Artists in Loughborough, Leicestershire, and Rutland

Author and local historian Tony Jarram with the Liberty Bell, Philadelphia, 2020

So, following on from the guest post on Zeppelins in Loughborough, written by expert Ian Castle, that appeared on this blog in February, tonight my guest blogger is local man, Tony Jarram, well-known to many of my readers, I'm sure. Here's what Tony has to say about artists with connections to Loughborough ...

Artists associated with Loughborough, Leicestershire, and Rutland - Tony Jarram

My first introduction to the great artists was as a child when the shops displayed huge boxes of chocolates decorated by a famous painting [see Editor's note, below].

Hugo Meynell, Joshua Reynolds

I recall a few years later, at Garendon School, being asked by my art teacher, Mr Weston*, for the name of my favourite artist. “John Constable” was my reply. “Chocolate box painter” he muttered. At the next lesson he came over to my desk with a print of Constable’s Hay Wain. He placed a piece of card over the landscape leaving only the sky showing. “That’s what made Constable a great artist”, he said. I never forgot that and always look at the sky on works of art before the scene below.

I had not realised at the time that John Constable (1776-1837) had been in Leicestershire and had been one of many artists, the like of who had visited Sir George Beaumont at Coleorton Hall. Others had included David Wilkie, Thomas Wilkie, Thomas Girtin, Benjamin Haydon and George Morland. When Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) died Beaumont built a cenotaph at Coleorton. Constable painted this memorial and “The Cenotaph” is now displayed in the National Gallery. George Howland Beaumont (1753-1827) was a most accomplished artist and played a crucial part in the creation of the National Gallery, making the first bequest of paintings from his collection. He was a friend of the Lake Poets especially Wordsworth.

The two most significant Leicestershire artists are John Ferneley and John Boultbee. Ferneley was born in Thrussington in 1728 and following his death in Melton was buried back in the village in 1860. He was for three years from 1801 the student of Ben Marshall (who is thought to have been born in Barkby). Ferneley’s works include “Melton Horse Fair” (exhibited at Leicestershire County Hall at Glenfield),“The Quorn at Quenby” (1823) an oil sketch of which is in the collection of Leicestershire Museums, and “Grant family at Melton” (1823) also in the same collection.

John Boultbee lived in Loughborough and painted mainly horses but was a very accomplished portrait artist and his study of Daniel Lambert is probably his best-known work. This study of reputably Leicestershire’s largest man is part of the Leicestershire Museums collection that also includes “Robert Bakewell mounted on a Bay Cob”.

Boultbee’s paintings of Bakewell’s animals from his pioneer breeding programmes are of significant importance and include paintings of Leicestershire Longwool Sheep and Shire Horses. Boultbee died in 1812 but his son Thomas Joseph who was born in Loughborough in 1787 was also an artist and exhibited at Liverpool academy.

In brief, other artists who have made their mark include, Anstey born, Lemuel Francis Abbot (1760-1802) who was an accomplished, London-based, portrait painter who painted, among others, Lord Nelson.

It is important to note that the artists mentioned were operating in Leicestershire (and Rutland) as their main benefactors were here. These included, in addition to Beaumont, the Pochins of Barkby, The Duke of Rutland and the Packe’s of Prestwold Hall.

This brief account can only cover the most notable artists, but Leicestershire has over the years produced some most talented works in a variety of forms.

The final reference in this note is of the architectural sketches of the London architect William Railton (1800-1877), the designer of Nelson’s column who sketched some of his Leicestershire buildings. Known surviving examples of these drawings include Beaumanor Hall; a proposed national school at Shepshed (thought to be St Botolph’s) and the Herrick Alms Houses at Woodhouse.

 

* Raymond John Weston, art teacher at Garendon High School 1957-1992, died on 2 April 2020. There are hundreds of tributes to him on this website.

