Interesting personnel records uncovered by the Sunderland Shipbuilding Archives project

Collections & Objects   Discovery Museum   Local History   Maritime History   Social History   The Archives
Posted by administrator on April 23, 2012     Permalink     Comments (60)

During the past month I’ve been cataloguing the administrative records of Austin & Pickersgill Ltd and its two predecessor companies, S.P. Austin & Son Ltd and William Pickersgill & Sons Ltd. These include an interesting set of personnel records, which may be of interest to family historians whose ancestors worked in the Sunderland shipbuilding industry.

The Archives holds records of many shipyards on the River Tyne and the River Wear but these generally include little in the way of personnel records. Those that survive are often wage books, which contain very few personal details and often just relate to the shipyard’s clerical staff, draughtsmen and foremen. The records of Austin Pickersgill and its predecessors are unusual, though, because they contain information about the shipyard workers whose personal details are rarely found in other collections. 

The archives of S.P. Austin & Son include a large quantity of personnel records. Of particular note are nine drawers of index cards (TWAM ref. DS.AP/2/9/1-9) containing brief details of men and women employed by the yard from the 1910s to the 1940s. A couple of examples are shown below. 

Index card for James Bulmer, 1927-1936 (TWAM ref. DS.AP/2/9/1)

 

Index card for Emily Bush, 1943 (TWAM ref. DS.AP/2/9/9)

The card for Mrs Emily Bush is part of a small but interesting series in the final index card drawer relating to women who worked in the shipyard during the Second World War. Although the information given on these is slim it is relatively rare for any of these details to survive for the catchers, fitters, heaters, holder ups, joiners, labourers, painters, platers, plumbers, rivetters, red leaders and other employees who worked in the shipyards. Helpfully, the cards are arranged in alphabetical order, which makes it easy to search for an ancestor’s name.

The Austin’s records also include six apprentices wage rate books (TWAM ref. DS.AP/2/10/1-6), covering the years 1924-1964. These are arranged by trade and the information given for each apprentice includes:

  • Name
  • Date started
  • Date of birth
  • Details of wages.

    Details of apprentice fitters at S.P. Austin & Son, 1924-1928 (TWAM ref. DS.AP/2/10/1)

 

There are fewer surviving personnel records for William Pickersgill & Sons Ltd but these do include some interesting items. For example, there are two registers of starters dating from 1930-1939 and 1948-1956 and these include useful personal details such as:

  • Name
  • Address
  • Date of birth
  • Date started
  • Last employer
  • Trade

The information about previous employers is likely to be of particular interest to family historians and also reflects how a significant number of workers moved from one firm to another.

In 1954 S.P. Austin & Son Ltd merged with William Pickersgill & Sons Ltd to create Austin & Pickersgill Ltd. The employee records for the amalgamated company survive pretty well and include details of starters and leavers from the 1950s to the 1980s, although there are some gaps. 

Entries from register of new starters at Southwick yard, showing details of previous employers, August 1956 (TWAM ref. DS.AP/2/16/1)

It’s interesting to note that one of the employees listed above was 67 when he started at the Southwick Yard. We’re approaching a time when many people will have to work longer before retirement but it’s clear that to some of our ancestors this would have been the norm.

There are also twenty yard employees registers (sometimes referred to as ‘hands on books’) for the Southwick Yard. In the yard employees registers the workers are grouped by trade (in order of board number). A separate register was kept each year and these include names and addresses and also give dates of leaving and reasons for leaving, where applicable. 

Details of shipwrights at Southwick yard, from a yard employees register for 1956-1957 (TWAM ref. DS.AP/2/23/2)

Access is restricted to these registers because some entries contain sensitive personal information about dismissals. An example of such an entry is given below. 

Note regarding the dismissal of a shipwright, from a yard employees register for 1956-1957 (TWAM ref. DS.AP/2/23/2)

 

Even though direct access is not available to leavers registers and yard employees registers it is possibly to request searches of them by the Archives staff. These searches are carried out through our paid research service and details of this can be found on our webpages.

Colin and have both recently started working on the records of William Doxford & Sons Ltd and I look forward to reporting more exciting discoveries next month.

‘Young Anglers, Barras Bridge’, painted by Thomas Miles Richardson: a picture of old Barras Mill-pond?

