‘Near Worbarrow Bay’, Dorset (1930) by Leslie Moffat Ward. (Oil on canvas, 695 x 1010mm). Signed and dated. Image courtesy of Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth.
Among the shared landmarks of this [cultural] terrain are ruins, fields, pits, fringes, relics, buried objects, hilltops, falcons, demons and deep pasts….. suppressed forces pulse and flicker beneath the ground and within the air (capital, oil, energy, violence, state power, surveillance), waiting to erupt or to condense.
In music, literature, art, film and photography, as well as in new and hybrid forms and media, the English eerie is on the rise. A loose but substantial body of work is emerging that explores the English landscape in terms of its anomalies rather than its continuities, that is sceptical of comfortable notions of “dwelling” and “belonging”, and of the packagings of the past as “heritage”, and that locates itself within a spectred rather than a sceptred isle.
‘The Long Man on the Downs’ (1943) by Leslie Moffat Ward. (Lithograph, 265 x 223mm). Signed and dated 1943, numbered 13. Image courtesy of private collector Stuart Southall
‘On Ballard Down’ (1914) by Leslie Moffat Ward. (Etching and aquatint, 200 x 275mm). Signed and dated 1919, numbered 20. Image courtesy of private collector Stuart Southall.
Given the renewed interest in British landscape art, this retrospective of Ward’s work could not be more timely. English Idyll features paintings and prints by Ward, an acknowledged master of British landscape art. The exhibition will reveal a vanished England of bustling wharfs and ramshackle buildings. Ward’s evocative etchings, lithographs, linocuts and wood engravings capture a disappearing world of tranquil countryside and bustling waterways.
Ward was also an accomplished painter in oils and watercolour, capturing the chalk cliffs, ruins and architectural oddities of an England that would have been familiar to Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) or Charles Dickens (1812-1870). His monochrome prints reveal a mastery of atmosphere, light and shade.
Views of Poole Harbour and the Isle of Purbeck reflect his love of the Dorset landscape, but he travelled widely in search of pastoral subjects and took delight in the decaying buildings of Britain’s historic towns. His passion for working boats and industrial architecture took him to the Thames, Medway and Humber. He is perhaps little known outside Dorset, but this exhibition confirms his position as one of England’s most significant 20th century painter-printmakers.
Ward began his art training by winning a scholarship to the Drummond Road Art school in Bournemouth, a town he spent most of his life in. He lived at 22 Grants Avenue, Springbourne area), and taught at the Municipal College of Art; he was also a leading member of the Bournemouth Arts Club. Probably best known as a very fine etcher, he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Painter Etchers (RE) in 1936 and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy.
Ward was a very tall austere character who often wore cloaks and flamboyant hats. He was also a good friend of artist Eustace Nash (1886-1969). Both were often seen together in the Bournemouth and Poole area during the 1950’s and 60’s, between them they produced many drawings, paintings and etchings of the region.
English Idyll will feature many rarely seen works on loan from private collections as well as paintings and prints from the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth. It will be a treat for devotees of fine prints and lovers of the English landscape. Works by Ward are held in the Russell Cotes Art Gallery in Bournemouth and public galleries in Hastings, Eastbourne, Southampton, Oldham, Cheltenham, The Victoria and Albert and the British Museum. A fully illustrated catalogue is available, sponsored by private collector of Ward’s work, Stuart Southall.
English Idyll runs from 25th April-6th June at St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire (http://www.stbarbe-museum.org.uk). Opening hours: Monday-Saturday 10am-4pm. Admission charges apply.
‘Knowle Church’, Dorset by Leslie Moffat Ward. (Colour linocut, 288 x 186mm). Signed. Image courtesy of private collector Stuart Southall.
One hundred years on, we are all connected to the First World War, either through our own family history, the heritage of our local communities or because of its long-term impact on society and the world we live in today. From 2014 to 2018, across the world, nations, communities and individuals of all ages will come together to mark, commemorate and remember the lives of those who lived, fought and died in the First World War. IWM (Imperial War Museums) is leading the First World War Centenary Partnership, a network of local, regional, national and international cultural and educational organisations. Together, through the First World War Centenary Programme, a vibrant global programme of cultural events and activities, and online resources, we are connecting current and future generations with the lives, stories and impact of the First World War. Join us and take part in this global commemoration.
