The Exiled Collector: William Bankes and the Making of an English Country House

On August 30th 1841 William John Bankes, former Tory MP, pioneer Egyptologist and renowned traveller, was caught in compromising circumstances with a guardsman in London’s Green Park. Bankes paid a heavy price for his ‘moment of madness’: less than two weeks later, well aware that sodomy carried the death penalty, he had fled in to exile, eventually settling in Venice. The British Government declared Bankes an outlaw, a vindictive and archaic procedure, which might have enabled them to seize his house - Kingston Lacy in Dorset. It was the vicarious embellishment of that house, although it could be no more than a memory, that was to be his only enduring passion. Based on extensive research from previously undiscovered archives, this is the first ever biography of William Bankes. Brilliantly written and highly readable, The Exiled Collector recounts Bankes’ dramatic life story, examines the psychology of collecting, the pain and creativity of exile and affords a revealing insight into the minds of a hypocritical ruling elite in early Victorian Britain.