References and Further Reading:

Evans I.M., 1976. Charnwood’s Heritage. Leicestershire Museums, Art Galleries and Records Service

Gaunt William, 1958 (revised edition 1959). The Observer’s Book of Painting and Graphic Art. Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd. London (Tony’s first art book).

Websites (not exhaustive!):

ArtUK. Lemuel Francis Abbott. [Online]. https://www.artuk.org/discover/artists/abbott-lemuel-francis-17601803 [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Blackbrook Gallery. John Boultbee (1742-1812). [Online]. https://www.blackbrookgallery.co.uk/artist-john-boultbee [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Boultbee, Richard (2012). The history of the Boultbee family. [Online].

https://boultbee.info/bfh/viis2.htm#p86 [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020). Benjamin Robert Haydon. [Online].

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benjamin-Robert-Haydon [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2019). George Morland. [Online]. https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Morland [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020). John Constable: London years. [Online]. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Constable/London#ref828330 [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2019). Sir David Wilkie. [Online].

https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Wilkie [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Encyclopaedia Britannica (2020). Thomas Girtin: British artist. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Girtin [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Genealogy from [RHS]. Thomas Joseph Boultbee. [Online]. https://www.boultbee.info/webtrees/individual.php?pid=I192&ged=RHB&themecolor=ash&theme=xenea [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Jarram, Tony [2018]. William Railton (1800-1870): architect of St Paul’s church, Woodhouse Eaves. [Online]. http://www.stpaulsheritage.org/resources/19)-Railton-(website).pdf St Paul’s Heritage. [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Sewter. A.C. (1955). Leicestershire artists. [Online]. In: Hoskins, W.G, & McKinley, R.A. (eds.) A history of the county of Leicester: Vol.III. Victoria County History. pg. 218-242 [Accessed: 30 March 2020]

The National Gallery. John Constable (1776-1837). [Online].  https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/  [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

The National Gallery. David Wilkie (1785-1841). [Online]. https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/david-wilkie [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

The National Gallery. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792). [Online].

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/sir-joshua-reynolds [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Visit Leicester. See & do: New Walk Museum & Art Gallery. [Online]. https://www.visitleicester.info/see-and-do/new-walk-museum-and-art-gallery-p700961 [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Wikipedia. Benjamin Marshall. [Online]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Marshall [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Wikipedia. John Boultbee (artist). [Online]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boultbee_(artist) [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Wikipedia. John Ferneley. [Online]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ferneley [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Wikipedia. Thomas Girtin. [Online]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Girtin [Accessed: 29 March 2020]

Editor’s note

As Tony intimates, the term ‘chocolate box art’ often refers to works of art reproduced on the lid of boxes of chocolate, and serves to dismiss the art as somehow inferior. There’s a short article on Wikipedia that tells you a little more about this topic.

For animal paintings like those around at the time of Robert Bakewell, pop over to the Althorp House website and tour the house, looking particularly at the paintings in the Sunderland Room.

Another Leicestershire artist of note was John Flower, who at one time worked from the top floor of a property on New Walk.

  

Doing an image search on the internet will bring up quite a lot of images of paintings by all the artists mentioned above in Tony’s great article.

Author: 

Tony was born in Loughborough in 1949 and is a regular on the local history speaker circuit with subjects including “The Day Buffalo Bill came to Town”, “Lacemakers and Luddites” and “The architect “William Railton.” He was one of the founder members of The Friends of Charnwood Museum and served on the committee for the first 10 years. Tony was one of the two local historians who were asked to research the history of the Brush Electrical Engineering Company for its centenary in 1979 and the previous year wrote the book “Brush Aircraft – Production at Loughborough”.

Other published work includes the co-written “The Lacemakers’ Story” for the Friends of Charnwood Museum, and also the “Luddite Trail”. Recent work has included research, initially for St Paul’s church Woodhouse Eaves, on the work of the architect William Railton.

