time: encouraged by an increase in visitors to Cheltenham now that Cheltenham College and the ladies’ college had been opened there, he organised the renovation of the Assembly Room’s ballroom in 1860 and by 1863 had taken over the running of the Pittville spa.
Albinia Crole’s family owned a market garden at Cwmdonkin outside Swansea: Albinia was living on the site with her mother Elizabeth Crole on the day of the 1841 census. A lease dated 1864 shows that Bessie Helen inherited her mother’s share of the market garden and that the share was held in trust for her by her father and one other trustee. The lease let the market garden, or part of it, to George Nott. The rent of £50 per year that Nott was going to pay would have provided Bessie Helen with an income that was a lot more than it sounds now: even in the 1890s the GD’s Florence Farr was renting rooms and living an independent life on about £50 a year.
On the day of the 1871 census, Bessie Helen Buckman was still not at home, she was visiting Martha Graham and her mother Louisa, in Portishead. Martha was about Bessie Helen’s age and was probably a school friend. One thing Bessie Helen must have had was a lot of friends she had made at school; and it was perhaps through one of them that she met her future husband George Nathaniel Levett Baker.
THE BAKERS
I haven’t been able to find out much about Julian Baker’s grandfather George Baker. It’s not just that ‘george baker’ is a common name; it’s more that he gave different information to census officials in 1851 and 1861, both about his age and about where he was born. As a result I couldn’t identify him on the 1841 census; and by 1871 he was dead. Based on census from 1851 and 1861, he was born between 1812 and 1818, either in south Wales or in Somerset. It was much easier to find George Baker’s wife, Julian’s grandmother on the Baker side of the family. Her name was Melinda Harris Lovell and she was born around 1824 in Pembroke. In 1841, she was still living in the town, in the household of Jenkin Jenkin the schoolmaster - a household of six people where at 18, Melinda was by 35 years the youngest of them. None of them were called Lovell; and nor were any of the neighbours, so perhaps Melinda was an orphan by this early stage. Lodging with James Morris the butcher next door was a woman who figures in Melinda’s later life: Elizabeth Harris, a spinster then in her forties. Perhaps she was Melinda’s aunt and her closest relation. Both of them told the census official that they had an independent income - which usually meant money from rents, or shares.
Not knowing very much about George Baker, it’s difficult for me to make a guess as to how he and Melinda Harris Lovell met; but they married early in 1843 in Pembroke. I would guess that George Baker was already working in London and that he, his bride, and Elizabeth Harris as well, took up residence in Newington on the South Bank immediately after they married. Julian Baker’s father, George Nathaniel Levett Baker, was born at the end of 1843, George and Melinda’s eldest child.
George and Melinda, their children George, Melinda and William, and Elizabeth Harris were all living in at 9 Manor Terrace Newington on the day of the 1851 census. George Baker told the census official that he was working as a clerk in the tea trade. When I read this, I was excited for a moment thinking that he worked for Horniman’s, the firm that invented the pre-sealed packet; Annie Horniman, the grand-daughter of the firm’s founder, was a prominent member of the Golden Dawn. However, it turned out that John Horniman didn’t move his business from the Isle of Wight to London until 1852. London was the tea-trading capital of the world by the 1850s and there were dozens of firms involved in tea import and sale. I now cautiously advance the idea that George Baker may have worked for a firm called A Barwin and Co of Miles Lane Cannon Street in the City of London. George Baker’s youngest son, Lovell Baker (Julian Baker’s uncle), went into the tea trade in his turn, and in the 1880s was running A Barwin and Co with a partner, Alfred John Winney. Though I have to say that I couldn’t find any evidence for the existence of A Barwin and Co before the mid-1880s.
On the day of the 1861 census George Baker, Melinda and Elizabeth Harris were still living in the same house as they had been in 1851 - I think - but Manor Terrace had been renamed Manor Road. Their daughter Melinda had died; but two more daughters and another son had been born - Emily, Amy and John. Two more children were born - Edith and Lovell - before George Baker died in 1867. I believe Elizabeth Harris may have died too during this decade. It’s a common name and I wasn’t able to pinpoint a death registration for her, but she was no longer living with Melinda Baker by 1871.
Melinda must have had a few difficult years in the late 1860s, but she was able to continue living in the same district, possibly in the same house. On the day of the 1871 census, her address was 18 Manor Road Newington - which may just be a renumbering of the original number ‘9'. Edith (aged 8) and Lovell (aged 5) were still at school but all George and Melinda’s other children were earning - even the girls were going out to work, which was remarkable in a lower-middle class family in the 1870s. While George Baker had been alive there had been enough money coming in to employ one general servant, but now Melinda was making do without, even though there was more work to be done as there were three extra people living in her household. All three were described by the census official as boarders, but it’s clear from their details that they were also the sons of people known to Melinda Baker or to George Baker. The most important one from my point of view was William H Norman: he had been born in Cheltenham and was probably related to the Buckmans through Benjamin Norman, who was James Buckman’s brother-in-law and business partner of James’ brother Edwin. William’s presence in Melinda’s household suggests that the Buckmans and the Bakers knew each other before George Baker and Bessie Helen Buckman married. They continued to keep in touch: way into the future, when John Bishop Buckman died, William Henry Norman was one of his executors; James Buckman’s son Sydney Savory Buckman was the other. Melinda’s other two boarders were probably brothers - Harry Phillips, a medical student, and Richard Phillips whose profession I couldn’t read; they had both been born in Pembroke.
George Nathaniel Levett Baker - whom I shall call George Levett Baker because that seems to be what he called himself - was still living at home on the day of the 1871 census; he was working for Coutts’ bank and had probably been employed by the bank since he left school. He and Bessie Helen Buckman were married in Cheltenham on 31 July 1871; after the wedding ceremony perhaps they had a reception at John Bishop Buckman’s Assembly Rooms, at 392 High Street. Julian Levett Baker - the future GD member - was their eldest child, born on 4 September 1872. His sisters Ethel Melinda and Muriel Albinia followed in 1874 and 1876; Ethel Melinda married Julian’s great friend and fellow GD member George Cecil Jones. A fourth child was born to George Levett Baker and Bessie Helen during the 1870s, but had died before 1881.
On the day of the 1881 census the Bakers were living at 15 Windsor Road Camberwell. There were also three boarders in the household - Theodore Tries and Ernest Tries, who were probably brothers and had been born in south London; and Alfons Rehlender who was from Hamburg. The family employed the one general servant that was the basic requirement of middle-classness. By 1891 George Levett and Bessie Helen had moved their family to 57 Hendham Road Wandsworth. There had been a typical trade-off between the better address - there were some very fancy houses in Hendham Road, standing in their own grounds - and the fact that they wouldn’t be able to afford a servant; on the other hand Bessie Helen was no longer taking lodgers and her daughters were old enough to help with the housework. Perhaps George Levett Baker had been promoted.
JULIAN BAKER
Julian Baker’s first school was probably a local primary school but the main part of his education was at the City of London boys’ school in Cheapside. George Baker may have used contacts he had made through his work to get his son accepted by the school - all applications had to have a reference from an alderman or councillor of the Corporation of London, which ran the school. Pupils were taken at any age between 7 and 15, and could stay until they were 19. Although the school was funded by a charitable endowment, pupils’ parents had to pay 10 guineas per year, for which their sons received a comprehensive education: English, Latin, French, Greek, German and even Sanskrit were taught; with maths, arithmetic, drawing, basic chemistry, and natural philosophy; and elocution and vocal music. It was at City of London School that Julian made up his mind to be a professional chemist; and it was at City of London School that he first met his lifelong friend and eventual brother-in-law George Cecil Jones. I’m sure those two important things are connected. (For more on Cecil Jones see my biography of him.) Julian and Cecil were exactly the same age and I suppose were in the same class. Cecil Jones also wanted to work as a chemist; and the two boys shared an interest in their future profession’s origins in classical and medieval alchemy. Their approach to alchemy was slightly different though: I haven’t found any references to Julian reading medieval alchemical texts like Cecil Jones did, instead there’s a reference from Aleister Crowley to Julian making mercury solidify at room temperature - the practical rather than the literary side of alchemy; though Cecil Jones would have been perfectly capable of doing the same, it was Julian that Crowley mentioned doing so, not Cecil Jones.
