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Rev Dr Alfred Caldecott, DD, LlD
Randolph Caldecott's brother, Rev Dr Alfred Caldecott DD, LlD, was born on 9th Nov 1850 and died in 1941.
He was Vicar of Christ Church, Stafford; a Fellow of St John's College,
Cambridge; Principal of Codrington College, Barbados; and Prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral,
London1. By1909 he was Professor of
Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of London, and had contributed to
the Pan-Anglican Congress a Paper on "Christian Philosophy in contrast with
Pantheism, Christian Science, and Agnosticism"2.
 Alfred
collaborated with Randolph on one book: "Aesop's Fables" (1883) As a
theologian, Alfred was very familiar with classical Greek, and so the book
contained his translation of Aesop from the original Greek. However,
Randolph insisted that some Fables had become so familiar that sometimes the
better-known version should prevail over the original: e.g. a fox was often
substituted for the original wolf which would be an unfamiliar animal to British
readers. Randolph's cartoon of himself and his brother as co-authors
appears in the book. It is probably no accident that they never
collaborated in any other book!
(In the cartoon, the 2 brothers are depicted as ostriches, with
the family Coat of Arms on their sketch books. Alfred as author has a
quill pen, Randolph as illustrator has a pencil. Why ostriches? - See the
family Crest on the Coat of Arms: click here or go "Up" to the "Family"
page.)
Alfred is thought to appear in some other books, e.g.:
In "Old Christmas",
Washington Irving describes the parson in unflattering detail and Randolph would
have wanted to be true to the description, so we cannot assume that his brother
would ever have looked like this! Here is Irving's description:
"I had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned pastor, such as is often found in a snug living in the vicinity of a rich
patron's table; but I was disappointed. The parson was a little, meagre, black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that was too wide, and stood off from each ear; so that his head seemed to have shrunk away within it, like a dried filbert in its shell. He wore a rusty coat, with great skirts, and pockets that would have held the church Bible and prayer-book; and his small legs seemed still smaller, from being planted in large shoes, decorated with enormous buckles."
(pp 92-93.)
Sources:
1 : Letters in "Yours
Pictorially", pp 39, 82-83, 189, 243.
2 : Year Book of The King's School, Chester, July 1909.
    
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