Tony has undertaken research for authors and museums in both the UK and USA on a variety of subjects including aviation, tramcars, early steam locomotives and naval history. Tony was given an Honorary Membership of Loughborough Library Local Studies and is a campaigner to recognise Loughborough’s heritage. He is also a keen amateur artist and between local history and transport studies enjoys visiting art galleries.


You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Jarram, Tony (2020). Artists in Loughborough, Leicestershire and Rutland. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/03/artists-in-loughborough-leicestershire.html  [Accessed 29 March 2020]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Thank you for reading this blog. 

Lynne 

Isolation in Loughborough

As we are all aware we are currently living through some difficult times, but I shall keep

Isolation hospital on Ling Road

going on here for as long as I can. I'm very conscious that some of us are glass half full people, and others glass half empty, so some of us will find seeing pictures of things we enjoy - spring flowers, summer beaches, family gatherings - exciting things we can look forward to when we emerge from these hard times, or things that just upset us even more. I'm just gonna have to take the plunge and, as usual, blog about things that I think are interesting, and hope I don't lose any of you along the way.

Pestilence Cottage in Woodhouse

Way back in October 2017 I wrote a few posts about the plague in Loughborough, starting with one about disasters (plague and fire), then about disasters and plague houses, and finally about plague and Dead Lane.








On a more cheery note (I jest, of course) last summer when we went to St Ives we managed to catch a show at The Minack Theatre (as we do most summers). It was called 'Roses of Eyam'. Now, this almost seems like a portent (that and the Year of the Rat, and the health warning that came with that - as a Rat myself, I found that a little bit disconcerting). We went with the usual travel company from St Ives, so that we didn't have to travel around the narrow Cornish roads late at night, but it did mean that while many people went home at the interval, we sat it out in the pouring rain, which actually made the play even more atmospheric and deeply felt. It was the Stamford Shoestring Theatre Company that delivered the play, and they did it so well. I probably took some pictures, but here are some on The Minack website.

So, the villagers of Eyam basically closed off their village and isolated themselves during the plague. There's a good article in The Guardian that explains it far better than I can and a nice article on the BBC website.

Back here in Loughborough, at one time there was apparently an isolation hospital on Cross Hill Lane, and children with infectious diseases would be taken there by horse-drawn cab. Later, from about 1901 there was an isolation hospital on Ling Road. Diseases that were around in the early 1900s included, typhoid, which was often fatal, and amongst other things, smallpox, diptheria, scarlet fever, and chicken pox. Into the 1930s and it was scarlet fever and diptheria that were most prevalent, and required isolation.      
In the county, there were other isolation hospitals including one at Nanpantan, Markfield and Melton Mowbray. Markfield have a great local history page on the web where you can find out more bout their hospital, and if you'd like more information about former hospitals in Leicestershire pop over to this site.    

That's all for this week.

Keep safe and strong,

Lynne

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2020). Isolation in Loughborough. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/03/isolation-in-loughborough.html  [Accessed 22 March 2020]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Thank you for reading this blog. 

Lynne 

Morrison Electricar

Well, in these worrying times, with some of my readers likely to be stuck indoors for up to four months, I would like to try and keep you occupied by blogging about Loughborough's interesting past. And it is likely I will be writing about the past too, as if large gatherings are going to be banned, then I probably won't be getting out and about much.

Before the possibility of staying indoors arose, many people were worrying about the environment, and how they could be more environmentally friendly, and help preserve the beautiful planet we've been looking after. Things like going vegan have become popular, and there's lots of research going on into sustainability etc.. The other thing that's gradually getting more and more popular is electric cars and reducing plastic use. Hmmm, these two things might go together quite well.




So where am I going with this? Maybe back to the past and the days of glass milk bottles, and electric delivery vehicles. Now, I don't know if you've heard of the Morrison Electricar but there are lots of connections with Loughborough.






The company making these vehicles began as an engineering works in Leicester, started by Alfred Ernest Morrison in the 1890s, initially making pedal bikes and motorcycles and sidecars. Gas powered stationary engines used to power generators came next and during the first world war the company repaired agricultural machinery. Then came radio battery rechargers, and automotive batteries, and in around 1927 the manufacture of cinema equipment.