The best obituary of Julian Baker - which was written by Cecil Jones - says that Julian’s days at City of London School ended prematurely and abruptly. Over Easter 1888 Julian came into contact with someone who developed scarlet fever. The school, panicking at the thought of an epidemic breaking out, refused to let him return for the summer term. In this crisis, George Baker asked the advice of a Mr Friswell, a friend of the family and perhaps another influence on Julian’s choice of career, as he worked as a chemist at a firm of dyers. Friswell recommended that Julian apply to Finsbury Technical College, which was affiliated to the University of London and had a very active and reputable chemistry department. I was going to say that Julian’s going to Finsbury Technical College set the stage for his subsequent career. Cecil Jones says that the contacts he made there - staff and fellow students - were an important feature of his working life, particularly in the 1890s and 1900s. But I think that Julian Baker had the kind of personality that led to his getting the best out of almost any circumstances, especially as regards people: he was both likable, and ready to like people, and people responded to that. He knew his stuff, of course, chemically speaking - Finsbury Technical College saw to that. And the unfortunate brush with scarlet fever - which he didn’t catch himself - meant that he was at the College in 1889, when Dr E R Moritz, consultant chemist to the Country Brewers’ Society, gave a series of six lectures on the science of brewing that were a turning point for Julian’s view of his own future. According to Cecil Jones, Julian made up his mind at about this time that he wanted to work in the brewing industry.
In his obituary Cecil Jones names two friends, both professional chemists, that Julian Baker made at Finsbury Technical College. Of course, Julian made other friends but Cecil Jones mentioned these two because their names would be known to the obituary’s readers. The first was Martin Onslow Forster (1872-1945) who went to India and eventually became Director of the Indian Institute for Science. The second was Gilbert Thomas Morgan (1872-1940) who when he left Finsbury Technical College went directly to the Royal College of Science - now Imperial College - as a lecturer, and then spent some years as an academic in Dublin and Birmingham before being appointed to run the government’s Department of Scientific and Industrial Research’s laboratory at Teddington.
When Julian Baker left Finsbury Technical College in 1891, it was still rare for any brewery to employ a professional chemist. Patience, and the gaining of some work experience, were going to be necessary if he was going to change the reluctance of the brewing industry to invest in the application of chemical know-how to the raw materials and processes of brewing. Julian took a job in the laboratory of London Beetroot Sugar Association, a trade organisation founded and funded by beet importing and broking firms. As well as defending their corner in legal cases the Association also acted to maintain standards, and all members were welcome to send samples to the Association for analysis. Julian’s boss at the laboratory for his few first years there was Arthur Robert Ling (1861-1937) and the Finsbury Technical College connection must have helped Julian get the job in the first place. A R Ling had also been a student there and even after he had left, he used to return in the evenings to use the College’s equipment to do research on nitrophenols and quinones; so Julian almost certainly knew him well before he went to work for him. Together, A R Ling and Julian worked on the constitution of starch, and Julian’s first published works were two papers that he and Ling co-authored in 1895 (around the time he joined the GD) and 1897. When Ling left the Association in 1898, Julian was promoted to take Ling’s job as chief chemist.
According to Cecil Jones, it was during Julian’s time at the London Beetroot Sugar Association that he got to know Dr Henry Edward Armstrong (1848-1937). Armstrong had been a teacher at Finsbury Technical College in the 1870s. He had moved on to teach at the Central Technical College by the time Julian started at Finsbury but he often dropped in on Ling and Julian at the London Beetroot Sugar Association’s offices. He gave Julian a lot of good advice - which Julian seems to have taken to such an extent that he was widely thought to be Armstrong’s pupil. Armstrong was also probably the person who recommended Julian for membership of the Chemical Society of London, which Julian joined in 1893.
Unlike Cecil Jones, who tended to pursue a solitary course and was perhaps not all that sociable, Julian Baker was a great joiner. The Chemical Society of London was the first of quite a few societies for working chemists that he was elected to. John Frederick Briggs (brother of Mary Briggs who joined the GD in 1895) was also elected to the Chemical Society that year, and it’s possible the two men knew each other although John Briggs had gone to work in Madras by 1893. Julian was a member of the Society of Chemical Industry from 1894; and a member of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, as an associate from 1894 and as a fellow from 1897. Quite when he joined the Institute of Brewing I’m not clear; there was no point, I suppose, in his joining it while he didn’t work in the industry. But shortly after Dr Moritz had given his lectures, he founded the Laboratory Club, which Julian and perhaps Cecil Jones as well were members of. In November 1890 the Club turned into the Institute of Brewing; Julian was a founder member and so, probably, was Cecil Jones.
By the late 1890s Julian was beginning to be restless. He had several years’ in a chemistry laboratory under his belt and through his membership of professional groups he knew a large number of chemists, some of whom had jobs to offer the right candidate. But he had not made any real advances towards achieving his ambition of a career in the brewing industry. In 1898, three of London’s breweries merged to form Watney Combe Reid and Co. The new firm was the biggest brewer in the UK, with brewing facilities at four sites, and a large staff: if any brewery could afford to employ a professional chemist, it was this one. And it was right on Julian Baker’s doorstep. Perhaps this spurred him on to make a life-changing decision: he gave up his job at the London Beetroot Sugar Association and went to spend several months at the University of Birmingham, where the UK’s first university department of brewing was in the process of being set up.
My one source for Julian having spent time at the University of Birmingham is Cecil Jones’ obituary. Unfortunately, though, he doesn’t say exactly when it was that Julian was there, only that it was before he was offered his next job, in 1900. This is a pity - 1899 to 1901 is such an important time at the GD! Nor does Cecil Jones say whether Julian was at the university as a student, or as a staff member. I shall suppose that Julian Baker was in the department of brewing at the University of Birmingham for some months between early 1899 and 1900; and I think he was there to learn and was probably not being paid. He would have wanted to go to this new university department, to get some time working for Adrian John Brown (1852-1919) who had been offered the job as its first professor after 25 years working for Thomas Salt and Co of Burton-on-Trent. Though A J Brown was a specialist in fermentation, and its mysteries were what Julian most wanted to learn from him, Brown’s most important contribution to the chemistry of brewing came in 1907 when he was the first person to described the process of osmosis in barley seed.
The risk Julian took paid off. In 1900, he was appointed Watney Combe Reid and Co’s first-ever professional chemist, to run their laboratory at the Stag brewery in Pimlico - which was presumably a brand new one - and take charge of the analysis of incoming raw materials and samples of barrels returned as unfit to sell; in an era of increasing regulation of all brewery processes. He also worked on making more efficient all the chemical processes involved in beer-making and its residues, and during his early years at the firm, applied for and was granted three patents. The first, in 1903, was for an improvement to the way in which yeast was prepared for use as a manure. The second (1905) was for an improved way of sulphuring hops and malts; he held this one jointly with A R Ling who by this time was working as an independent analytical chemist. And the third, from 1912, was for an improved method of making stout. Later on in his career there, Julian was also assigned two more patents. One in 1925 was for a gas dispenser for beer. The second, from 1944, was for improvements to how maltose was manufactured.
