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 into exile, eventually settling in Venice. The government declared Bankes an outlaw, a vindictive and archaic procedure that entitled them to seize his house, Kingston Lacy in Dorset.The Exiled Collector is the story of how Bankes, friend of Byron and the Duke of Wellington, eventually turned his personal tragedy to posterity's benefit. Based in Venice, he continued to collect obsessively for a house he no longer owned. He found fulfillment through designing, commissioning and creating as well as collecting for the house he loved, but was able to visit only in secret at the end of his life.Based on extensive research from previously undiscovered archives, this is the first biography of William Bankes. It recounts his dramatic life story, examines the psychology of collecting, the pain and creativity of exile, and affords insight into the minds of a ruling elite in early Victorian Britain.