James Bolivar Manson - Marriage

Marriage

In 1903, Manson left the bank job, hanging his silk hat on a pole and encouraging his colleagues to aim stones at it. He married Laugher and they moved to the Latin Quarter in Paris, renting a room for £1 a month and economising in a shared studio with Charles Polowetski, Bernard Gussow and Jacob Epstein, who became a lifelong friend and with whom he studied at the Académie Julian, still dominated by the Impressionists' enemy, Adolphe Bouguereau; occasionally Jean-Paul Laurens tutored.

After a year, the Mansons returned to London and their daughter Mary was born, followed two years later by Jean. They lived in the top two floors of 184 Adelaide Road, Hampstead, where his wife gave music lessons at the front and Manson set up a studio at the rear, working out the family's tight budget on the kitchen wall much to her displeasure. In 1908 they moved to a small house at 98 Hampstead Way, where they stayed for 30 years. Lilian succeeded Bernard Shaw's mother as music director at the North London Collegiate School for Girls; in 1910 The Times took notice of her revival of Purcell's Dido and Aneas, for which Manson designed and helped to make costumes. In 1910 also, he became a member and Secretary of the Camden Town Group.