Julian stayed in his dream job for the rest of his working life - for longer than he had intended, in fact, as the outbreak of World War 2 caused him to postpone his retirement until 1946. In 1901, on the strength of his new job and its prospects, Julian Baker married Eveleen Daniel.
I always like to say something about the people GD members married: I think knowing about their wives or husbands can be illuminating. In Eveleen Daniel’s case, though, I’ve found out absolutely nothing about her or her family beyond the facts that she was the daughter of H A Daniel of Fermoy county Cork, in Ireland; and that she never was a member either of GD or any of its daughter orders. She doesn’t appear on any UK census before 1911 so I can only suppose that she was living in Ireland until shortly before her marriage. In which case, how and where did she and Julian meet? I can’t shed any light on that mystery. However, there’s no doubt that Eveleen felt herself to be Irish: she and Julian’s three children all had Irish names - Sheila (1904), Patrick (1907) and Desmond (1913).
The high-profile job Julian Baker now had, and the contacts he had made through the various societies for chemists, meant that he was able to develop a parallel career as a writer and editor. Perhaps extra income was a factor in this, as he was now a family man, but I think he also knew the importance of publishing high-quality chemistry research and was prepared to do the extra hours to make sure it happened. I’ve listed as many of his publications as I can find in a separate file, but here I’ll talk about Julian’s most important and widely-known publishing work.
The second career began with a commission from Methuen and Co to write a book on brewing for their Books on Business series. Julian’s The Brewing Industry was published in 1905. He may have drawn on knowledge of GD specialists in ancient Egyptian magic like Marcus Worsley Blackden and Florence Farr for his chapter on the history of brewing, which covered beer making in every culture from ancient Egypt and Greece to the contemporary scene. Then there were three chapters on the raw materials of brewing: barley, hops and water. Several more chapters covered the processes of beer making, including discussions of fermentations and yeasts and not fighting shy of mentioning costs. He also tackled the legal side of brewing - excise charges and the laws governing licensing and tied houses.
He discussed management, the connections between brewing and agriculture, brewing’s importance to the economy; and finally lamented that the British industry was so far behind Europe in the education and training of brewery staff - arguing of course that trained chemists would soon repay their salary by the contribution they could make to the quality of the product. A chemist, he argued, could help deliver a standard product by checking the quality of raw materials: “Uniformity in materials means uniformity in the resulting beer, a matter of prime importance for the reputation of a brewery”.
Methuen’s budget for the book ran to some black and white photographs - none of the Stag brewery, I’m sorry to say - and a great many line drawings. The Brewing Industry was very favourably reviewed at the time and remained the best introduction to the industry for many years.
Its critical success led to him being approached to write on fermentation for the next edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 29 volumes in 1910 and 1911. At the time it got a fair amount of criticism though none was specifically aimed at Julian’s contribution; but now it’s considered one of the best encyclopaedias ever published.
In 1907 Julian Baker took the job of editor of the magazine The Analyst, which published short abstracts of longer and more complex articles on chemistry. As well as the editing tasks, this job meant managing a small group of chemists who worked at reading the original articles and making precis of them. He soon started recruiting friends and colleagues to do this work: Cecil Jones was one of the group for several years, and so was Everard Hulton, who worked for Julian at Watney Combe Reid and Co. Julian edited The Analyst from 1907 to 1920, only leaving when A R Ling gave up working as editor of the Journal of the Institute of Brewing. Julian took over as editor of the Journal and continued in post even after he finally retired from Watney Combe Reid and Co - he only gave it up in 1949. Although he never edited the journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, as an editor of other journals read by chemists he was a member of the Society’s publication committee at least from 1914 to 1943, and possibly longer.
Throughout his time working full-time as a chemist and editing as well, Julian found time to publish short articles connected to his work. He was able to pursue the interest in starches he had had since he’d worked with A R Ling. His articles were usually written with a co-author - the idea of the scientist working in splendid isolation was already moving into the past and in any case, Julian was a natural at enterprises undertaken cooperatively. His most frequent co-author was Everard Hulton, who had been hired to work at the Stag brewery’s laboratory by 1907 at the latest; and who was actually a visitor at Julian and Eveleen’s house on the day of the 1911 census. I haven’t been able to discover much about Hulton though I have found that he and Julian had similar backgrounds - they were both Londoners, they were nearly the same age (Hulton was born in 1875); and both had been at Finsbury Technical College where they must have known each other as students. In the 1920s Julian and Hulton published a series of three articles on the amylases of cereal grains and they continued to publish together until the early 1930s. Hulton may have worked for Watney Combe Reid and Co until he died. His death in April 1939 at the age of 64 may have influenced Julian’s decision to stay on at Watney Combe Reid and Co in 1939, when (according to Cecil Jones’ obituary) he had been thinking of retiring. Another co-author who worked for Julian in the laboratory at Watney Combe Reid and Co was Frank E Day. However, Julian’s collaboration with Day only lasted a few years, because Day didn’t stay as long as a colleague: by 1929 he was employed on the Brewing Research Scheme at Rothamsted Experimental Station. In the 30s, a co-author who may have been a third Watney’s employee was T J Ward.
Another source of extra income for Julian was working as an examiner of other chemists, and it’s a mark of how quickly chemistry was developing as an academic discipline, that he will have been assessing the examination papers of chemists who were going to end up more highly qualified than he was: chemists like Frank E Day, for example - he had a science degree. Julian did a stint as examiner for the City and Guilds London Institute between 1908 and 1911; and from 1928 to 1931 continued his association with the University of Birmingham by acting as an examiner there, presumably of degrees in brewing.
Twice in his working life, Julian did pieces of research work in addition to his normal work; both one-off items, for Government. The first was requested in 1914, probably just before the first World War broke out: Julian was asked by the Local Government Board to analyse a group of 29 widely-available prepared baby foods. Quite why Julian was asked, rather than anyone else, is a mystery: perhaps it was not so much Julian as the resources of his laboratory that were required. Of course, that’s not to say that Julian wasn’t a good choice - the British Medical Journal later praised the “exhaustive chemical examination” he had carried out on each of his specimens. His work was a ‘part 2' to some analysis done in 1911 by the chemist F J H Coutts, who had examined varieties of condensed milk. In each case, the analyst was asked to assess how nourishing the foods were for babies. Julian’s conclusions were that the majority had too much carbohydrate and too little fat to be suitable food for infants; and that regular use of some of them would be likely to result in vitamin deficiencies. This report was immediately seen as an important piece of research and was widely referred to in scientific and medical magazines at the time; it has also been quoted several times in books and articles on infant diet since.
The first World War was one in which chemistry and thus chemists played an important, not to say deadly, role. However, it looks as though the other one-off piece of Government research was Julian’s sole war work as the war dragged on. The indications are that he stayed in his job at Watney Combe Reid and Co, and was not co-opted onto any war-based chemistry project. In March 1917, food supplies were becoming a serious issue for Government and Julian was approached by the Royal Commission on Wheat Supplies to do some research for them on whether brewers’ yeast could be used to make bread. If the members of the Commission had known more about how bread had traditionally been made, they wouldn’t have needed any input from Julian. However, he did the research and presented his results - that yes, it could be used - at a meeting of the Society of Chemical Industry in May 1917. Julian wasn’t paid for this research. However, I imagine he would have been shocked and possibly offended if any money had been offered: he would have seen it as a chance to contribute to the war effort.
Beginning in the 1900s, Julian had begun to take a more active and time-consuming role in chemistry’s professional societies. By this time he had been a member of them all for several years; and unlike others, he was happy to do the committee and organising work that running that kind of society involves.
