Rann Kennedy (1)

After his mother's death,  Rann Kennedy,  son of Benjamin and Damaris (see elsewhere on this blog) grew up with his Uncle George.  He was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School in Birmingham,  then went on to St John’s College,  Cambridge.  At St John’s he was a scholarship student,  one of an underclass who had to wear a uniform that marked them out wherever they went,  be it in the town or in the college itself.  A few years before,  the low-income students were still expected to wait at the tables of the genteel and well-heeled students.  William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge who attended the college during the same period withdrew before attaining their degrees, despite initial high hopes of academic achievement because of the hurt they felt at the slights aimed at them and students like them.  Wordsworth went into print later,  criticising his old university bitterly in his poem ‘Prelude’.

Despite the many slights that he undoubtedly received at this time,  he stuck it out and was a resounding success at Cambridge.  He laid the foundations for a dynasty of classical achievement at the University. He won several prizes and was widely lauded as a scholar, at a time when  the great Universities were recovering from a long period of neglect and ignominy.  He was a friend of Coleridge and to a lesser extent Wordsworth.  As a young man he returned to Birmingham and became curate at St Pauls Chapel.

In his looks he could look jovial and avuncular or else he could display a piercingly grim countenance on his jowly features.  He was a man of many parts,  and was involved in many worlds.

His sympathies were later very much with the Monarchy and the Church of England.  However his famous friends were very much in favour of the French Revolution during the early years before and immediately after King Louis was deposed and executed.  Both Coleridge and Wordsworth were voluble supporters of the Jacobins but following the excesses of the Committee of Public Safety in Paris Coleridge at any rate returned to the Tory fold with a vengeance.  It seems that Rann also performed this U turn.  It is unfair to criticise them.  The predictions of Burke that the Revolution would end in dictatorship and suppression of freedom came true in the form of Napoleonic France.  By contrast Britain was progressing to abolishing slavery and was standing against Napoleon, aiding the liberation of the rest of Europe with its burgeoning small nation states.

The French Revolution,  like so many before and since,  consumed even its most ardent supporters in the end and was without doubt a blood-bath. One of the possessions held by the family is a copy of the French Constitution,  in French,  from the period before the King was deposed,  when the prospects of a constitutional monarchy for France seemed a real prospect.  That Rann kept this book shows that he cherished a secret longing for the early days of the French Revolution,  when liberal monarchism seemed possible and the Terror as yet unknown.

At this time he met Julia, the daughter of the distinguished engraver John Hall (1739-1797),  who lived in Soho,  London.  John Hall had engraved paintings by Gainsborough amongst others and had carried out work for King George III.  Julia’s mother was Mary Giles (1741-1806),  the eldest daughter of James Giles, the famous painter of porcelain.  Rann and Julia were married shortly after and settled in Birmingham. John Hall and Rann Kennedy were great theatre-goers.

Julia's sister Mary was married to Stephen Storace who was the foremost composer of operas in the London theatre of the day. Storace was a close friend of Mozart and travelled to Salzburg several times to spend time with his friend. Storace's sister Nancy was the great singer of her day, drawing capacity houses at the Drury Lane Theatre. Nancy had an early marital disaster after which she lived openly with John Braham, a noted tenor. Their relationship lasted seventeen years and was even commented on by Lord Byron as a rare example of a long-lasting unmarried affair.

Storace fell ill in 1796 and died on the 15th March aged only 34. He was buried at Marylebone Church, where the Hall family were all buried. John Hall his father in law was said to be utterly devastated by the loss of his illustrious son in law. Further pain for the widow and her son Brinsley came when the impresario Sheridan (after whom the son was named!) refused to hand over the funds raised at a benefit for Storace's family at the Drury Lane Theatre.

Rann Kennedy's cousin Rev John Kennedy, rector of Kimcote near Leicester, married the widow Mary Storace.

In 1816 Nancy Storace was deserted after 17 years by her common -law husband which seems to have been too much for Nancy who died of a fever not long after on 24th August 1817. She was buried in Lambeth Church with a memorial designed by Soane. Her son Braham left Winchester College and became a pupil at King Edward VI Grammar School in Birmingham where Rann Kennedy was usher (deputy headmaster).

Details about Stephen Storace can be found among inscriptions in the first pages of Rann Kennedy's bible. Also inscribed is the year of Steven's son Brinsley's sad death as a youngster in 1807.

There is more on Rann here

Rann's children included some notable men - William James Kennedy (see here), Charles Rann Kennedy (see here) and the eldest Benjamin Hall Kennedy (see here).

There is no biography of the Storaces although Jane Girdham wrote an authoritative monograph on which this is based in part.
Thanks to Will Kennedy for allowing the use of the pictures of Rann and Julia