Harry Fenn
Fenn was born in Surry, England in 1845. As a young man he trained as a wood engraver. He later also became a painter. He left for the USA in the mid 1860s and stayed on for six years. When he returned to America after a stint on Italy, he produced the illustrations for two books which are considered today to be the first illustrated “gift” books ever published.
In 1870 he travelled throughout America for the project Picturesque America which was eventually published as two volume set of books by D. Appleton and Company of New York in 1872 and 1874. The books were phenomenally successful.
In 1873, he went to Europe and the Orient for subsequent book illustration projects - Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt – and of course Picturesque Europe - which included numerous engravings and an entire chapter on Gibraltar.
The truth is that I find it hard to criticize a book that contains the following statement:
There is, perhaps, no more beautiful spot than Gibraltar in all this beautiful southern land. The great rock itself presents a series of unrivalled pictures.Nevertheless, it does include several descriptions that deserve discussion so perhaps it might be a good idea to do so here to avoid interruptions to the flow of the text and its illustrations which I will post as a separate article.
. . . but the first who recognised the strategical value of the Rock was the one-eyed Berber chief Tarik, who captured, strengthened, and held it. To him Gibraltar owes its present name, which is a corruption of Gibel Tarik, the “mountain of Tarik.”More recent research suggests that it is far more likely that the Islamic commander Tarik Ibn Ziyad first landed in Iberia somewhere close to Gibraltar but not on the Rock itself. It is also even less likely that he ever actually appreciated its strategic value as he almost certainly never captured, strengthened or held it. That Gibraltar is a corruption of Gibel Tarik is certainly a commonly held view but may not necessarily be correct. Fast forward a few hundred years:
. . . . The captors (basically Anglo-Dutch forces) then took formal possession of the place (Gibraltar) in the name of Prince George of Hesse, who was present, and who claimed the throne of Spain. But it was the Union Jack which was hoisted . . .
Prince George was the overall commander of the forces that captured Gibraltar in 1704. He claimed it on behalf of his boss, the Archduke Charles of Austria pretender to the Spanish throne during the War of the Spanish Succession. As regards the raising of the Union Jack, there is no real evidence at present that Admiral Rooke, the British presence in this affair, ever did such a thing.
Another hundred or so years and the somewhat cryptic sentence:
. . . The famous governor, the General O'Hara, who was the subject of the celebrated Miss Berry's romantic attachment . . .
. . is unexplained and left to the readers imagination. The reference refers to his love for a writer called Mary Berry. He had met her in Italy but she had refused to accompany him to Gibraltar. She must have admired him, however, as she wrote of him as ‘the most perfect specimen of a soldier and a courtier of the past age.’
Mary Berry
According to a writer in the New Monthly Magazine of 1866;
She loved him, with that warm and generous enthusiasm that invests its object with every human quality deemed necessary to perfection, and to the latest years of her life she firmly believed that her union with him would have given increased elevation to her own character, would have called forth the best feelings of her heart, and, in this world, have secured her happiness."
From the book
All in all, O’Hara is given a good press throiughout. For example, the book includes an engraving with the caption “O’Hara’s Tower and Governor’s Cottage” but there is no mention in the general text about the building - even less that the person responsible for it construction was also O’Hara.
O’Hara, nicknamed “Cock of the Rock” was a womaniser of the first water and kept two mistresses in Gibraltar. One was an English girl who lived openly with him in the Convent and the other was his housekeeper. It was O’Hara who built this pied- à-terre on the South side of the rock in order to keep his two families apart from each other. Today the place is still known as Governor’s Cottage.
Another odd comment is the following one:
Windmill Hill Road is one of the main thoroughfares and principal arteries of the fortress, connecting north with south, the old crowded town lying nearest the gates on the Spanish side, and the southern suburb, which includes several barracks, the military prison, the great hospital, and the point or promontory of Europa, lying opposite the African coast.
Windmill Hill Road is simply a smallish road leading off towards Windmill Hill. It is neither one of the “main thoroughfares” nor a “principle artery” connecting North and South. These attributes belong to Europa Road - off which the much smaller Windmill Hill Road leads upwards to Lathbury Barracks and the military prison. It does not lead to the larger and much older South Barrack, or to the “great hospital” or even to Europa Point, the “promontory of Europa”.
Catalan Bay is also worth a comment.
. . . Ceuta again may be seen from the sea-beach at Catalan Bay. This curious little hamlet, which lies at the back of the rock, is peopled by a race half-Spanish, half-Italian, descendants from the shipwrecked crew of a Genoese barque, who, when cast away at this point, settled here, seeking wives among the natives of Gibraltar, but yet retaining their own tongue, a mongrel Italian, which is spoken still at Catalan Bay.There are numerus theories as to why Catalan Bay is so called and from where exactly its original small population came from. The shipwrecked crew is certainly one of them but it is hardly the most believed in. Even if true it fails to explain why it is called “Catalan” rather than “Genoese” Bay
Another old chestnut is also mentioned:
The hills which close the distance are in Spain. That nearest is known as the Queen of Spain's Chair, because a seat was prepared here for the consort of Philip V, from which she might witness the triumphal re-entry of the Spanish troops into Gibraltar after it had been recovered from the English—a work of supererogation, as it proved.
The author is describing an event that he describes as having taken place took in 1727 during the 13th Siege of Gibraltar. This suggestion has several merits, not least of which is that there is no mention of the Queen insisting that she would remain there until the enemy flag was lowered when Gibraltar was retaken by her husband’s army.
It also has merit in the fact that Philip V actually had a wife – which is more than can be said for the Spanish monarch Charles III who instigated the next Siege of Gibraltar in the late 18th century and whose non-existing queen is often referenced as the lady in question.
However, it is still hard to take the Philip V version seriously. His wife was Elisabeth Farnese - Isabel de Farnesio in Spanish. A woman of character she took advantage of her husband many shortcomings and eventually became the de facto ruler of Spain.
Isabel de Farnesio
In theory “Isabel” should be a good candidate for the “Queen” in the Queen’s chair. Philip had always been keen on getting Gibraltar back from Britain and - as George Hills explains in his Rock of Contention - “Elizabeth . . . made Philip’s passion for Gibraltar her own”.
Whether the naming of the tower was a metaphor for the queen who may have been held responsible by the British for this particular siege I have no idea. But history makes no mention of Elizabeth Farnese ever having visited the Spanish lines. Beside it would have been completely out of character for a person as savvy as Ms Farnese to have placed herself so open to ridicule.
Finally, during the 1870s the local civilian population of Gibraltar held steady at more or less 18 000 souls most of them of Spanish, Genoese, Portuguese and Jewish origins. They are not mentioned in the entire chapter on Gibraltar which is not surprising in that it is more or less in line with other books by authors giving their opinions on the place after a short visit. At least we can be thankful that the author did not dismiss the lot as beyond the pale, something that was also quite common at the time.
1880s - Picturesque Gibraltar – Harry Fenn – Part 2