Art   Collections & Objects   Exhibitions   Laing Art Gallery   Local History
Posted by administrator on April 16, 2012     Permalink     Comments (1)

This idyllic scene by Thomas Miles Richardson senior (1784–1848) shows the dell that opened out near Barras Bridge, Newcastle to become Pandon Dean.

'Young Anglers, Barras Bridge', by Thomas Miles Richardson. Given by Lord Joicey, 1921

Although Pandon Dean disappeared long ago, it was known for its beauty in the 18th and early 19th centuries. A song published in 1776, under the name of Rosalinda (republished in 1812 by John Bell of Newcastle) described the loveliness of Pandon Burn and Pandon Dean (sometimes spelled Pandon Dene):

Above me stand the towering trees,   While here I feel the gentle breeze;   The water flows by chance around,   And green enamels all the ground,    Which gives new splendour to the scene,    And adds a grace to Pandon Dene.

The lush green trees, golden sunlight and shining reflections on the water in Thomas Miles Richardson’s painting reveal the dean’s appeal. Richardson composed his picture to include picturesque buildings and children fishing, creating an image of people living in harmony with nature.

Some other early-19th-century artists expressed a similar Romantic feeling for the landscape surroundings of their homes. John Constable, who painted Suffolk landscape, is the best known of these artists. Francis Danby also painted comparable views inspired by the beautiful Bristol countryside.

Detail of 'Young Anglers, Barras Bridge' by Thomas Miles Richardson

There is a possibility that Thomas Miles Richardson was influenced by Constable’s paintings. Richardson was in London in August 1822, when he painted a view of George IV setting off for a visit to Scotland. It was exhibited in Newcastle in 1826, and is thought to be this watercolour.

As Richardson was in London in early August, he would almost certainly have visited the Royal Academy exhibition before it closed at the end of July. Richardson showed a view of Edinburgh at the Royal Academy, and Constable exhibited View on the Stour near Dedham. It’s tempting to think that if Richardson travelled down to London a few months earlier, for the beginning of the Royal Academy exhibition in May, he may also have seen Constable’s great painting The Haywain at the British Institution, exhibited under the title ‘Landscape, noon’ (the exhibition ended shortly before the Royal Academy exhibition began.)  

Richardson’s painting isn’t dated, and it wasn’t exhibited in the artist’s lifetime – only in a memorial display in 1848. However, it may have been painted in the mid-1820s, when the artist exhibited two similar pictures, of approximately the same size, showing children fishing.

It seems likely that Richardson’s Young Anglers, Barras Bridge shows the Barras Mill-pond as it was before redevelopment in about 1819, even though it was probably painted a little later as a recollection of past times. The picture shows a wide sheet of water (not a narrow stream as Pandon Burn was), and the sides are stone, as would be likely for a pond built to feed a watermill. (Ponds ensured there was always enough water to create a fast-flowing mill stream to turn the water-wheel.)

Children fishing, detail from 'Young Anglers, Barras Bridge'. The children are equipped with bowls for bait and the minnows they hope to catch.

Like the children in the painting, the Newcastle antiquarian the Reverend J Collingwood Bruce (1806-1892) had spent boyhood hours at Barras Mill-pond and the burn. In a book of about 1870, he wrote:

The writer has often, when a boy, sailed his boats in the pond, and fished for minnows in the upper part of the stream.

So, where was the attractive scene shown by Thomas Miles Richardson located? The Barras Mill-pond and burn alongside were built over in the early 19th century. The photo below shows their approximate site today – in the paved area (Eldon Place) between the two Newcastle University buildings in the photo below, over the main road from the Civic Centre.

Eldon Place, alongside left side of Claremont Buildings, on the corner of Claremont Road (right). INTO building (2010) is on the left and the Claremont Buildings (1896) are on the right. © Andrew Curtis and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence

Ralph Beilby’s map of 1788 shows the mill-pond and burn in existence (top left of the map detail).

Detail of Ralph Beilby's map of 1788

The North Post Road at the top of this map detail is today’s Great North Road. The road further left of this later developed into Claremont Road. The dark rectangle on the tongue of land between the two roads is St James’s Place, which was knocked down to build the museum that became the Great North Museum: Hancock. The burn with the mill-pond is to the left of that. The stream runs past Barras Mill, shown as a dark rectangle, and a path from the left side of the mill leads to the Barras Bridge. The stream here was known as Bailey (or Baillie) Burn in the 18th and early 19thcenturies. After flowing under the old Barras Bridge, the stream continued into Pandon Dean, which is shown opening up into a huge valley on the right of the map.

