DOI issue:
No. 324 (March 1920)
DOI article:Green, A. Romney: John Houghton Bonnor: An appreciation
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21360#0021
JOHN HOUGHTON BONNOR : AN APPRECIATION
his work as ever ; and it was then, I think,
that he engaged a clever professional
cabinet-maker and took up woodwork.
Of course, he taught the cabinet-maker a
great deal more than he learned from him ;
and—after giving me all the orders I was
able to execute—he proceeded from sheer
j oy in the new material to turn out furniture
and fitments for the house into which he
had moved on Chiswick Mall, and other
woodwork, such as sculptured figures of
a character more truly mediaeval than that
of any modern craftsman known to me. 0
But—before leaving the character of the
man for that of the craftsman—I should
also notice in connexion with this change
in his fortunes, that he even continued his
work as a teacher at the Camberwell School
of Art which, at all events, most outsiders
would have been disposed to imagine had
been undertaken from financial considera-
tions merely. Mr. Bonnor, however,
apparently agreed with Thoreau that 44 to
have done anything by which you earned
money merely is to have been idle, or
worse.” At all events, he was one of those
few men who unite a strong and original
genius with a real faculty for teaching,
with that endless patience, especially rare
in such men, which is so especially neces-
sary to the teacher. Just as he worked
for the sheer love of his work so he taught
for the sheer joy of teaching; and he
inspired both his pupils and his fellow-
teachers with a love and admiration to
which Mrs. Bonnor has had many testi-
monies. As for the money, Mrs. Bonnor
tells me that even in the days of their
greatest poverty he would often need to
receive more notices than one asking him to
fill up and send in his formal application for
salary—“ he simply forgot all about it.”
Equally characteristic was his remark,
44 I'm d—d if I can understand a word the
chap says,” of a business man's conversa-
tion. On our first acquaintance, Mr.
Bonnor's personal appearance, his tall,
rather gaunt and slightly stooping figure,
his soft dark eyes, high forehead, and curl-
ing chestnut hair and beard, certainly gave
me at once that impression of his character,
which was confirmed by my subsequent
knowledge of him ; especially of the utter
unworldliness I have already insisted on,
and of that highly absorbed contemplative
window in st. bede’s
COLLEGE CHAPEL IN
MEMORY OF COLONEL
FOX. BY J. H. BONNOR
15
his work as ever ; and it was then, I think,
that he engaged a clever professional
cabinet-maker and took up woodwork.
Of course, he taught the cabinet-maker a
great deal more than he learned from him ;
and—after giving me all the orders I was
able to execute—he proceeded from sheer
j oy in the new material to turn out furniture
and fitments for the house into which he
had moved on Chiswick Mall, and other
woodwork, such as sculptured figures of
a character more truly mediaeval than that
of any modern craftsman known to me. 0
But—before leaving the character of the
man for that of the craftsman—I should
also notice in connexion with this change
in his fortunes, that he even continued his
work as a teacher at the Camberwell School
of Art which, at all events, most outsiders
would have been disposed to imagine had
been undertaken from financial considera-
tions merely. Mr. Bonnor, however,
apparently agreed with Thoreau that 44 to
have done anything by which you earned
money merely is to have been idle, or
worse.” At all events, he was one of those
few men who unite a strong and original
genius with a real faculty for teaching,
with that endless patience, especially rare
in such men, which is so especially neces-
sary to the teacher. Just as he worked
for the sheer love of his work so he taught
for the sheer joy of teaching; and he
inspired both his pupils and his fellow-
teachers with a love and admiration to
which Mrs. Bonnor has had many testi-
monies. As for the money, Mrs. Bonnor
tells me that even in the days of their
greatest poverty he would often need to
receive more notices than one asking him to
fill up and send in his formal application for
salary—“ he simply forgot all about it.”
Equally characteristic was his remark,
44 I'm d—d if I can understand a word the
chap says,” of a business man's conversa-
tion. On our first acquaintance, Mr.
Bonnor's personal appearance, his tall,
rather gaunt and slightly stooping figure,
his soft dark eyes, high forehead, and curl-
ing chestnut hair and beard, certainly gave
me at once that impression of his character,
which was confirmed by my subsequent
knowledge of him ; especially of the utter
unworldliness I have already insisted on,
and of that highly absorbed contemplative
window in st. bede’s
COLLEGE CHAPEL IN
MEMORY OF COLONEL
FOX. BY J. H. BONNOR
15