Finally I have put the photos I took of the brief exhibition of the John Epps collection online, I apologize to those of you who were waiting, especially Lanie, who offered to put them up for me (unfortunately their size meant it wasn’t easy to send them
)
Here is the link to my online album…
http://jsimos.photosite.com/Album1/ The photos I took can be seen quite clearly. Below is an article on the collection, it features an interview with John Epps descendent and some background info, hope everything works
James.
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The World Today - Thursday, 14 October , 2004 12:48:00
Reporter: Karen Barlow
HAMISH ROBERTSON: An extraordinary discovery in England has shed some new light on the last Russian royal family - the Romanovs - who were executed almost nine decades ago.
The Russian monarchy ended early last century when the Tsar, Nicholas the Second, the Tsarina Alexandra, their five children, and several servants were shot by Bolsheviks in 1918.
In the communist rush to erase their influence - little evidence of their lives survived. But now a batch of the Romanov children's poems, drawings, telegrams and photographs has been discovered sitting in a tin trunk in London.
An Australian man had sent them to London for an appraisal in the 1930's, but he never saw them again.
As Karen Barlow reports, his descendents are getting them back during a handover ceremony in Melbourne.
KAREN BARLOW: Between 1905 and 1908 an Englishman John Epps tutored Maria, Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia and Alexis Romanov.
He helped the imperial children draw and rewrite poems to please their parents.
A nine-year-old Grand Duchess, Tatiana Romanov, wrote out Tom Hood's poem "Past and Present" read here by John Epps's Sydney descendent, Janet Epps.
JANET EPPS READING TOM HOOD'S POEM: I remember I remember the house where I was born, the little window where the sun came peeping in at morn.
KAREN BARLOW: History well notes that the Romanov family was blamed by the Bolsheviks for all that was wrong in Russia and arrested by a provisional government in 1917. They were held in house arrest for a year and then - along with their servants and doctor - were shot by firing squad, bathed in acid, burned, and buried.
John Epps had held onto Romanov momentos, including 30 drawings and booklets.
After he died in Australia in 1935 his nephew, William Epps, sought to get them appraised by booksellers Maggs in London.
He never saw them again - and his great grand daughter, Janet Epps takes up the tale.
JANET EPPS: It is quite an extraordinary story, really, how the whole situation came to light, because they were sent by my great grandfather to Maggs in 1935, and when they tried to get back to him (he was an old man at the time) and I imagine he had moved into a retirement home or something like that, just at that time … so they were unable to catch him. All their mail was returned, so after a number of attempts, they were just put in the bottom of this tin trunk, and only just recently rediscovered.
KAREN BARLOW: Have you long known of your family's royal connections?
JANET EPPS: Yes I have, actually, cause it was one of the more fascinating stories in the collection of family lore, was the employment of the cousin of my great grandfather, John Epps, in the household of the Tsars as the English tutor, so we had always known about that.
KAREN BARLOW: And has it been a family scandal that these documents have been denied to your family?
JANET EPPS: Oh not at all, not at all, and I'd like to say I am really like to commend Maggs for their graciousness once I came forward last year having discovered of the existence of these documents.
KAREN BARLOW: A representative of Maggs is going to hand the documents back to Janet Epps tomorrow at the International Antiquarian Book Fair in Melbourne.
She's planning put them in book and make them available to the entire Epps family. Janet Epps is not surprised that people still very interested in the Romanov's
JANET EPPS: Well it was a very poignant story, a very tragic one, and I think the turmoil of the world at that time compared with the innocence of these four girls and the young son, along with their parents, being shot in such a ruthless manner, was a very shocking event, and I think even to this day, has a sense of the same horror and shock.
KAREN BARLOW: The Romanovs had so many twists and turns. These documents that are involved with them have had so many twists and turns, it seems though.
JANET EPPS: Oh indeed. Well, it's interesting to think that this collection of documents has travelled from Russia to England, and back and forward between England and Australia three times now, so, they're much travelled documents.
HAMISH ROBERTSON: Janet Epps speaking there to Karen Barlow.
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