Dear Trinity Church and friends,
William Payne Blake was born July 23, 1846, the son of Edward Blake and Mary Morton Dehon Blake. He had two siblings, Edward and Anne. He studied at Boston Latin, attended Harvard and obtained his law degree in 1868. He joined his father’s law office. After his father’s death in 1873, he continued to practice independently. He specialized in the management of trust properties and estates.
As a member of a prominent New England family, Blake partook in many of the activities and opportunities available for his social set. He regularly traveled to Europe, especially later in life. He especially enjoyed the camaraderie and intellectual stimulation found in club life. In 1884, he was a founding member of the Tavern Club of Boston. He also retained memberships with the Somerset, St. Botolph, Harvard, and several other clubs.
Even as he followed in his father’s footsteps to practice law, Blake maintained a keen and active interest in music. Friends would later note that music contributed much to the happiness of his life. He became a trustee of the New England Conservatory of Music and for many years was Secretary for the Harvard Musical Association. He, along with friend and founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Henry Lee Higginson, was a founding trustee of the Paderewski Prize for American Composers. The Paderewski Prize was awarded every three years from 1901 to 1948.
In the spring of 1921, the Boston Herald noted that Blake offered Paderewski prizes of $1000 and $500 for the best symphony and piece of chamber music written during the year. The piece must never have been performed before. Judges that year were Charles Martin Loeffler, Wallace Goodrich, and Frederick Stock.
Not only did Blake support the arts, but he was also a composer and arranger as well. One of his partners was his cousin Maria Trinidad Howard Sturgis Middlemore, the daughter of Henry Parkman Sturgis. In 1877 they produced “Songs of the Pyrenees with Spanish, French, and English Words.”
Devout in his faith as an Episcopalian, he was an active parishioner at Trinity Church, including serving on the Building Committee that oversaw the construction of Trinity Church in the Back Bay. He was the treasurer for the then-named Home for Aged Women, now Sherrill House. He was also for many years treasurer of the Trustees of Donations to the Episcopal Church.
He was extremely close with his sister, Anne, who was a respected artist having studied with Frederick Crowninshield at the Boston Art Museum, and Abbott Thayer and Alfred Stevens, in Paris. Known for her portraiture, she exhibited widely with the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; American Artists’ Association, New York; the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904; and portrait exhibitions at Copley Hall in Boston. She was a member of the Copley Society of Art.
Neither sibling married. Eventually they lived together in Back Bay. Anne’s death in 1917 was not unexpected after long illness but still devastating for William. Her obituary noted that the Blake family had long been associated with Trinity, and that Anne had carried forward the tradition of her parents with her support of the parish’s philanthropic efforts.
William bequeathed Monet’s painting View of the Sea at Sunset to the Musem of Fine Arts in Anne’s memory, as well as a work in memory of Frederic Crownishield. In 1921, he wrote a poem about Anne that he sent to acquaintance Isabella Stewart Gardner. The poem ends, “To me always an inspiration, my sister good and wise and brave, God grant that we may meet again, in the life beyond the grave!” He would also bequeath Gardner artworks from his collection.
Near the end of his life, plagued by ill-health, William looked back with nostalgia. In December, 1920, he self-published just 300 copies of Early Verses of William Payne Blake, 1860 to 1866. “I have decided to publish these early verses, written by me between the ages fourteen and twenty, because I believe that they have at least the right to exist, and because I do not wish them to be wholly forgotten by my friends and classmates, to whom I owe so much happiness.”
On March 7, 1922, William Payne Blake died. Students of New England Conservatory of Music and musician Joseph Adamowski produced a concert in his honor. The program included music by Beethoven, Brahms, and a variation of “Silent Woods” by Dvorak.
William’s funeral was held at Trinity Church. Rector Alexander Mann officiated. Ushers included Wallace Goodrich, Leverett Bradley, M.A. De Wolfe Howe, and the Adamowski brothers.
An obituary in The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine ended, “He was an ever loyal member of the Episcopal Church and a vestryman of Trinity, and here gathered the friends of this faithful, courteous, kindly gentleman to pay their last tribute of respect and affection.” William Payne Blake is buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
Until next time,
Cynthia
Sources and Further Reading (and Listening)
Blake Obituary. The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, June 1922, Volume 30, Issue 120 p. 550.
Blake, William P. Early Verses of William Payne Blake, 1860 to 1866. McGrath Sherrill Press. Boston. 1920. https://archive.org/details/earlyversesofwil00blak/page/n11/mode/2up
Howe, M. A. De Wolfe. Partial, and not impartial, semicentennial history of the Tavern Club, 1884-1934. Printed for the Tavern Club, 1934. https://archive.org/details/partialnotimpart00howe/mode/1up
Prizes Offered to American Composers. Boston Herald. April 15, 1921, p.g 7.
Two Men Die in Falls from Upper Windows. Boston Herald. March 8, 1922, p. 1-2.
Paintings
Painting Bequeathed to Isabella Steward Gardner: https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/11459
Paintings Bequeathed to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
- https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31961/view-of-the-sea-at-sunset;jsessionid=8E797266F94C21881089B5C4707575A6?ctx=f80e568d-5465-44f0-8c31-8e8c5f7ebf01&idx=139
- https://collections.mfa.org/objects/240522/st-peters-rome-from-the-palatine;jsessionid=10A8A07DAFDC8EF4D8CACC6C05443965
Letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner: https://www.gardnermuseum.org/experience/collection/27191
Music
Linda Mia: https://rsa.fau.edu/album/7572
Songs of the Pyrenees : with Spanish, French, and English Words: https://urresearch.rochester.edu/institutionalPublicationPublicView.action?institutionalItemId=24803&versionNumber=1
Echos d’ Espagne: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31175035199069&seq=1
Silent Woods by Dvorak: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6z4hA3JzZ4
Image
View of the Sunset, Claude Monet, around 1862: https://collections.mfa.org/objects/31961