The stream at old Barras Bridge in 1788, from a drawing by the Reverend WN Darnell

We know that, in the late-18th century, the stream at Barras Bridge was narrow, unlike the pool shown in Thomas Miles Richardson’s painting. It probably stayed much the same in the next 30 years, though the bridge was widened and heightened in both 1789 and 1819 to make it safer for travellers. Unfortunately, we don’t have a later image of the bridge.

After development of the Barras Mill-pond and the burn in this area in about 1819, a pool appeared on the east side of Barras Bridge. However, from Thomas Oliver’s map (below), it looks like it formed naturally following culverting of the burn on the other side of the bridge, and the pool here seems unlikely to have stone sides.

Detail from Thomas Oliver's map of 1833

Considerable changes took place in the early 19th century. Eneas Mackenzie, in his History of Newcastle of 1827 tells us that, as the result of alterations taking place about the same time as the widening of Barras Bridge in 1819:

the Bailey Burn is now arched over, the mill-pond filled up, the inequalities levelled, and the whole converted into gardens, which are attached to a neat row of airy houses, called Eldon Place. … The ancient mill is also to be pulled down…

Entrance to Eldon Place from Percy Street/Barras Bridge. Claremont Buildings of 1896 are on the right.

 

Thomas Miles Richardson (1784-1848)

Thomas Miles Richardson (1784-1848) was the leading artist in Newcastle in the early 19th century, and painted many local views.  He taught several other artists, and he also set up artists’ societies and exhibiting organisations. He exhibited his paintings in London and all round the country, as well as in Newcastle.

It’s not known if Richardson visited London (apart from the 1822 visit) to accompany pictures he showed at the Royal Academy and British Institution exhibitions (his son Henry Burdon Richardson exhibited at the RA from London addresses 1828-1832, so Thomas Miles Richardson might have visited).

The date of Richardson’s painting of Young Anglers, Barras Bridge is uncertain. On the back of the picture, the artist’s address is written as 53 Blackett Street, where he worked in the 1840s (probably from 1837 when his son Thomas Miles Richardson junior started using this address).  However, the picture might date from the mid 1820s – Richardson exhibited two similar subjects at the British Institution – Minnow Fishers, a view near Newcastle, in 1825, and The Young Angler…Jesmond Dean in 1826 – for both, the listings give measurements very close to the frame size of Young Anglers, Barras Bridge.

Paintings of Pandon Dean on display

This snap shows Thomas Miles Richardson’s painting of Young Anglers, Barras Bridge alongside another painting of Pandon Dean. They are on display until May 6th 2012 in the exhibition ‘19th Century Art in Newcastle’, selected from the Laing Art Gallery collection, until April 29th 2012.

Another of Thomas Miles Richardson’s paintings – Excavations for High Level Bridge – is on show in the Northern Spirit displays on the ground floor of the Laing Art Gallery.

Monkwearmouth Station Bombed!

Local History   Military History   Social History
Posted by administrator on April 5, 2012     Permalink     Comments (8)

When first built there was a roof over the lines between the main building at Monkwearmouth Station and the Goods Yard on the west side. This roof provided shelter for the passengers waiting for their trains. On the night of Saturday 1 April 1916 the First World War came to Sunderland in no uncertain terms when German Imperial Navy Zeppelin L11 rained down high explosive and incendiary bombs on both sides of the River Wear. A casualty of the raid was the roof over the railway lines and was never repaired, being removed completely 12 years later in 1928 when the still to be seen platform shelters for the passengers were built.

At about 10pm on the evening of 1 April 1916 German Imperial Navy Zeppelin L11 under the command of Korvettenkapitan Viktor Schutze, who joined the Zeppelin only as recently as 5 March 1916, flying at a height of about 2,200 metres, crossed the coast to attack Tyneside. It had left its base at Nordholz, along with L14, at mid-day with orders to attack southern or central England but the wind was such that L11 found itself approaching the River Tyne in the dark. Following a Zeppelin raid on Tyneside by L10 on 16 June 1915 the defences around the River Tyne had been strengthened and at its relatively low height and experiencing difficulties gaining height in the weather conditions, Schutze decided to manoeuvre round and attack the less well protected port of Sunderland.