The First World War commenced on 28th July, 1914 and lasted until 11th November, 1918 (Armistice). 2014 is the start of a four year, global programme of cultural events that will commemorate the lives of all of those who died, fought and were effected by the conflict. In this article, the first of a series focussing upon aspects of The Great War, I feature two exhibitions inspired by the Centenary and that have particularly caught my eye.
Thursday 10th April 2014 – Friday 27th March 2015;
A nationwide touring exhibition of Last Post: Remembering the First World War will run in parallel to the exhibition at Coalbrookdale.
This poignant new free exhibition, Last Post: Remembering the First World War, will explore the effect of the events of 1914-18 on the Post Office, its people and the contribution of postal communications to the war effort. Before 1914 Post Office communications were vital to everyday life through the telegraph, telephone and postal systems. At the outbreak of war, the Post Office, as one of the biggest businesses in the world, contributed to military operations on a scale never seen before, providing a vital means of communication between the fighting fronts and the home front. Tens of thousands of Post Office workers fought in the war and over 8,500 were killed.
Curated by the British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) in partnership with the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, the exhibition will showcase objects of military and postal importance and include stories from a Shropshire perspective. The exhibition encompasses a variety of themes that bring to life the importance of human contact and communication during a time of great suffering and uncertainty. The themes will include communications both at home and on the front line and the working lives of people involved in the postal service during the war, including those of women on War Work.
Dr Matt Thompson, Senior Curator Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust commented “The Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust is proud to be able to commemorate the often forgotten role that the Post Office played during the First World War and is grateful to the BPMA and other partners for their hard work in putting this excellent exhibition together”.
“The First World War Centenary is an opportunity to reflect on the impact that this cataclysmic conflict had upon everyone, not just those fighting on the front line”, said Dr Adrian Steel, Director BPMA. “Few organisations had a greater role to play, or a greater impact, over the five years of hostilities than the British postal service. It has been a pleasure as always to work with our friends at Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust to bring this significant exhibition and its often-hidden stories to the people of Shropshire and the wider public.”
Film clip in which racing journalist and former jockey, Brough Scott, talks about the Isle of Wight’s most famous ‘War Horse’, Warrior who served in a number of famous battles during the First World War including Somme and Ypres. ‘Warrior’ went on to become a much-loved police horse, patrolling the streets of Southampton. (BBC Countryfile, 2012).
Lucy Kemp-Welch’s ‘Mixed Company at a Race Meeting’. Oil on canvas (1905). Image courtesy of Lucy Kemp-Welch Memorial Trust Collection.
St. Barbe Museum & Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire (Monday-Saturday, 10-4pm);
Saturday 1st March – Saturday 26th April, 2014 (closed Sundays):
Adults £4, concessions £3, children 5-15 £2.
Save The War Horses! – Mr John Galsworthy’s Appeal
“Honour to the Army Veterinary Corps! As far back as October 16 they had already ‘dealt with some 27,000 horses….saving the lives of many.’ They are a splendid corps doing splendid work. Please help them!” writes Mr John Galsworthy, the author, in a stirring appeal for contributions to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Fund for Sick and Wounded Horses at the Front, which has the approval of the Army Council.
“Twenty-five horse-drawn ambulances and twenty-five motor-lorries are especially required at once. Now that the situation is more in hand we can surely turn a little to the companions of man. They, poor things, have no option in this business; get no benefit out of it of any kind whatever; know none of the sustaining sentiments of heroism; feel no satisfaction in duty done.”
(Notice placed in a British newspaper during the First World War)
Marking the First World War centenary, this art exhibition will reveal how horses were taken from civilian life and prepared for the military. Home Lad, Home follows horses from peacetime occupations to the Remount Depots and active service, as depicted in paintings by Lucy Kemp-Welch, Cecil Aldin, Lionel Edwards, Algernon Talmage, Lady Butler and Edwin Noble. These artists recorded the work of the Remount Service (including Depots at Romsey and Swaythling), the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, Cavalry, Artillery and transport services. It reveals the contribution of horses to the war effort in a remarkable and moving story.
