I forgot to check this yesterday. There is an umbrella organisation called the Alliance of Literary Societies of which the Richard Jefferies Society is a member. The ALS as it is known has around 100 members ranging from the big societies in terms of members such as the Thomas Hardy Society, the P.G.Wodehouse Society and The Jane Austen Society so more specialist groups like The Bewick Society and The David Jones Society. The Richard Jefferies Society sits somewhere in the middle and has been a long standing and formerly very active member, hosting the ALS Annual General Meeting twice I believe. On the ALS website they host a Society of the Month page and back in April I wrote up a piece for it. May and June came and went and it wasn't published. I checked with the ALS and received a lovely reply from Marty their Chair apologising over this non publication, ending it would go up on July 1st. Which it did but I forgot to check until today. Quite strange seeing my words on a literary website, below.
'The mind is infinite and able to understand everything that is brought before it’. So penned Richard Jefferies in his somewhat spiritual autobiography The Story of My Heart published in 1883.
Sometimes dubbed Nature’s Philosopher, (John) Richard Jefferies was born in 1848 in the hamlet of Coate, then a rural backwater close to Swindon in Wiltshire. Always a dreamer, reserved in manner, as a young adult he was a familiar sight walking the fields and hills near his home. Yet over his short life Richard Jefferies caught the sentiment of the Victorian age with 19 published works before his untimely death in 1887. Today Jefferies is perhaps better known for his keenly observed chronicles and essays on nature. Yet Jefferies’ early career was as a journalist for the North Wilts Herald and the Wilts & Gloucestershire Standard. He became a nationally prolific agricultural journalist following the publication of his 4,000-word letter to The Times about the agricultural labourers in his home county.
A little over 60 years after his death the Richard Jefferies Society was founded in 1950 by Harold Adams with the aim of maintaining Jefferies’ reputation and, successfully as it turned out, campaigning to preserve his birthplace at Coate as a museum. Today this is managed by the Richard Jefferies Museum Trust, with whom the Richard Jefferies Society works alongside.
Jefferies’ writing is hard to define. His early works such as The Gamekeeper at Home or Wild Life in a Southern County suggest a keen observer of wildlife intimately attuned with the natural landscape. Later works, such as The Life of the Fields are reflective of the world around him. He also wrote novels and the much-loved children’s classic Bevis. Edward Thomas, an admirer, wrote a biography of Jefferies. Henry Williamson was influenced by him. Rachel Carson kept a copy of The Story of My Heart by her bedside.
Though Jefferies remains an enigma, his Victorian philosophy towards the world he observed still resonates with today’s concerns with mindfulness and connection with nature. In recognition of this the respected Richard Jefferies Award was set up in 2015 to celebrate the most outstanding nature writing published in a given calendar year. The Society also holds a financial bursary to assist high quality research projects.
Now heading towards its 75th Anniversary in 2025, the Richard Jefferies Society is evolving and looking to embrace new ways of delivering his message to the next generation. Yet the Society’s heart remains our core membership, open to all whether a devoted researcher or casual reader. Further details can be found on the Society’s website below.
www.richardjefferiessociety.org
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