Pet Memorials at Hogarth’s House

Replicas of the two pet memorials were installed in the garden at Hogarth’s House in November 2022. This is one of the last elements of the Mulberry Garden Project to be completed. The cost was covered by a crowd-funding appeal and funds from the William Hogarth Trust – a tea party was held at Hogarth’s House to thank the 30 crowd-funding donors for supporting the project.

An  engraving by Frederick W Fairholt made for Mrs S C Hall’s ‘Pilgrimages to English Shrines’, a set of articles published in her husband’s Art Journal 1849-1852, provided remarkably accurate detail which enabled the inscriptions to be reproduced. The replica memorials, carved from Portland stone, have been installed against the south wall of the garden, near the new Weston Studio. The carving and lettering are the work of Alan Micklethwaite and Tracey Tregidga Micklethwaite and follow the engraving with great care.

Dick & Pompey
We know that Hogarth was very fond of animals and often included them in his works. Looking closely at the drawing of the stones it is clear than one of them commemorates a pet drake called Dick. He died in 1760 aged 11, so he could have been acquired in 1749 when the Hogarths first bought their country house in Chiswick. The image on the stone may well have been executed by Hogarth himself; it shows a bird skull in profile with an unmistakeable duck’s bill and the two halves of a wish-bone crossed beneath it. (When Edward Walford described the stones in 1878 he stated that it was a pet bullfinch, but the skull does not resemble even slightly the short bill of a finch!)

Whereas Hogarth’s dogs accompanied him everywhere and appeared in his paintings, a drake, however tame and liable to follow, is unlikely to have accompanied him into town or to the homes of clients. If it had done so this would surely have caused a great deal of amused comment. So why was a memorial stone made for Dick the drake?

The Hogarths’ Chiswick house sits within a half acre plot which was  formerly an orchard. It is very likely that the family grew vegetables and herbs for the household there and could well have kept a few chickens and ducks for eggs and meat. Female ducks were likely to have been eaten once they stopped laying, but perhaps Dick was an entertaining character and became a family pet. Eleven years is a good innings for a drake, avoiding foxes, theft and road accidents. If Dick was Mrs Hogarth’s pet, perhaps her husband made the touching memorial as a way of offering condolences for her loss? It could also have been something to explain Dick’s absence to visiting children from the Foundling Hospital.

Alongside Dick’s memorial stood one to Pompey. This too has a skull and cross bones, which look like those of a dog. Since Hogarth died in 1764, he is unlikely ever to have met Pompey, who lived until 1790. This was probably the pet of the household of women who continued to use the house in Chiswick long after Hogarth had gone – they included his sister, Anne, who lived until 1771, his wife, Jane, her cousin Mary Lewis and a family friend, Miss Julian Bere. Mary Lewis probably commissioned the stone as she lived on at the House after Jane died in 1789.

The name of the pet provides an important clue as to the type of dog it might have been. A popular 18th-century satirical novel called ‘The History of Pompey the Little, or the Life and Adventure of a Lap-Dog’ by Francis Coventry was a best-seller from the time it appeared in 1752. A tiny lap-dog was the absolute opposite of the robust pugs that Hogarth loved; indeed he satirised such twee pets in his work called ‘Taste in High Life’ where the lapdog upon a cushion is so tiny as to be almost invisible!

The author dedicated his novel to Henry Fielding, whom Hogarth knew, and one of his stories about Pompey is modelled upon Hogarth’s image of ‘The Distrest Poet’. It is hard to believe that the Hogarths did not know the novel well. So the conclusion may be that after Hogarth’s death the pugs were succeeded by tiny, pretty, lap dogs which he would have scorned!