Monthly Archives: November 2025

Jack Clemo: Exhibition of a Rebel

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By Ted Strange, Special Collections Exhibitions Volunteer

The display case on Level -1 of the Forum Library

Designed to celebrate the life and work of the great Cornish poet, Jack Clemo, this exhibition spans a portion of literary, visual, and personal materials from the Special Collection’s significant Clemo collection. The exhibition is structured to highlight Clemo’s personality and friendships, his literary work, and his marriage. The intention is thus to offer a glimpse into the more extensive offerings of Jack Clemo’s archive, including unpublished literature, personal correspondence, and physical possessions.

I approached this exhibition as a historian with a lived experience of sensory impairment. Admittedly, my interest in disability history was the initial catalyst for approaching the Clemo archive. However, it would be a mistake to over-emphasise the personal life of Clemo, without recognising the primary importance of his remarkable literary career; in fact, his most notable works were published prior to the onset of his blindness. Clemo possessed an incredible natural gift for describing both natural and industrial landscape: his ‘party trick’ was for friends to describe a place to which they had travelled and he would write a short recollection of their experience, including descriptions of things that even they had forgotten they observed. Clemo used these vivid descriptions of his local Cornish clay pits as the background for his fiercely individualist Calvinist poetry. Many enthusiasts will recall the story in ‘Confessions of a Rebel’ in which an adolescent Clemo is being praised by his headmaster to his mother as a ‘born philosopher’. As such, this archive is of particular interest to those interested in both religious and twentieth century West Country literature.

Jack and Ruth Clemo in Weymouth in 1987 [EUL MS 68/PERS/3/1/3]

Female influences loomed large in Clemo’s life and archive. Clemo’s mother, Eveline, raised him alone following the death of his father during the First World War, supporting him throughout his illnesses. Later, he married Ruth Clemo, with whom he shared his happy final years and many Valentine’s cards that can be found in the archive. Marriage was imperative towards Clemo’s vision for God’s plan for his life. It was Clemo’s belief that his marriage had been prescribed as a divine destiny; once he had achieved this goal, his senses would be restored. This did not come to pass, and whilst he sporadically regained some hearing, he spent his adult life being ably supported by Eveline and Ruth (pictured in the top of the exhibition, communicating with Clemo by tracing letters onto his hand).

Some of the most evocative materials in this archive are, naturally, the physical possessions. The conkers from Vallombrosa Woods, shown in the bottom shelf of the exhibition, were stored in a heart-shaped box as a gift to Clemo’s wife. These accompany the numerous love letters between the couple throughout the years of their marriage. The physical possessions in the archive are not limited to Clemo’s romantic relationship; the archive also contains items such as dog fur, which encourages us to consider the value and purpose of retaining such items. Perhaps, in addition to sentimentality, they were stored for their sensory value as someone deprived of major senses.

“It’s odd in a way that you, who are in close and vigorous touch with the everyday world, should rely largely on fancy and imagination for your poetry, while I, who seem cut off from the world, hack out most of my poems with a blunt down-to-earth realism in which there is hardly a trace of fancy – no angels or dragons or daughters of Neptune.” – Letter from Jack Clemo to Charles Causley (9th April 1970)

The wedding party of Jack and Ruth Clemo, Charles Causley is pictured on the far left [EUL MS 68/PERS/3/1/8]

The archive contains a substantial amount of material that will be of interest to enthusiasts of popular poet Charles Causley, a close friend and advocate for Clemo, who would later serve as his best man. In letters from both the archives of Jack Clemo and Charles Causley – some of which have been included in this exhibition – we can see the extensive efforts that Causley goes to, ensuring Clemo’s voice was heard in an environment which often reduced him to a ‘novelty-act’. Causley and Clemo found common ground in their mutual admiration for literature, Cornish upbringing, and close maternal relationships. Whilst Causley’s life took a very different trajectory, fighting in the Second World War and becoming a school teacher, their roots bound them to one another, and they exchanged letters until Clemo’s death in 1994.

Clemo’s story is one of talent and individualism, rather than affliction. His personal experiences must be considered in the context of exploring his archive and exhibiting his life, but they must not be considered the primary reason for his enduring importance. Clemo wrote fiercely about spirituality within the brutal setting of the clay pits, imbuing mysticism with blunt Cornish realism to create a “clear, fiery vision”. Clemo frequently highlighted in his later life, during a resurgence in his popularity, that his story is of love – in marriage and in faith – rather than pity. As he once said to his friend, the painter Lionel Miskin: “When the gospel invades, tragedy goes out”.

With special thanks to Dr Sarah-Jayne Ainsworth and the Special Collections team for passionately supervising this project, and to Michael Spinks for valuable insights into Clemo’s theology as well as fun facts such as Clemo’s ‘party-trick’.

