Edward John Trelawny - Retirement

Retirement

Trelawny then adopted a more ascetic life and moved to Sompting. There he lived near William Rossetti. As he grew old he remained very active and did not hire a house keeper until he was very old. He regularly swam, chopped wood and dug in his gardens. He remained active into his eighties. He made his garden into a bird sanctuary and did allow hunters onto his property. He was very friendly with the neighbourhood children and often gave them candy. He corresponded with Claire regularly from 1859 until 1876. He unsuccessfully tried to persuade Claire to write a biography of him.

He often presented items to his friends and visitors that he claimed to have found on his world travels or from his days with Shelley and Byron. As an old man he lived with a much younger woman, Emma Taylor. They told people she was his niece.

He closely oversaw his sons' education and taught them foreign languages. They were sent to a military academy in Germany. Frank died as a young man while serving as a soldier in the Prussian Army. His son Edward converted to Catholicism and told people that he was the son of Sir John Trelawny. They later became estranged. Zella became a housewife in London. Trelawny outlived four of his seven children. The only child that he enjoyed good relations with was Laetitia, who also lived with him in Sompting. Late in his life he became a sober vegetarian.

In 1874 he sat as a model for John Everett Millais as he painted the picture The North West Passage. This picture depicted an old sailor declaring that England would find a way through the Northwest Passage. Millais had seen Trelawny at the funeral of John Leech years before and decided that he would make the perfect figure for the drawing. Trelawny initially liked the picture, but he was angered when he saw that Millais had included a glass of grog in the picture. It was ultimately well received by critics.

Trelawny was able to visit with Augusta Draper in 1874. He also visited with Jane Williams in 1872.

These are two friends whose lives were undivided.
So let their memory be now they have glided
Under the grave: let not their bone be parted
For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.

Williams was the only close friend of Percy Shelley to outlive Trelawny. In August 1881 he suffered a fall while out on a walk. He was bedridden and died two weeks later.

His ashes were buried in Rome in a plot of ground adjacent to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s grave. He had purchased this plot in 1822, at the time he had arranged for Shelley’s ashes to be reburied in a more suitable site within the Protestant Cemetery. At his request his grave marker bears a quote from Shelley's poem "Epitaph".