The earliest mention of Julian Baker that I could find in the Times was the result of some very hard organisational work he had put in on the 1905 conference of the Society of Chemical Industry. This was a big ‘do’ in every sense - two weeks’-worth of meetings, outings and social events, involving the housing in hotels in London and elsewhere of a large number of foreign guests and overseas’ members of the Society. No one else was as involved as Julian in the work needed to ensure the conference’s success; although his ex-boss A R Ling sat on more of the organising committees than most other members. Julian acted as honorary secretary of the conference’s executive committee, its reception committee and even its ladies’ committee though the ladies also had a woman hon sec. He persuaded Eveleen to join the ladies’ committee, which liaised with the hostesses of the garden parties and receptions that were part of the conference’s social calendar. When the arrangements had been made, Julian edited the conference handbook and saw it through the printing process ready for delegates to receive on their arrival. And as if he had not already got enough to do, as honorary secretary to the Society’s London group, Julian was the main organiser of the visit delegates made to Greenwich and Woolwich Arsenal on Tuesday 11 July 1905; though he had some help from the newly-appointed United States ambassador, Whitelaw Reid, in persuading the military hierarchy at Woolwich to allow them to take a tour of the Arsenal. However, he was probably not the person who persuaded Sir John Pound, the current Lord Mayor of London, to host that evening’s reception at the Mansion House; I think that would have needed some chemists rather better known than Julian was.
Cecil Jones remembered the day out to Woolwich Arsenal with affection even many years later: he remembered with amusement how all the delegates went from Westminster Pier to Woolwich on a steamer, dressed - rather oddly to modern ideas - in their frock coats and best silk hats.
Julian’s contribution to the 1905 conference brought his name to the attention of the Times: he was the last named man in the guest-list (edited for ‘well-known names only’) that the Times published in its report on the AGM of the Society of Chemical Industry. This and the annual dinner took place on the evening of the trip to Woolwich Arsenal, at Goldsmith’s Hall in the City of London: in composing his coverage of it, the Times’ reporter decided that the name ‘Julian Baker’ might be one some of its readers would recognise.
By 1909, as honorary secretary of the Institute of Brewing, Julian Baker was starting to represent the Institute at funerals. Going to funerals is not the most joyful way of keeping in touch with your fellow professionals, but it’s in that capacity that Julian Baker’s name is most regularly mentioned in the Times.
In 1909, Julian was involved to some degree in the organisation of an even bigger science-cum-social event, the seventh International Congress of Applied Chemistry, which was held in London between 27 May and 2 June. He was not amongst the great and good of this Congress, but even so well-known a chemist as William Crookes - whom Julian Baker will have known through the GD and through the Society of Chemical Industry - hardly gets a mention in the account of what went on. Scientists came from all over the world to attend it, and it was such a prestigious event that the royal family played their part on the social side. The Prince and Princess of Wales (the future George V and Mary) went to the inaugural meeting, which was such a huge affair it was held in the Royal Albert Hall. The socialising during the Congress was on a truly monumental scale, eclipsing even that of the 1905 conference: there were several important social functions each day including a reception at Buckingham Palace, at which Edward VII greeted the guests; a banquet for 1500 at Crystal Palace; and two garden parties, one of which was organised by the Society of Chemical Industry’s London branch - meaning, by Julian Baker. All with endless speech-making and hundreds of guests from the political and diplomatic worlds, as well as chemistry professionals and academics. Julian was on the Congress’ organising committee; and again, may even have persuaded Eveleen to play a part as well - a Mrs Baker is listed as a member of the Congress’ Ladies Committee, which had the task of organising the garden party at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.
If you were still on your feet after all those social events, the Congress did have a scientific side as well and Julian also contributed to this, through two papers: one written with Everard Hulton - On the Behaviour of Wheaten Flours Towards Bakers’ and Brewers’ Yeasts; and one which he gave on his own - The Purchase of Malt on the Basis of Analysis. Julian was a member of one of the Congress’ sub-groups, the starch group; and he spoke up at the Congress’ closing session to make the sensible suggestion - which was adopted - that the starch group and the sugar group should be amalgamated as part of their continued existence after the Congress was over.
Julian’s involvement in chemistry’s professional societies wasn’t just about committee meetings and big formal functions. His obituaries all say how much he liked to talk and listen, and he had the gift of being at home in any company (I wish I had it). With chemists, he enjoyed chats which ranged widely over chemistry’s burgeoning specialisms. During Julian’s lifetime, chemists could still just about manage to understand what specialist in other kinds of chemistry were saying about their work. I’m sure that he enjoyed equally much chatting with the other GD members who were interested in alchemy - Cecil Jones of course, but also Rev William Alexander Ayton, Percy William Bullock and Frederick Leigh Gardner. And on one occasion, on holiday in Switzerland, he even took pity on a non-chemist who was making rather an ass of himself talking about alchemy in a bar - he sought him out and started to chat; more of that later.
He helped - unpaid - to organise conferences, and he went to them too: that’s what Julian was like and in this respect he was not at all like Cecil Jones, who didn’t really do this sort of socialising. It’s surprising even that he went on Julian’s trip to Woolwich Arsenal in 1905. He didn’t make it to the Times’ list of guests at the dinner at the Goldsmith’s Hall and probably didn’t attend the AGM at all. He was a member of the 1909 Congress - but so was every chemist of note in the UK. I couldn’t find his name in the accounts of the sessions at the Congress, though, so he may not have attended any of them, although he was entitled to. That’s what Cecil Jones was like. Perhaps the length of the friendship between the two of them was due to each making allowances for the way the other differed from themselves. It’s clear from their writings that each of them admired the talents and qualities of the other.
Julian and Eveleen Baker had started out on their married life in west London - daughter Sheila’s birth was registered in Brentford, a district that included Chiswick. Julian’s grandmother Melinda Baker, and her unmarried daughter, Julian’s Aunt Amy, were living in Chiswick, at 10 Mayfield Avenue, where Melinda finally died in October 1910. Several GD members also lived in Chiswick: Edmund and Dorothea Hunter with Edmund’s sister Amy Turner living in nearby Acton; Frederick Leigh Gardner; and fellow-scientist W F Kirby. Though the GD had turned into its daughter orders by the time Sheila was born, perhaps Julian kept up friendly relations with his GD neighbours for a time. However, by 1907 when Patrick Baker was born, Julian and Eveleen had decided to leave London. They moved to Staines and on the day of the 1911 census were living in a house called Stainesbury Holt on Kingston Road. Julian’s father, George Levett Baker, had lived long enough to retire from the bank and to see Julian’s three children and Ethel Melinda’s two children born - that was still quite unusual in the early 20th century. On the day of the 1911 census he, Bessie Helen and Julian’s unmarried sister Muriel Albinia were enjoying a holiday in Worthing, though they continued to live in south London. George Levett Baker died in 1922 at 16 Slaithwaite Road Lewisham. Bessie Helen Baker also died in Lewisham, having lived on until 1932; Julian was one of the two executors of her Will, the other being ex-GD member, solicitor Percy William Bullock.
Between 1913 and 1921, Julian, Eveleen and their children moved further still out of London, to Dial Cottage, Cookham Road Maidenhead. There, Julian’s hospitable nature, and his new interest in fishing and golf, meant that they were soon moving in quite elavated social circles. In 1940 their their son Patrick (who’d joined the RAF) married Helen Gardner, daughter of Sir Ernest Gardner, a local landowner and former Conservative MP. And it was in the local vicarage that Eveleen Baker died - presumably unexpectedly - in May 1945. Her death was the third (after those of Frank E Day and Everard Hulton) in a trend of Julian outliving people who were younger than he was.