Artist, Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869-1958), specialised in painting working horses and Cecil Aldin (1870-1935) and Lionel Edwards (1878-1966) are both best known for their paintings of horses as well as other animals. There will also be charcoal and watercolour work by official war artist Edwin Noble, a former resident of nearby Milford-on-Sea who served in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, as well as paintings by Lady Butler (aka Elizabeth Southerden Thompson Butler 1846-1933) and Algernon Talmage (1871-1939). Modern day interpretation of the war horse experience will include a commissioned piece by artist James Aldridge as well as Amy Goodman’s sculpture commemorating the work of the Romsey Remount Depot.
Goodman is also currently working on a life-size statue, part of the Romsey War Horse Project, which it is hoped will be erected in Romsey’s Memorial Park early 2015. On her involvement with the Project she said: “Being involved in the War Horse Project is such an honour. I wish to convey the powerful bond between horse and soldier, despite their hardship through war.”
Aldridge’s work for the Home Lad, Home exhibition will research and explore the Remount, when thousands of horses and mules were gathered in Romsey and Swaythling in Hampshire, before being sent to the front line. He will also mentor a group of young people in creating their own work for exhibition, inspired by their experience of seeing War Horse at The Mayflower Theatre, Southampton, and by research into the role and lives of horses in the First World War. The exhibition will be accompanied by a special schools’ programme, developed in partnership with The Mayflower Theatre, to mark the arrival there of acclaimed National Theatre production of War Horse as part of its UK tour. It is supported by Arts Council England, Hampshire County Council and Thesis Asset Management.
Young artists at Priestlands School, Lymington are creating their own responses to the themes of the Home Lad, Home exhibition and the National Theatre’s production of War Horse. The students’ work will be included within the exhibition, alongside newly commissioned pieces by Aldridge. To find out more about the Home Lad, Home educational project, Click Here.
Edwin Noble’s ‘An Injured horse being loaded into a motor ambulance’. Image courtesy of The Imperial War Museum (IWM).
Approximately, 1.3 million horses and mules were requisitioned for war work and only about one in ten horses survived. A large number of these animals came from Hampshire and Southern England. Some horses had already been working on farms or pulling delivery carts, others were wild horses but all had to be retrained in order that they were ready to meet the demands of front line action. Romsey Remount Depot, Hampshire, witnessed tens of thousands of wild horses passing through its training programme.
The Romsey Camp was located on the summit of Pauncefoot Hill close to Ranvilles Farm. The first horses arrived there in March 1915. For the first two or three weeks, the animals were kept in enclosures called a ‘kraal’. After they had settled in, training would commence alongside their military handlers. This five hundred acre site housed two thousand staff and continued until its closure in 1919.
Edwin Noble’s ‘A Prisoner of War’. Image courtesy of IWM.
Swaythling Remount Depot, North Stoneham, Hampshire was built at the start of the First World War. It was the largest of four Depots in England and provided accommodation not only for horses but also mules. These animals were prepared at the Remount Depot for their duties on the Western Front. Swaythling Depot processed nearly four hundred thousand animals between 1914 and its closure in 1920. For more information on the Depot, including some fascinating images of the site in use during wartime, click here. For more information about the unique role that Hampshire played in the First World War, click here (Hampshire’s 1914 The Big Theme).
St Barbe Museum & Art Gallery has recently received initial Heritage Lottery Fund Support (a first-round pass), for a £2million major upgrade of facilities. Improvements will include a new easily accessible public archive, a superb range of interactive displays and an eye-catching new entrance to the building. The old school building will also be re-designed internally to make good use of all the space available, the shop will be improved and an attractive café area will be established. The project ‘The Future of St. Barbe – Innovative, Inclusive, Resilient’ will create new ways of telling the stories of the people and events that have shaped the area from pre-history to modern-day. Initial development funding of £146,800 has also been awarded by HLF to help St. Barbe move forward with its exciting plans and apply for a full grant at a later date.
Consultation, planning and fundraising has now begun and will continue until 2015 when the museum will apply for the second round of HLF Funding. Building work is scheduled for 2016 and the new shape St. Barbe will be launched in 2017. An important aspect of the upgrade is the installation of an archive. The archive project will allow more access by the public to local history collections, particularly material originally held by eminent local historians, Edward King and Arthur Lloyd. The improvements will also ensure that more historical objects can be displayed, and there will be a changing programme of new displays, helping to create more educational outreach opportunities. Meanwhile the Art Gallery will continue to show national standard exhibitions.