Archival items featured in the exhibition:

The Pamir Commission (EUL MS 152)

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The nineteenth century’s ‘Great Game’ saw diplomatic intrigue, proxy battles and occasional military stand-offs between Britain and Russia as both empires vied for control in central Asia. There were, however, instances of co-operation in the interests of peace, such as the Afghan Boundary Commission which travelled around the northern areas of Afghanistan between 1885 and 1888 in an attempt to agree on the location of the northern border with Russian Turkestan. Matters deteriorated again afterwards, however, leading to an incident in which Colonel (later Sir) Francis Younghusband was detained by Colonel Yonoff in the summer of 1891, and a large number of Afghans were massacred by the Russians nearby the following year. A series of negotiations between the Russians and the British in 1893 and 1894 led to an agreement in March 1895 that a joint Commission would be established once for all to settle the precise boundary between the two empires.

Map of part of the region surveyed by the earlier Afghan Boundary Commission of 1885-1888 from Major A.C. Yate’s England and Russia Face to Face in Asia: Travels with the Afghan Boundary Commission (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1887) Special Collections Reserve 958.103 YAT

British members of the Commission left India on 20 June 1895 and began a month’s trek up into the Pamir Mountains. The group was led by Major-General M. G. Gerard and consisted of Colonel T.H. Holdich and Major R.A. Wahab of the Royal Engineers, Captain E. F. H. McSwiney (Intelligence), surgeon and naturalist Captain A.W. Alcock of the Indian Medical Service, Ressaidar Zahirulla Khan of the Central India Horse, topographer Khan Sahib Abdul Qhaffir, with two Native Surveyors, as well as sepoys of the 20th Punjab Infantry, local porters and assistants, plus a large number of Kashmir ponies to carry all the food and equipment.

On 22 July they met with their Russian counterparts on the banks of the lake at the ‘Little Pamir’, a broad valley in the eastern part of the Wakhan corridor in NE Afghanistan. . The Russian delegation were headed by General Povalo-Shveikovski, Governor of Ferghana, and comprised a similar mixture of scientific officers, engineers and academics, accompanied by a guard of mounted Cossacks.  In a spirit of fraternal exchange, it was agreed that the lake would from henceforth be known as ‘Lake Victoria’ and the mountains separating the Little Pamir from the Great Pamir would be known as the ‘Nicholas Range’ on the respective maps of each country. The name by which the locals knew these features was not, naturally, considered of great importance.

The Afghan representatives arrived a few days later, the senior delegate being Sardar Ghulam Mohiuddin Khan, the Governor of Faizabad (the capital of Badakshan), assisted by Mufti Ashur Muhammad Khan. Over the next two months the Afghans, Russians and British would travel along the ninety miles of the border region, demarcating the boundary line and signing a series of protocols to confirm their joint agreement on the matter. All this was finally concluded on 14 September, after which the groups parted and began their return journeys.

Full details of the expedition can be found in the official Report on the proceedings of the Pamir Boundary Commission (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India, 1897) which covers 100 pages and includes a narrative of the journey, scientific reports on flora, fauna and geology, as well as individual sections on particular topics of interest, all illustrated with 39 pages of photographs. These were probably taken by Asmatulla Khan, one of the two surveyors assisting Khan Sahib Abdul Qhaffir, and who is described as ‘an excellent draftsman’ who had ‘undergone a short training at Rurki Survey in photography’ (p.46.)

Although we do not have a copy of the Report here in our library, we do have an interesting photo album which contains the same photographs that appear in the Report, albeit in a different order. Unlike the official publication, these photographs are accompanied by captions written in pencil, under which a second hand has written out the captions more clearly, sometimes with small variations. These have clearly been done by someone with knowledge of the region, for there are occasional clarifications or additions of place names.

Who added these annotations? There is a clue in the front of the book, as the University College bookplate (which itself indicates that the album was donated before 1955) has an inscription ‘Given by Miss Hodges, Lustleigh.’ This is almost certainly Miss Angela Barbara Edwards Hodges, who born in Teignmouth in 1892 and is recorded as living at Underwood, Lustleigh, during the 1930s and 1940s. Her father was Henry Francis Edwards Hodges (1860-1900), a Captain in the 1st battalion Royal Irish Rifles. According to Shadbolt’s The Afghan Campaigns of 1878-1880 (London, 1882. p.206) Hodges served in Afghanistan with the 2nd Battalion 15th (Yorkshire East Riding) Regiment during the Afghan wars, taking part in the advance to Kandahar as a probationary staff officer, under the command of Lt.-Colonel R. L. Dashwood. Although he did not accompany the Pamir Commission, he may have had an indirect connection to their work, or at least took sufficient interest in it to acquire a copy of this album.

The photographs have an interests that stretches far beyond imperial history, however, as they include views of local Buddhist monuments and sacred architecture, just as the Henzal stupa and the domed tomb of Bozai Gumbaz.

The album has now been digitised for the Digital Archive of the Middle East (DAME) and can be viewed here as a PDF. The individual photographs can also be viewed here. There are also a growing number of other materials relating to Afghanistan on the DAME website.