This is a question we are frequently asked by visitors to Farringford and it is one to which there is no straightforward answer.
Certainly, ill health seems to have been a recurring theme of Emily’s life. She is often described as sickly, and occasional references are made to her having a ‘spinal weakness’. She had at least two major breakdowns in health throughout her life.
The first occurred after the birth of her second son, Lionel, in 1854, when Emily was forty years old. Evidence from her diaries suggests this limited her mobility quite profoundly. She made use of a wheelchair for several years, in which Alfred took her round the estate. This seems to have been part of their routine during this time, which she affectionately refers to in the diaries as their “happy rounds”. She also mentions being “too weak” to sing.
Throughout this period, she kept up her daily work as Alfred’s secretary, looking after his correspondence and the running of their lives while he composed his poems. Friends of the Tennysons warned her against overwork, with Benjamin Jowett going so far as to say: “Do not throw away your life in the performance of imaginary duties which are really unimportant.” However, Emily does not seem to have paid much attention to their opinions. Her diary gives a real sense of her respect for Tennyson as a poet, so it may be concluded that she found fulfilment in her work and did not find it, as Jowett did, “unimportant”. Perhaps it helped her feel connected to the outside world when her movement beyond the walls of her home was so often limited.
In fact, it was only in 1874, when Emily suffered a breakdown in health so severe it has been described as ‘near fatal’, that she ceased her duties and gave up her diary. Hallam came home from Cambridge University to take over her work as secretary and amanuensis to Tennyson.
Her diary ends abruptly here with the entry: “I had to answer many letters from unknown correspondents, asking advice from Alfred as to religious questions, and desiring criticisms of poems, and I became very ill and could do but little, so my Journal ends here.” In a letter to a friend, Alfred describes Emily’s illness as “spinal weakness resulting from overwork of brain”. Whether this diagnosis would be agreed with by a modern doctor is somewhat doubtful.
Many visitors to the house have their own theories as to the precise nature of Emily’s illness. Some have questioned whether her later breakdown may have been affected by the menopause. Others have wondered whether she may have had a chronic illness such as MS.
While we can never know the precise nature of Emily’s symptoms, her letters and diaries give us a valuable insight into the life of a disabled person in the past, an aspect of history which is so often missing or overlooked. When we look at her life as she has written it, we see a woman surrounded by familial love and natural beauty, both of which seem to have brought her much contentment and happiness. She describes the flowers on one outing in her wheelchair in 1858: “the May was like snow on the hedge and the rose campion made wreaths beneath them. The withies too wore white with their silk down. A most happy outing I have had.” She calls Tennyson a “tender nurse” and notes that “if it were not faithless [she] should be afraid of so much happiness as [she has]”.
If you would like to visit the house see the Visiting Farringford page. You can also stay in one of the Estate Cottages.