At about 11pm Millfield and Deptford were first to be on the receiving end of L11’s deadly payload before it crossed the River Wear and turned its attentions on Monkwearmouth. This is when the Goods Yard was hit and the roof over the railway lines at the Station damaged. Bombs also damaged Thomas Street School, Victor Street and Whitburn Street where St Benet’s Church was damaged. There had been warning of the impending attack and the trams had been evacuated as was the practice. In North Bridge Street Tram No. 10 had been pulled up and was hit along with a house. The conductress, Sally Ann Holmes, was injured and an Inspector was killed. In all 22 people were killed that night with others amongst the 25 seriously injured dying over the following days. Over 100 people received less serious injuries. The local newspaper, the Sunderland Echo, in its report on an air raid on a ‘north east town’ played down the damage and affect on the people saying three small fires were started and quickly dealt with and the people remained calm. Other reports would suggest this was not the case. Shutze himself reported:

‘I decided not to cross the batteries on account of not being very high in relation to the firing, and also because of slow progress against the wind and the absolutely clear atmosphere up above. I fixed, therefore, on the town of Sunderland, with its extensive docks and the blast furnaces north-west of the town. Keeping on the weather side, the airships dropped explosive bombs on some works where one blast-furnace was blown up with a terrible detonation, sending out flames and smoke. The factories and dock buildings of Sunderland, now brightly illuminated, were then bombed with good results. The effect was grand; blocks of houses and rows of streets collapsed entirely; large fires broke out in places and a dense black cloud, from which bright sparks flew high, was caused by one bomb. A second explosive bomb was at once dropped at the same spot; judging from the situation, it may have been a railway station.’
(http://www.richthofen.com/scheer/scheer09a.htm)

Coming under fire from a gun at Fulwell the Zeppelin turned to the south east and after dropping bombs on the docks flew down to Middlesbrough where it caused more destruction before returning to base at Nordholz at 10am on 2nd April.


As the centenary of the First World War approaches, and we remember the dedication and sacrifices of the people, families and communities of the people who went through it, this is a story that I will be researching in greater depth as at the moment there are some conflicting accounts around. Defences were strengthened around the area afterwards and the establishment of a home defence air squadron, 36 Squadron, based at Ashington, Seaton Carew and Usworth is well recorded but a listening post was built at Fulwell and this is less well documented. I would be delighted to hear from anyone who believes that they can help with information.

barque Lota 1891 (2)

Art   Collections & Objects   Maritime History
Posted by administrator on April 2, 2012     Permalink     Comments (1)

It is time for me to post again about the Sunderland-built barque Lota. There has been a surprising volume of traffic in response to the original posting. I am amazed at how our shared knowledge of the ship, her voyages and her crew has increased as a result. 

barque Lota 1891

oil painting of the 3 masted barque Lota by John Hudson 1891

Accounts of Lota’s launch on Wednesday 19th August 1891 were published in the Sunderland Echo on the 20th and then a day later in the Newcastle Journal – pretty much a copy of the Echo but with one line missing! Here’s the Newcastle Journal version with the missing line restored.

“On Wednesday there was successfully launched from Messrs Robert Thompson & Sons’ Southwick yard, Sunderland a handsomely-modelled steel barque, built to the order of Messrs Turner, Edwards and Co. of Bristol, of the following dimensions:- Length, 232 feet; breadth, 37 feet, depth to floors 21 feet 10 ½ inches, gross tonnage about 1,367 tons. The vessel has raised quarter-deck aft, 48 feet, for the accommodation of captain, officers, and passengers, also rooms for apprentices. Amidships is the large and spacious house for crew, petty officers, galley etc. Under the topgallant forecastle are lamp and oil rooms, patent windlass etc., lighthouses are on the after part of the forecastle head, patent pumps amidships, and fire engines forward. Everything is fitted with the latest improvements. During construction the vessel has been superintended by Captain Langford, who takes command when completed. As the vessel left the ways she was christened the Lota by Miss March of London.”

Back in December 2011 Peter Robinson commented that he had come across the blog while researching a caption for the photograph collection of the Cumbrian Railways Association. The research was for a photograph of Lota moored at Carrs Quay, Silloth, which Peter has kindly given me permission to show here.

The sailing barque Lota moored alongside Carrs Flour Mill in Silloth

barque Lota moored alongside Carrs Flour Mill, Silloth (copyright Cumbrian Railways Association)

I am pretty sure that this is the Sunderland-built Lota but while I was checking the possibilities I came across another near contemporary 3-masted steel barque of the same name. She was built at Port Glasgow in 1893 by Archibald Russell & Co. and apart from being 13 feet longer than ‘our’ Lota is likely to look very like her. So when researching you should be aware that there were two very similar Lotas trading from 1893 to 1910, after which the Clyde-built ship disappears from the register.   

