Social Victorians/People/Bourke

Also Known As

• Family name: The Hon. Algernon Bourke
• Lady Florence Bourke
• See also the page for the Earl of Mayo, whose family name is Bourke.

Overview

Although Algernon Henry Bourke was born in Dublin in 1854 and came from a family whose title is in the Peerage of Ireland, he seems to have spent much of his adult life generally in England and especially in London.

Organizations

• Eton
• Cambridge University, Trinity College, 1873, Michaelmas term
• Conservative Party
• 1879: Appointed a Poor Law Inspector in Ireland, Relief of Distress Act
• Special Correspondent of The Times for the Zulu War, accompanying Lord Chelmsford

Timeline

1887 December 15, Hon. Algernon Bourke and Guendoline Stanley married.

1897 July 2, Friday, the Hon. A. and Mrs. A. Bourke and Mr. and Mrs. Bourke attended the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball at Devonshire House. (The Hon Algernon Bourke is #235 on the list of people who were present; the Hon. Guendoline Bourke is #236; a Mr. Bourke is #703; a Mrs. Bourke is #704.)

Costume at the Duchess of Devonshire's 2 July 1897 Fancy-dress Ball

According to both the Morning Post and the Times, the Hon. Algernon Bourke was among the Suite of Men in the Oriental procession at the Duchess of Devonshire's fancy-dress ball. Based on the people they were dressed as, Guendonine Bourke was probably in this procession but it seems unlikely that Algernone Bourke was.

Hon. Guendoline Bourke as Salammbô. ©National Portrait Gallery, London.

Hon. Guendoline Bourke

Alfons Mucha's 1896 Salammbô.

Lafayette's portrait (right) of "Guendoline Irene Emily Bourke (née Sloane-Stanley) as Salammbô" in costume is photogravure #128 in the album presented to the Duchess of Devonshire and now in the National Portrait Gallery. The printing on the portrait says, "The Hon. Mrs. Algernon Bourke as Salammbo."

Newspaper Accounts

The Hon. Mrs. A. Bourke was dressed as

• Salambo in the Oriental procession.
• "(Egyptian Princess), drapery gown of white and silver gauze, covered with embroidery of lotus flowers; the top of gown appliqué with old green satin embroidered blue turquoise and gold, studded rubies; train of old green broché."
• "Mrs. A. Bourke, as an Egyptian Princess, with the Salambo coiffure, wore a flowing gown of white and silver gauze covered with embroidery of lotus flowers. The top of the gown was ornamented with old green satin embroidered with blue turquoise and gold, and studded with rubies. The train was of old green broché with sides of orange and gold embroidery, and from the ceinture depended long bullion fringe and an embroidered ibis."

Salammbô

Salammbô is the eponymous protagonist in Gustave Flaubert's 1862 novel. Ernest Reyer's opera Salammbô was based on Flaubert's novel and published in Paris in 1890 and performed in 1892 (both Modest Mussorgsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff had attempted but not completed operas based on the novel as well). Alfons Mucha's 1896 lithograph of Salammbô was published in 1896, the year before the ball (above left).

Algy — Algernon Henry Bourke — by "Spy," Vanity Fair 20 January 1898

Hon. Algernon Bourke

Hon. Algernon Henry Bourke as Izaak Walton. ©National Portrait Gallery, London.

Lafayette's portrait (left) of "Hon. Algernon Henry Bourke as Izaak Walton" in costume is photogravure #129 in the album presented to the Duchess of Devonshire and now in the National Portrait Gallery. The printing on the portrait says, "The Hon. Algernon Bourke as Izaak Walton."

This portrait is amazing and unusual: Algernon Bourke is not using a photographer's set with theatrical flats and props, certainly not one used by anyone else at the ball itself. Isaak Walton (baptised 21 September 1593 – 15 December 1683) wrote The Compleat Angler. A cottage Walton lived in and willed to the people of Stafford was photographed in 1888, suggesting that its relationship to Walton was known in 1897, raising a question about whether Bourke could have used the fireplace in the cottage for his portrait. (This same cottage still exists, as the Isaak Walton Cottage museum.)

A caricature portrait (right) of the Hon. Algernon Bourke, called "Algy," by Leslie Ward ("Spy") was published in the 20 January 1898 issue of Vanity Fair as Number 702 in its "Men of the Day" series, giving an indication of what he looked like out of costume.

Mr. and Mrs. Bourke

The Times made a distinction between the Hon. Mr. and Mrs. A. Bourke and Mr. and Mrs. Bourke, including both in the article. Occasionally this same article mentions the same people more than once in different contexts and parts of the article, so they may be the same couple. (See Notes and Question #2, below.)

Demographics

• Nationality: Anglo-Irish
• Occupation: journalist. 1895: restaurant, hotel and club owner and manager

Residences

• Ireland: 1873: Palmerston House, Straffan, Co. Kildare. Not Co. Mayo?
• 1890: 33 Cadogan Terrace
• 1891: 33 Cadogan Terrace, Kensington and Chelsea, a dwelling house
• 1894: 181 Pavilion Road, Kensington and Chelsea
• 1900: 181 Pavilion Road, Kensington and Chelsea
• 1911: 1911 Fulham, London
• 20 Eaton Square, S.W. (in 1897) (London home of the Earl of Mayo)

Family

• Hon. Algernon Henry Bourke (31 December 1854 – 7 April 1922)
• Guendoline Irene Emily Sloane-Stanley Bourke (c. 1869 – 30 December 1967)

1. Daphne Marjory Bourke (5 April 1895 – 22 May 1962)

Relations

• Hon. Algernon Henry Bourke (the 3rd son of the 6th Earl of Mayo) was the older brother of Lady Florence Bourke.

Other Bourkes

• Hubert Edward Madden Bourke (after 1925, Bourke-Borrowes)
• Lady Eva Constance Aline Bourke, who married Windham Henry Wyndham-Quin on 7 July 1885; he became 5th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl on 14 June 1926.

Notes and Questions

1. Algernon Bourke's is really an amazing portrait with a very interesting setting, far more specific than any of the other Lafayette portraits of these people in their costumes. Where was it shot? Lafayette is given credit, but it's not one of his usual backdrops. If this portrait was taken the night of the ball, then this fireplace was in Devonshire House; if not, then whose fireplace is it?
2. The Times lists Hon. A. Bourke (at 325) and Hon. Mrs. A. Bourke (at 236) as members of a the "Oriental" procession, Mr. and Mrs. A. Bourke (in the general list of attendees), and then a small distance down Mr. and Mrs. Bourke (now at 511 and 512, respectively). This last couple with no honorifics is also mentioned in the report in the London Evening Standard, which means the Hon. Mrs. A. Bourke, so the Times may have repeated the Bourkes, who otherwise are not obviously anyone recognizable. If they are not the Hon. Mr. and Mrs. A. Bourke, then they are unidentified. It seems likely that they are the same, however, as the newspapers were not perfectly consistent in naming people with their honorifics, even in a single story, especially a very long and detailed one in which people could be named more than once.
3. Four slightly difficult-to-identify men were among the Suite of Men in the "Oriental" procession: Gordon Wood, Arthur B. Portman, Wilfred Wilson, and Hon. Algernon Bourke. The identification of Gordon Wood and Wilfred Wilson is high because of contemporary newspaper accounts; the Hon. Algernon Bourke is not difficult to identify at all; Arthur Portman appears in a number of similar newspaper accounts, but none of them mentions his family of origin.