The Sunday Times of Malta of March 11 of this newspaper published my article on the ‘Belvedere’ built at St Julian’s in 1827-8 by John Watson, later converted into the Malta Protestant College. Two of the illustrations accompanying the article were views of the college, one of which was a lithograph signed by Day & Son published in 1849. The other was probably made in Malta, possibly by Cay Brocktorff or his son Giuseppe, and sold at the bookshop of George Muir (c.1815-1865/6), agent for the Brocktorffs.
Since then I have come across a beautiful zincograph titled This view of the Malta Protestant College, in St Julian’s Bay near Valetta, is dedicated to Lord Ashley. It was signed by J. Basire, Zinco, meaning a lithograph drawn on zinc instead of on stone.
According to the art encyclopedia published recently by the author and Antonio Espinosa Rodriguez, the print was made by James Basire (1796-1869), a British line engraver and lithographer, a member of a well-known and old established family of engravers. He also published in Archaeologia views of Ġgantija (1829) and Ħaġar Qim (1842).
Lord Ashley, as he was styled until his father’s death in 1851, was born on April 28, 1801, at 24, Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London. He was the eldest son of Cropley Ashley-Cooper, Sixth Earl of Shaftesbury, and his wife Lady Anne Spencer, daughter of George Spencer, Fourth Earl of Marlborough. He was educated at Manor House School in Chiswick, Harrow School, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained first class honours in classics in 1822, took his MA in 1832 and was appointed DCL in 1841. He was elected as the Tory Member of Parliament for Woodstock in June 1826. He was a politician, philanthropist and social reformer.
As stated in my said article, the idea of an English Protestant College in the Mediterranean had first been broached by the Marquess of Hastings, Earl of Moira, in a conversation with Shaftesbury in Italy.
Hastings, the Governor of Malta, died in 1826. It was only in 1840 that a ‘provisional committee’ was formed by some 40 philanthropic gentlemen under Shaftesbury’s chairmanship. Malta was considered the ideal place for setting up the college, which was opened on February 3, 1846.
When the two volumes on the Journal of a Deputation sent to the East by the Committee of the College was published (2nd edn. 1855), they had this dedication:
“To the Right Hon. Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury, President of the Malta Protestant College, this Journal is respectfully inscribed, in testimony of his zealous exertions on behalf of scriptural education in the East, and the many other Christian and philanthropic labours, for which His Lordship’s career is pre-eminently distinguished.”
Lord Ashley, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, died at Folkestone, Kent, on October 1, 1885, aged 84.