Julian was finally able to retire from Watney Combe Reid and Co in 1946 at the age of 72 or 73. It came too late for a life of retirement with Eveleen, but in time for a short life together with Catherine Lucy Paul, whom he married in 1948. The bridegroom was 75; the bride was 72. Catherine Lucy Pearson, the daughter of a civil engineer, had married Arthur Clifford Saint Paul in 1904 in Bristol. Her husband had worked in the finance department of Bristol City Council, but had died in 1924. Catherine Lucy lived with Julian in Dial Cottage, and they had eight years together; but the marriage ended in 1956 with Catherine Lucy’s death and Julian being widowed for the second time.
Julian Baker and Cecil Jones had moved from being friends to being in-laws when Cecil married Julian’s sister Ethel Melinda in 1905. A few years afterwards, Cecil Jones had decided to leave the security of working for a someone else and set up in business as a chemical analyst - following his own path, as so often, a very different one from Julian Baker’s. And unlike Julian Baker, until late in 1910, Cecil Jones was still doing magic with Aleister Crowley and thought of himself as Crowley’s friend. You can read about how the friendship ended in court in 1911 in my biography of Cecil Jones.
Cecil Jones and Ethel Melinda and their children continued to live in south London, quite near Julian’s parents, until the second World War; so perhaps the two friends, the in-laws and their children met fairly frequently. However, Cecil Jones decided to close down his business and retire in 1939 and shortly afterwards he and Ethel Melinda moved to Hastings. Particularly in the difficult travel conditions of the War, he and Julian will have found it difficult to meet, though Cecil Jones was a great letter-writer and perhaps they kept in touch that way and by phone. They had a new interest in common - gardening. But their lives began more and more to touch only when someone had died: Eveleen Baker in 1946 - though it’s nice to think of Cecil and Ethel Melinda, also in their seventies, as guests at Julian’s second wedding; and then Ethel Melinda Jones, early in 1952. It’s a strange thing, I think, that both Julian Baker and Cecil Jones outlived their wives; Julian outlived two. He also survived both his sisters; and Cecil all his sisters-in-law. Muriel Albinia, who had never married, died in 1955, naming Julian and Cecil Jones as her executors.
And of course, as Julian Baker and Cecil Jones entered into their eighties, not only were all their contemporaries in chemistry dying, but also some of the next generation. Cecil Jones’ obituary mentions Julian (aged 84) saying sadly about a visit to his club in London (probably the Institute of Brewing’s members’ rooms), “I hardly saw a man I knew”. A generation before, Cecil Jones had made a rare visit to Julian’s club and he had thought to himself, “Baker seems to know everyone here and everyone knows Baker”.
Julian Baker outlived his second wife by 18 months, dying on 29 January 1958 in Maidenhead Hospital. All his children survived him. It was Cecil Jones’ task to write the most detailed obituary of his old friend; Cecil lived on until 1961.
JULIAN BAKER AND THE OCCULT
THE GOLDEN DAWN
Who recommended Julian Baker to Samuel Liddell Mathers and William Wynn Westcott as a suitable member of the GD? If you’ve read through all the biographical stuff above in this biography, you’ll know that Julian Baker had lots of friends. Not many of them will have been in the GD, however. I can’t find any specific evidence for this but my guess is that it was either William Crookes or Allan Bennett, who put forward his name. And my money is on Bennett, who was a contemporary of Julian: Crookes was a much older man. Bennett had been initiated into the GD in February 1894 and, like Julian, worked as a professional chemist. Although Bennett and Baker had not been at school or college together, they could easily have met on chemistry’s social circuit in London - the world of chemistry as a profession was still quite a small one. If they did meet, say in the early 1890s, they will soon have discovered that they shared an interest in the alchemical origins of how they earned their wages; and as chemists working in laboratories, they were both well-placed to try and see if they could crack some of alchemy’s puzzles. Describing the events of 1898 (though looking back from a distance of over 20 years) Crowley wrote that by that time, Julian Baker had “accomplished some remarkable work...he had prepared ‘fixed mercury’... the pure metal in some form that was solid at ordinary temperatures”. This wasn’t, actually, as remarkable a feat as Crowley thought it: as my science advisor, Roger Wright describes it as a party trick, easily within the capabilities of any well-trained chemist: just add a little gold.
Julian Baker was a very well-trained chemist. The alchemical studies that initiates of the GD were required to follow will have been easy for him, therefore; though he may have found the GD’s use of alchemical manuscripts to be a very different way of understanding them. Members could and did do alchemical laboratory work if they wanted to and had the facilities, but in the GD as a whole, alchemical texts were understood as metaphorical as well as practical, using the language of alchemy to describe processes of personal growth and training.
A few months after Julian Baker had joined the GD, Cecil Jones was initiated; both Baker and Bennett would have been happy to recommend him as a suitable candidate.
JULIAN BAKER AND ALEISTER CROWLEY
In August 1898 Julian Baker and some friends were on holiday, walking in Switzerland. This was a very popular form of vacation amongst British people at that time and perhaps Julian’s group had been visiting the Alps regularly during the past few years; but this year turned out to be different. Staying the night at Zermatt, below the Matterhorn on the Swiss side, they spent the evening in a bier keller where they were obliged to listen to an unknown Englishman holding forth about alchemy. It was Aleister Crowley, who had gone to Switzerland for his health and had taken a copy of Mathers’ translation of The Kabbalah Unveiled with him; but couldn’t understand it, so - on his own admittance - he talked a lot of rubbish in that bier keller. Julian wasn’t put off, though: he got into conversation with Crowley as everyone walked back to the hotel they all turned out to be staying in. He told Crowley that if he was serious about wanting to study alchemy, he could help him. However, that seems to be as far as it went in that first conversation. Julian Baker and his companions left the hotel the following morning and continued their walking tour without any arrangements being made between him and Crowley to meet again. Getting up rather later and finding that he’d missed him, Crowley spent the day chasing Julian Baker all over the valley below Zermatt, finally catching up with him at Brigue and getting him to promise that they would further their acquaintance when back in London. Excited at meeting someone who knew something - anything - about magic, Crowley asked him if he was the Master that he was looking for. Julian Baker was a man honest about his limitations: he said no, he wasn’t, but that he could introduce Crowley to someone he knew who was a better alchemist than he was himself - he meant Cecil Jones, of course.
No way was Crowley going to let slip the opportunity that Julian Baker had offered him. The two of them did meet in London and in October - presumably when Cecil Jones was in London for a few days - Julian Baker introduced Jones and Crowley to each other. Thereafter Crowley pursued Cecil Jones more than Julian Baker, even going to stay with him in Basingstoke so that he could learn from him. However, Crowley says that it was Julian Baker who first introduced him to the theory and practice of astral travelling; and to the safeguards anyone should set in place before doing magic. And it was Julian Baker who first mentioned to Crowley the existence of a “Brotherhood of Initiates who jealously guard the perfect knowledge of God, nature and humanity” (that’s the GD); though it was Cecil Jones who put forward Crowley’s name to Mathers as a possible initiate.
Crowley was initiated into the GD in November 1898. I guess that it was on this occasion that Crowley, overawed by the ritual he was involved in, asked Julian “whether people often died during the ceremony”. Julian reassured him. Crowley very quickly became disillusioned with the general mass of the GD’s members, but always looked on both Julian and Cecil Jones as exceptions to his view that they were all mediocrities. When he got impatient with the study-material he was given, and moaned about it to them both, he did abide by their reply that he should accept the discipline of the study and the slowness of its progress. At least, he did at first. However, during 1899 he also battened on Allan Bennett to teach him on a one-to-one basis levels of magic that in the GD only 2nd Order members were allowed to do. Julian Baker doesn’t seem to have taught Crowley much more; but that may be because this was time he was working at the University of Birmingham department of brewing, and he just wasn’t around in London enough.
