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Life & Times of the Clews
Henry's father, a Wall Street banker, had won his way to success as a self-made man and attained a comfortable station in life. His father before him, James Clews, had originally founded a pottery business in Cobridge, England, and had equally made a name for himself and his brothers, but in blue-and-white china. They lived in a large country house called Oxleasows in Hilderstone, Staffordshire, near Stoke. In the 1830s James Clews left England and attempted to set up business in Kentucky and then Indiana, but both ventures failed and he and his wife returned to England while Henry Sr. remained behind.

After some years of apprenticeship at various trades Henry Sr began to learn about the stock market and found he had a flair for the business. By 1856 he was heavily involved in the stock market and had set up his own company, Livermore, Clews & Co. He associated with the De Puysters, the Van Courtlands, the Astors, and the Belmonts. Because he had successfully sold government issues of war bonds during the Civil War he was also a frequent visitor at the White House and often dined with President Ulysses S. Grant.

And it was during a White House ball that Henry Sr met his future wife, Lucy Madison Worthington, a descendent of the American President, James Madison. They married in 1874 and soon their family began to grow: first a daughter in 1874 whom they named Elsie, then Henry Jr. in 1876 and Robert in 1877.

Henry was a strong and healthy boy but his hands and feet were unusually small and his forehead remarkably high and broad. As a child, his grandmother (Worthington) gave him a gift of a rocking chair. For some unknown reason, Henry became exceedingly attached to it and took it wherever he travelled; it remained with him his entire life.

As a schoolboy he attended a number of schools: Cutler's ,Westminster and finally Groton. In those days, one had to be “written down” almost from birth in order to be “received” at the proper time. Groton was the destination of boys whose parents were among the guiding spirits of the United States but who were also prosperous enough to pay the high tuition fees. So when Henry informed the school's headmaster, Dr George Peabody, that he wanted to leave this institution because he was unhappy, all hell broke loose. The headmaster was stunned, his father outraged, his mother wept.

So began a series of tutors and for a while Henry was happy and content. Later, he went to Amherst College, Columbia University, then Lausanne in Switzerland and finally Hanover in Germany. It was here that he first participated in sword matches and became a skilful fencer with foils. He also fell head over heels in love with a vivacious French girl called Aimée and courted her day and night to the detriment of his studies. As Aimé lived in Evian (France) Henry found himself spending a great deal of time on the steamer between Ouchy and Evian, on Lake Geneva, and decided to rent a small cottage by the lake. Here they lived together in total bliss.

That is, until news of their affair reached his parents who were absolutely appalled. Henry was forcibly dragged back to New York by his mother to begin a career on Wall Street under the stern eye of his father. Aimée remained behind.

While Henry may have been heart-broken by such beautiful love lost, he was also acutely aware that he was not happy working in Wall Street. Each night he would sit in his rocking chair and ponder his future, for in Lausanne he had discovered his passion for art and wanted, more than anything, to direct his energies in becoming either a painter, sculptor, or writer.

Things came to a head when there was a minor panic on Wall Street and stocks came crashing down. While Henry Sr held fast and steered his company through the crisis, his son went to pieces and disappeared. After the closing of the market, his father realised his son was not in the office and sent his staff to search for him. He was found in a small private room reading Shakespeare. After such an incident there could only be one outcome: Henry never returned to Wall Street.

While a grave matter for his father, to Henry it was like a breath of fresh air and he would say later “Life would teach me its lessons, but not from behind bars. I decided that I must choose for myself. Choice is, after all, the greatest freedom in the world. Choice to make mistakes, to work, to become utterly and entirely oneself”. His choice was to seriously pursue the life of creating art.

And so he created a small studio for himself in his parents' luxurious home and into this arranged his beloved rocking chair, an easel, canvases and a paint box. His first model was the Clews' housemaid and then, one by one, the rest of the household. But his mother found him and his painting too messy and disruptive and went off to rent him a studio away from the house. Enjoying this sense of freedom, Henry also rented a studio in Paris, once occupied by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, sculptor of the Statue of Liberty.

Throughout all this Henry managed to fall in love again and pursued not just his art but now also Louise Morris Gebhard whom he had met in Newport. They married in 1901 and went to live in Paris. Initially the marriage was a happy one and produced two children, Henry Clews III and Louise (who later became the Duchess of Argyll). However, as the years passed Louise became more and more disenchanted, finding herself alone more often than not, as Henry squirrelled himself away in his studio or with his arty friends and writers.

They divorced in 1910. Henry returned to New York but suffered a nervous breakdown and his first attack of depression, which was to periodically pursue him for the rest of his life.

Yet out of these bleak, miserable days life threw him a lifeline: Marie.