When Alfred Ernest's son, Alfred Charles, joined the company, and experimented with producing an electric vehicle that could deliver provisions more quickly and economically than a horse-drawn drey. The prototype worked well, and with a number of modifications and plenty of orders, the vehicle went into full production, and very quickly started to respond to overseas demand. In the early days of production, the company produced lots of the parts needed, like, chassis, motors and controllers, but things like the braking system and the axles were made at the Brush.

Each time the company expanded, they moved premises, and this time they moved to Irlam Street, South Wigston, and company went from strength to strength. In about 1940 Morrison designed a small battery electric motor unit for the Brush, which Brush then manufactured. Eventually, Brush became a competitor of Morrisons, and in the late 1960s, after a number of name changes, the company was owned by Hawker Siddelely, who also owned other companies who produced electric vehicles. The company continued to be successful well into the 1970s, but produced their last designed vehicle, a white van, in around 1982.

In this short blog post I cannot go into great detail about the history of the company, nor the technical design of their products, but there is a lot of information out there on the internet - see the links below.

The other connection to Loughborough is that the grandson of the original founder of Morrisons lives in Loughborough, and has done for nearly all of his life!           

If you're looking to read up a bit more about this topic, you could do worse than look at these links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrison-Electricar 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brush_Traction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brush_Electrical_Machines

https://edisontechcenter.org/ElectricCars.html

http://archive.commercialmotor.com/article/24th-october-1958/60/battery-electrics-unchallenged

https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1074191

http://southwigstonshopping.com/history/

https://www.kirbyandwest.co.uk/history/

https://www.ltht.org.uk/2015/11/18/kirby-west-milk-float-donated-to-trust/

https://www.ltht.org.uk/wry-342/ 

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2020). Morrison Electricar. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/03/morrison-electricar.html [Accessed 15 March 2020]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Thank you for reading this blog. 

Lynne 
       

Singing exhibitions and films

Been a really busy week this week! I've been taking part in an interesting project over the last couple of weeks - singing in a scratch choir and recording the results, and popping along to the launch event. Oh, and recording a very short piece about the event for BBC Radio Leicester. 

Inspirational women #1

Lovely Spread, Heaven on a Plate!

More inspirational women!

And more inspirational women!

During the week I went along to the opening of a fabulous exhibition on the Forest Canal at the public library, an exhibition put together to coincide with the publication of the 3rd edition of a book on the same topic by Brian Williams - available to purchase from the Local and Family History Centre in the public library.

Library Exhibition opening

And today I've been to the lovely art deco cinema that is our current Odeon (the original Odeon now being a bingo hall) to see the Military Wives, which was excellent.

Our Art Deco cinema

Our former Odeon

Here's a link to the singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrX7Ub2-NKA

And a link to the BBC Radio Leicester piece, only available until 6 April 2020 (starts around 2 hours 13 minutes, and 2 hours 38 minutes: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p082z85b       

You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:

Dyer, Lynne (2020). Singing exhibitions and films. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2020/03/singing-exhibitions-and-films.html  [Accessed 8 March 2020]

Take down policy:

I post no pictures that are not my own, unless I have express permission so to do. All text is my own, and not copied from any other information sources, printed or electronic, unless identified and credited as such. If you find I have posted something in contravention of these statements, or if there are photographs of you which you would prefer not to be here, please contact me at the address listed on the About Me page, and I will remove these.

Thank you for reading this blog. 

Lynne 

More bikes about Loughborough

Well, ever since I happened to notice that I had lots of photographs of bikes about Loughborough, I seem to see bikes around Loughborough much more often now! So, bikes in the canal, bikes tied up in various locations, complete bikes and parts of bikes. Here's the latest selection from October 2019 to today.

Apologies for the brevity!

Lynne