Living outside London he may have been but by April 1900 Julian had come to some conclusions about Crowley as a person; enough to make him regret having helped bring Crowley and the GD together. I don’t know whether Julian was able to attend the relevant 2nd Order meeting in February 1900, the list of those who were present hasn’t survived; but if he had been there, he would have been amongst those who voted to refuse Crowley initiation into the 2nd Order, despite Crowley having done all the work that was required and a great deal more. I daresay Julian was not surprised when Crowley refused to accept the vote, though probably even he didn’t expect the amount of trouble Crowley would cause the GD in the aftermath of it.
Crowley went to Paris and got Mathers to give him the 2nd Order initiation; he also got Mathers to make him his envoy in London, to act for Mathers in bringing the GD back under Mathers’ control. Crowley doesn’t seem to have asked the advice of either Julian or Cecil Jones about doing his visit to Paris and what was agreed there. If he had asked them, it might have led to an argument between them, because the two friends didn’t agree about Crowley. As the crisis developed, Julian described Crowley as “a man without principles”, a dangerous lack that in his eyes outweighed any magical talent he might possess; whereas whatever Cecil Jones thought about Crowley on a personal level, he was prepared to overlook a great deal, in a man he thought was a particularly gifted magician.
Julian and Cecil Jones both got dragged into the problem of Crowley when Crowley returned to London to find himself still banned from being given documents restricted to 2nd Order members. The three of them, and Florence Farr (as the GD’s senior member in London), got together - maybe several times - to try to find some sort of compromise. Inevitably, the subject of Mathers’ increasingly autocratic behaviour as the GD’s senior magician came up, and again Julian and Cecil Jones were on different sides of the argument. Cecil Jones stuck to the view that the GD would be useless without Mathers’ experience and understanding of magic and ritual. Julian may have agreed with him on that point; but he felt that Mathers was behaving very badly as the Order’s sole remaining Chief, and that he was a poor leader and manager. He had begun to think so several years before, when Mathers had expelled Annie Horniman from the Order for reasons that had nothing to do with magic; Julian had signed the petition to reinstate her.
The meeting or meetings about Crowley’s difficulties didn’t reach any conclusion, let alone a compromise that satisfied all parties. Crowley went ahead with a plan to take over the 2nd Order rooms at 36 Blythe Road on Mathers’ behalf. And at the same time (but independently) a group of 2nd Order members set up a committee which would rule the GD in Mathers’ stead. Julian might declare himself “sick of the whole business”, but he was still willing to be made a member of the new committee. However, he was too busy at work to take any active part in preventing Crowley from carrying out his plan. Fearing the worst, he wrote to Edmund Hunter urging him to remove all the books and other 2nd Order ritual paraphernalia that were stored at the Mark Masons’ Hall before Crowley could get his hands on them; apologising to Edmund for not being able to take time off work to do it himself. He told Edmund that “we must be prepared for anything” by way of response from Crowley - “a man without principles” - especially as Crowley had Mathers’ authority to re-establish control of the Order.
Crowley did take possession of the rooms at 36 Blythe Road for a brief period; Edmund Hunter was amongst those who got him and his main conspirator, Elaine Simpson, thrown out again. A few days afterwards, Julian went to the 2nd Order meeting which voted to expel from the Order Crowley, Mathers, Elaine Simpson and several other members who had acted with them. That wasn’t quite the end of it. Immediately after the meeting, the senior members of the GD, and Crowley, both consulted their lawyers: the GD to recover items that had gone missing from the rooms at 36 Blythe Road during the struggle for control of them; then Crowley because the GD’s solicitor had said or written something about Elaine Simpson that Crowley thought was a slur on her reputation. Julian was asked by the 2nd Order to act as intermediary. He and Crowley met at the Holborn Restaurant on 24 May 1900. None of the threatened legal action reached court, so perhaps Baker’s negotiating skills won the day; but as regards whatever was said or written about Elaine Simpson, it would have had to be Elaine herself who pursued a case - for libel or defamation - and she chose not to do so. Crowley never did go to a 2nd Order meeting or ritual so in the long run, Julian could be pleased with the outcome in that respect, but the whole affair did mark a certain parting of the ways between Julian and Cecil Jones. I can’t find any evidence that Jones stayed in the GD after Mathers’ expulsion, nor did he ever join either of its daughter orders; he chose to go with Crowley and did magic with Crowley on and off for the next ten years. Julian isn’t mentioned by Crowley in the writings I’ve seen, after 1900, and I presume they didn’t meet again. Julian and Cecil Jones’ friendship continued, of course; but perhaps the subject of Crowley was one they agreed not to debate. Julian’s anguish at the way Crowley and Cecil Jones parted company in 1911 must have been great (see my biography of Cecil Jones for what happened); but I doubt if Julian was surprised.
AFTER THE GOLDEN DAWN
1900 was the year that Julian started work for Watney Combe Reid and Co; 1901 was the year he got married. What with his exasperation at the GD’s inability to lead a quiet life, and the big changes he was making in his professional and personal life, it’s not surprising that Julian doesn’t figure in accounts of the last days of the original GD, the period from May 1900 to spring 1903. He may also have felt that the GD wasn’t quite the same without Cecil Jones in it: however, he did return to help the GD at yet another of its times of crisis.
During the spring of 1903 the GD finally split into two camps, the mystical and the magical (very roughly speaking) led by A E Waite and Robert William Felkin. Julian opted to go with Waite: he was one of the 14 members of the 2nd Order who signed the Manifesto of Independence in July 1903 and announced the founding of the Independent and Rectified Order or Rite. The IRRO/R was consecrated on 7 November 1903 and lasted until Waite closed it down in 1914. I don’t know how active a role Julian Baker played in the IRRO/R after its first year, though I would think he would have found it difficult to be very committed, with all the other work he had taken on, and especially after he and his family moved out of London. Perhaps the yeasts and sugars that he worked on every day at Watney Combe Reid and Co, and the gardening he enjoyed once he had settled in Berkshire, were alchemy enough for him.
BASIC SOURCES I USED for all Golden Dawn members.
Membership of the Golden Dawn: The Golden Dawn Companion by R A Gilbert. Northampton: The Aquarian Press 1986. Between pages 125 and 175, Gilbert lists the names, initiation dates and addresses of all those people who became members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or its many daughter Orders between 1888 and 1914. The list is based on the Golden Dawn’s administrative records and its Members’ Roll - the large piece of parchment on which all new members signed their name at their initiation. All this information had been inherited by Gilbert but it’s now in the Freemasons’ Library at the United Grand Lodge of England building on Great Queen Street Covent Garden. Please note, though, that the records of the Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh were destroyed in 1900/01. As far as I know, the records of the Horus Temple at Bradford have not survived either.
Family history: freebmd; ancestry.co.uk (census and probate); findmypast.co.uk; familysearch; Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage; Burke’s Landed Gentry; Armorial Families; thepeerage.com; and a wide variety of family trees on the web.
Famous-people sources: mostly about men, of course, but very useful even for the female members of GD. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Who Was Who. Times Digital Archive.
Useful source for business and legal information: London Gazette and its Scottish counterpart Edinburgh Gazette. Now easy to find (with the right search information) on the web.
Catalogues: British Library; Freemasons’ Library.
Wikipedia; Google; Google Books - my three best resources. I also used other web pages, but with some caution, as - from the historian’s point of view - they vary in quality a great deal.
SOURCES FOR JULIAN BAKER
THE BUCKMAN FAMILY - Julian’s mother. AND THE CONNECTION WITH THE NORMAN FAMILY
The common ancestor is John Buckman.