Homeward by Cicely Fox Smith (1882-1954)
Behind a trench in Flanders the sun was dropping low,
With tramp, and creak and jingle I heard the gun-teams go;
And something seemed to ‘mind me, a-dreaming as I lay,
Of my own old Hampshire village at the quiet end of day.
Brown thatch and gardens blooming with lily and with rose,
And the cool shining river so pleasant where he flows,
White fields of oats and barley, and elderflower like foam,
And the sky gold with sunset, and the horses going home!
(Home, lad, home, all among the corn and clover! Home, lad, home when the time for work is over! Oh there’s rest for horse and man when the longest day is done And they go home together at setting of the sun!)
Old Captain, Prince and Blossom, I see them all so plain,
With tasseled ear-caps nodding along the leafy lane,
There’s a bird somewhere calling, and the swallow flying low,
And the lads sitting sideways, and singing as they go.
Well gone is many a lad now, and many a horse gone too,
Off all those lads and horses in those old fields I knew;
There’s Dick that died at Cuinchy and Prince beside the guns
On the red road of glory, a mile or two from Mons!
Dead lads and shadowy horses – I see them just the same,
I see them and I know them, and name them each by name,
Going down to shining waters when all the West’s a-glow,
And the lads sitting sideways and singing as they go.
(Home, lad, home . . . with the sunset on their faces! Home, lad, home . . . to those quiet happy places! There’s rest for horse and man when the hardest fight is done, And they go home together at setting of the sun!)
Smith’s poem, Homeward, is the inspiration behind St. Barbe’s Museum & Art Gallery’s forthcoming exhibition, Home Lad, Home : The War Horse Story which opens on Saturday 1st March, 2014. For more information on the exhibition: Click Here.
Lucy Kemp-Welch’s ‘Forward – Enlist Now’ poster (1915). Image courtesy of Bushey Museum & Art Gallery.
I have been browsing through my copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management(1915 edition) and reading some of the non-food related entries. I never ceased to be amazed at the wide range of topics covered by this classic tome from the domestic literature canon. Isabella Beeton died in 1865, thirty years before the first motorcar was introduced into Britain by Frederick Simms and his friend Evelyn Ellis, a Daimler-engined Panhard & Levassor. Each new edition of Mrs Beeton’s work, was carefully updated to reflect current societal/consumer trends. By the end of the Edwardian era (1910) car ownership was on the increase amongst the wealthy. Car maintenance was one topic that would have resonated with the middle and upper classes during the post-Edwardian era. The excellent website, Edwardian Promenade, has a couple of good articles on the motorcar during the Edwardian period:
If you own a vintage car I wouldn’t recommend you follow all of the advice given in Mrs Beeton’s book, such as washing greasy car leathers with waste petrol or cleaning your engine with a brush dipped in paraffin but some of it you may find useful.
Children’s puzzle published by Raphael Tuck and Sons London, 1909. Exhibit on display at St. Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, Lymington, Hampshire.
Advice on how to clean your motorcar
‘After the mud has been washed off the car by means of the hose, the painted work should be dried with a soft, clean sponge and then polished with a leather. Care should be taken to keep the water and grit out of the bearings and other working parts. The tyres should be wiped clean and dried, care being taken to see that they are well inflated and that no water gets in, otherwise the rims will rust and the canvas rot. To clean the engine and gear apply a good-sized brush dipped in paraffin. Greasy leathers should be cleaned by washing with waste petrol. The clutch leather should not be allowed to get dry, but should be moistened with collan oil, which should be allowed to soak overnight.’ (1915 edition: p. 1809)
To oil the motorcar
‘The careful driver will bear in mind that all the rotating and rubbing surfaces of his motor, except the stems of the inlet and exhaust valves and the leather brake bands, when used, require lubrication, as do the steering sockets, connections, worm and column bearings. The bearings of the road wheels, the transmission gearing and levers, the balance gear and the starting apparatus should also be carefully oiled, while the pump and radiator fan bearings should not be neglected.’ (1915 edition: p.1809)
Come Step Back In Time 