Marriage of John Buckman to Mary Bishop in August 1795: see freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com?~wragg44/leigh/leighvol4.htm
James Buckman is the well-known son of John and Mary Buckman of Cheltenham. He’s in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - see their web page at www.oxforddnb.com. The ODNB entry mentions brother Edwin and Benjamin Norman as a brother-in-law in business with Edwin; but no other family members apart from the parents are mentioned.
Geology and Religion: A History of Harmony and Hostility editor Martina Kölbl-Ebert. London: Geological Society c2009.
Norman’s History of Cheltenham by John Goding published 1863 p576 events in 1848 included the death of Benjamin Norman “A few weeks” ago; information originally in The Examiner issue of 30 August [1848].
James Buckman’s brother Edwin Buckman was the only member of the family whose baptism was at familysearch.
Bankruptcy of Edwin Buckman and Benjamin Norman: see London Gazette p3505 couldn’t see the full date but it’s 1844
Edwin Buckman the artist is the eldest son of Edwin Buckman. Harry George Buckman the third son is the wood engraver; he was Edwin the artist’s executor when he died in 1930.
At www.allposters.co.uk see posters of works by Edwin Buckman.
Via genesunited to Gloucester Citizen and other papers in that area issue of 16 October 1930 obituary of Edwin Buckman the artist.
BESSIE HELEN BUCKMAN
Confirmation that John Bishop Buckman was James Buckman’s brother: personal communication from James Buckman’s descendant Erica Haines, May 2018; Ms Haines has been researching the Buckman family tree.
At www.cheltenham4u.co.uk there’s the 1858-59 edition of Slater’s Commercial Directory of Cheltenham which shows him as the lessee of 392 High Street, assembly and club rooms.
PO Directory of Gloucestershire edition of 1863 p226, p238.
Familysearch digital folder 004273261 records the marriage of Albinia Crole to John Bishop Buckman at St James Swansea 6 June 1843.
The exact date of Albinia Buckman’s death is given in a probate registry document from 1865.
British Spas from 1815 to the Present: A Social History by Phyllis May Hembry, Leonard W Cowle, Evelyn R Cowle 1997. London: Athlone 1997 p200
Web pages of Swansea Record Office at www.swansea.gov.uk:
their access number D/D Z 97/15 a lease dated 30 November 1864.
Date of marriage of Bessie Helen Buckman to George Nathaniel Levett Baker: marriage certificate. Copy sent to me May 2018 by Erica Haines, descendant of Percy Buckman.
Date of birth of Julian Levett Baker: personal communication from Carol Grace Buckman, grand-daughter of Percy Buckman; in an email 4 April 2016.
Death of John Bishop Buckman in February 1895, and the names of his executors: Probate Registry entry.
FLORENCE FARR’S YEARLY INCOME
Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw’s New Woman by Josephine Johnson. Gerrard’s Cross: Colin Smythe 1975: p13.
THE BAKER FAMILY - Julian’s father’s family
That Julian Baker’s father worked for Coutts’ Bank: personal communication from the grand-daughter of Percy Buckman; in an email 4 April 2016.
LOVELL SELDEN BAKER and A Barwin and Co
London Gazette 27 September 1887 p5281 list of dissolved partnerships
Commercial Gazette 16 March 1892 had the firm A Barwin and Co being run by an F G Honchin or poss Hguchin (sic).
Marriage of Julian and Eveleen’s son Patrick
Times 27 November 1940 p7 marriage announcement Patrick Baker to Helen Gardner.
Seen via genesunited: Slough Eton and Windsor Observer 29 January 1910 p4 marriage announcement: Ernest Gardner and Amy Inglis Laurie.
At www.bbc.co.uk Your Paintings page has a portrait by David Lee in 1894 of Sir Ernest Gardner as mayor of Maidenhead.
Who’s Who issue 1916 p773.
This was the only information I could find that was definitely about a child of Julian and Eveleen.
CATHERINE LUCY PAUL
At www.cliftonrfchistory.co.uk some information on her first husband Arthur Clifford Saint Paul. London Gazette 16 October 1956 page of notices under Section 27 of the Trustee Act 1925.
JULIAN’S WORKING LIFE
A good statistical introduction to chemistry as a profession in this period is on the web at www.euchems.eu, article by Anna Simmons of the Open University: Working in a Transitional Territory? Chemical Consultants in the United Kingdom 1870-1914. Read at the 6th International Conference on the History of Chemistry. I think the publication’s title is Neighbours and Territores: the Evolving Identity of Chemistry: pp555-563.
Who’s Who in Science (International) edited by H H Stephenson. London: J and A Churchill 1912 p38.
Who Was Who 1951-60 p56.
The obituary of Julian by Cecil Jones: The Analyst issue 985 April 1958: 187-88.
Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley by Richard Kaczynski. Berkeley CA: NAH Books orig 2000 this revised ed 2010: pp52-53.
A reminiscence of the life of Julian Baker by Professor A C Chibnall: Times 8 February 1958 p8.
EDUCATION
City of London School
Our Schools and Colleges: Volume I Boys by Frederick Shirley de Carteret-Bisson. London: 1879; p703.
Finsbury Technical College
The University of London 1858-1900: the Politics of Senate and Convocation by F M G Willson. The Boydell Press 2004 pp462-463.
Via archive.org to Moritz’s A Text-Book of the Science of Brewing London, New York: E and F N Spon 1891: piii
A History of Beer and Brewing by Ian Spencer Hornsey. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry 2003: p13 is quite useful as an overview; p587.
The Dynamics of the International Brewing Industry by Richard George Wilson and Terence Richard Gourvish. London: Routledge 1998 p101.
FORSTER, Martin Onslow is in wikipedia
MORGAN, Gilbert Thomas
Via archiveshub.ac.uk to material held at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine as file GB 98 B/MORGAN
Morgan is in wikipedia but only in German!
LONDON BEETROOT SUGAR ASSOCIATION
I couldn’t find an exact date for the Association’s founding but The Sugar Cane volume 17 1885 p132 says it existed by December 1884.
Treatise on the Law of Arbitration in Scotland by J C Irons and R D Melville. W Green 1903 p92.
Sugar, Cane and Beet: An Object Lesson by George Martineau. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Ltd in their series Pitman’s Common Commodities of Commerce. 1910. Chapter XII p133-136.
The Digest: Annotated British Commonwealth and European Cases: Contract volumes 11-12. Butterworth 2001 p253 on an important case about breach of contract.
The Risk Controllers: Central Counterparty Clearing in Globalised Financial Markets by Peter Norman. Chichester: Wiley 2011.
ARTHUR ROBERT LING: via www.ncbi.nih.gov to back issues of the Biochemical Journal. Issue of September 1937 volume 31 number 9: 1439-40.
JULIAN’S TIME AT UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Only Cecil Jones’ obituary mentions that he did this.
BROWN, ADRIAN JOHN is in wikipedia and there’s an obituary via www.ncbi.nih.gov back issues of Biochemical Journal volume 14 number 1 February 1920: 1-3.
WATNEY, COMBE, REID AND CO
Are in wikipedia
Introduction to archives of Watney Combe Reid Ltd held at the London Metropolitan Archive as their reference ACC/2979.
THE PATENTS JULIAN HELD all from his time at Watney Combe Reid and Co:
His own:
At abebooks you could (24 March 2014) buy a copy of UK patent application 7921 for an improved method of treating and drying brewers’ and distillers’ yeast for use as a manure. Author: JLB. Published HMSO 1903. This patent was granted as 1904 GB190307921: see the details at www.patentmaps.com where you can also see information on the other two:
- The 1905 patent held jointly with Arthur Robert Ling: GB190416992-A
- The 1912 patent GB191123839.
Assigned to him, presumably for items he had not worked on - the 1925 piece of equipment is a bit outside his normal range of expertise. Again, see the details at www.patentmaps.com:
- 1925 GB235646-A
- 1944 GB564895-A.
HULTON, H F EVERARD
I found a little family history information on Everard Hulton, and one or two publications in which he was sole author:
Report on the Relation of the Nitrogenous Matter in Barley to Brewing Value by H F E Hulton. Originally in the Journal of the Institute of Brewing volume 28 number 1 as a Supplementt; but then published as a pamphlet, by the Institute.
The British Library catalogue doesn’t have a copy of the 1922 Report. It had only one item by Hulton: Beer published London: no details of a publisher but the year was 1934. A copy of this I found on amazon said that it was a publication of the 16th Streatfield Memorial Lecture, given by Hulton in 1933.
DAY, FRANK E
The Analyst volume 38 1913: p186a announced the election of F E Day B Sc as a member of the Society of Public Analysts.
List of Research Workers, Agriculture and Forestry, in the British Commonwealth issued by the Imperial Agricultural Bureau 1929 p97.
Records of Rothamsted Staff 1929 issued by the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden; p64.
Snippet seen via google: Journal of the Institute of Brewing issued 1936 p183 mentions that Day was dead. I couldn’t identify his death on freebmd.
WARD, T J, Julian’s co-author from 1935. I tried to find out about him on the web, but was defeated by the number of other people with those initials, including an American sportsman; so I gave up.
MEMBERSHIPS
Chemical Society:
The Chemical News and Journal of Physical Science volume 67 1893 p105.
At pubs.rsc.org Proceedings of the Chemical Society of London volume 9 number 119 issued 9 February 1893; with John Frederick Briggs and Julian L Baker next to each other in a list of men whose certificates in chemistry were being approved by the Society.
Proceedings of the Chemical Society volumes 9-10 1895 p29 and p89.
Journal of the Chemical Society volume 73 1898 p7.
Society of Chemical Industry:
Via archive.org to the earliest issue of the Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry that I could find on the web: volume XIII 1894. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode: piii Julian Baker and pxiii.
On the London group: via archive.org to Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry volume XVII 1897 piii, p4
As a member of the Society’s publication committee: Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry volume 33 part 1 1914 p381. And Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry volume 62 1943 p62.
Royal Institute of Chemistry:
Royal Institute of Chemistry Register of Fellows, Associates and Students issued 1901: p13.
Via archive.org to Journal and Proceedings of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland. 1921 part 1.
Institute of Brewing:
At onlinelibrary.wiley.com, Wiley Online Library, Journal of the Institute of Brewing volume 20 number 10 1922/23 p786 as part of the Report of the Malt Analysis Committee there’s a list of the current members of the Standing Committee on Analysis: Alfred Chaston Chapman FRS FIC is its chair; Julian Levett Baker, Everard Hulton, A R Ling and Dr E R Moritz are all members. But Cecil Jones isn’t.
Times 14 July 1905 p14.
Times 6 Feb 1909 p13.
THOSE BIG CONFERENCES
Society of Chemical Industry AGM 1905: Handbook of London and Provincial Excursions published for the Society by Spottiswoode and Co. Edited for the Society by Julian but compiled by Miss E Daniels (BA London).
Seventh International Congress of Applied Chemistry published in 6 volumes, editors Sir William Ramsay and William MacNab. London: Partridge and Cooper Ltd 1910. Unnumbered first volume p6, p8, p11, p43, p45, p102, p105, p113, p143-44, p156, p160, p206, p211, p221. And a separate volume - I’m not sure which one but found via google - p6, p105 for the two papers Julian was involved with that were given at the Congress.
Julian at Funerals
Times 21 October 1932 p17.
Times 17 July 1937 p17.
Times 5 Apr 1940 p11.
THE RESEARCH ON BABY FOODS
Reports to the Local Government Board on Public Health and Medical Subjects New Series number 80 Food Reports number 20. 1914. For references to this piece of research in other journals and modern works of history, see my file on Julian’s Publications.
THE BIT OF WAR WORK
Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry issued 31 July 1917 reproduced with permission in Journal of the Institute of Brewing volume 23 number 6 1917 pp353-54 as an editorial: Julian’s Use of Brewers’ Yeast in Bread Making, orignally read at a meeting of the Society. Via archive.org to Nature volume 100 September 1917-February 1918 for more details.
Use of brewers’ yeast in traditional bread-making: see English Bread and Yeast Cookery by Elizabeth David. London: Allen Lane 1977 and Penguin Books 1979.
If you want to see more details of Julian’s publications, follow the link HERE.
BAKER AND THE OCCULT
Www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline website run by the Aleister Crowley Society.
The two versions of The Confessions:
The Spirit of Solitude: an Autohagiography subseq re-Antichristened The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. London: Mandrake Press Museum St 1929. This version ends at 1904. Volume 1 p229, p243. Volume 2 p40.
The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography editors John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, pubd London, Boston, Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1979: p16, p164-65, p172, p178, p194, p224.
A version of The Confessions is on the web at
Www.hermetic.com/crowley/confessions:
Kabbala Denudata or The Kabbalah Unveiled translated by Samuel Liddell Mathers. Most GD members will have known this work from the 1887 edition. However, it’s more likely that Crowley had bought a copy of the 1898 edition issued in London by Kegan Paul Trench Trübner.
Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley by Richard Kaczynski. Berkeley CA: NAH Books orig 2000 this revised ed 2010 p55, p61, p76.
AFTERMATH OF BLYTHE ROAD:
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GD 2/4/3/23 is a letter from Causae Scientiae to “Care Frater”; JLB says at the end of it “greetings to Deo Date” [ie Dorothea Hunter] ((so recip almost cert Edmund Hunter)). Dtd 19 April 1900 on hdd paper: Stamford ?Bendham Road Upper Tooting. ((I think this is part of the new cttee-led GD)): JLB and recip have been made resp f rituals. In this context JLB has just heard from Florence Farr “that Blackden has thrown in his lot with Crowley”; so JLB urges the recip to take possn of “all our belongings” still at the Mark Masons’ Hall bef Crowley cld do so, and keep them at his house f the time being ((actually Blackden got there first)). JLB wld do the taking possn himself but he’ll be busy in the City f the next few days.
Letter is warning recip that anything might happen next. He says “we must be prepd f anything” and what he’s worried abt is Crowley, “a man without principles”: “one never knows to what lengths a man like Crowley will go” when he has been gvn “a free hand by Mathers”.
Letter ends by saying JLB and the recip will meet on Sat.
--
GD 2/4/3/27a is a long but m corrected a/c of the mtg of the 21 April 1900. Amongst those present at the mtg: PWB; Helen Rand; JLB; WBY who gave a speech abt fraud, and noting that in the past few years one Chief had d and n been replaced ((Woodman)) and one Chief had stepped back/down and n been replaced ((WWW)) so that Mathers was now the only Chief, behaviour ever m “autocratic”.
GD 2/4/3/37: typewritten order expelling those who had attempted to take control of the 2nd Order rooms on Mathers’ behalf. 5 May 1900.
GD 2/4/3/38 series of letters and a bill for fees to Annie Horniman from solicitor Charles Russell of 31 Norfolk Street.
Meeting of Julian and Crowley at Holborn Restaurant: GD 2/4/3/40, short anonymous note written on Annie Horniman’s notepaper.
THE INDEPENDENT RITE
A E Waite: A Magician of Many Parts by R A Gilbert. Wellingborough Northants 1987: p178 Appendix C.
Copyright SALLY DAVIS
30 May 2018
Find the web pages of Roger Wright and Sally Davis, including my list of people initiated into the Order of the Golden Dawn between 1888 and 1901, at:
http:www.wrightanddavis.co.uk
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