JH - A1 House flag

The special house flag - A1-JH - that John Hudson painted on his portrait of Lota

Something I didn’t comment on when I first posted was the peculiar flag which is being flown from Lota’s mainmast . Since the original owners were Turner Edwards of Bristol, one would expect to see their house flag of a white star on a red background flying from the masthead. Instead there is flag carrying the very clear message A1.JH! It seems that John Hudson, who painted the picture, was probably having a little joke by pairing his initials with the top Lloyds insurance classification. He definitely wasn’t expecting to sell the painting to Lota’s owners.

Finally may I say thank you to everybody who has posted. I have greatly enjoyed learning more about one of the last of the Sunderland-built sailing ships.

 

Richard Grainger’s vision for Grey Street, Newcastle

Art   Collections & Objects   Laing Art Gallery   Local History
Posted by administrator on March 28, 2012     Permalink     Comments (8)

This picture shows Grey Street, Newcastle, when it was still just a twinkle in the eye of the developer Richard Grainger. The scene is an ‘artist’s impression’, painted by John Wilson Carmichael for Grainger to show to investors, Newcastle corporation, and others to convince them that Grey Street would be a glamorous and stylish centre for business, banks and shops, and worth the enormous expense of building. The brick buildings nearest the viewer show the top of Dean Street as it was at the time.

John Wilson Carmichael, ‘Proposed new street for Newcastle’, 1831. Purchased with the aid of a grant from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, 2010

John Wilson Carmichael, ‘Proposed new street for Newcastle’, 1831. Purchased with the aid of a grant from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, 2010

This historic painting is on show in the exhibition ‘19th-century Art in Newcastle’ at the Laing Art Gallery until April 29th 2012.

Grainger started building Grey Street from 1835. Carmichael’s picture is dated 1831 and so shows that Grainger was planning Grey Street much earlier than previously thought (the date has been examined under magnification, and is 1831, not a misreading of 1834).

Grey Street seen from Dean Street, 2012

The general appearance of Grey Street today is very much as Grainger envisaged.

Detail from the centre of Carmichael’s painting

Carmichael’s painting gives us a lively picture of Newcastle life in the 1830s. A farmer leads his horse beside a group of finely dressed ladies and gentlemen. (Newcastle was an important market centre, and animals in the streets were a common event.)

Detail from the background of Carmichael’s painting

The grand building in the centre of this detail from the background of Carmichael’s painting was probably intended to show what a new Theatre Royal could look like. Grainger’s plans to build Grey Street meant that David Stephenson’s Theatre Royal (built 1788) in Mosley Street had to be knocked down. In actuality, the new Theatre Royal was built at the top end of the street. Its pillared front does have some similarity to the imagined building in the painting.

Detail from the right side of Carmichael’s painting

The background of Carmichael’s painting is imaginary – a picture of what Grainger hoped to build. However, the foreground is a real-life record of the buildings at the top of Dean Street. The shop on the right is a smart establishment with large windows filled with expensive glass. (This shop also has hoists for lifting heavy goods from delivery carts.)

Carmichael’s picture shows two contrasting shopping experiences. Right in front of the stylish shop, a woman has set up a roadside display of produce for sale.

A stagecoach in the background is travelling along Mosley Street. It’s crowded with passengers sitting outside, well wrapped up against the breeze (the fare was cheaper than inside).

Detail from the left side of Carmichael’s painting

On the left side of Carmichael’s painting is the shop of William Collard, who was the engraver for many of Carmichael’s paintings and drawings. It seems that Collard’s shop fronted both Dean Street and Mosley Street– it is recorded in the Newcastle directory of the time at 22 Mosley Street.

Collard’s shop and the facing building at the top of Dean Street are part of the previous development in Newcastle in the 1780s, designed by Newcastle architect David Stephenson (1756-1819). The buildings’ rectangular shapes, restrained decoration, and regular placing of windows were very different to the overhanging gables, decorated strips of windows, and black-and-white half-timbering of earlier buildings.

Late 18th-century buildings on the east side of Dean Street

The two shops Carmichael shows on the corners of Dean Street are no longer there. Some buildings from the same time are still standing in Dean Street, but the shop fronts have been changed quite a lot since they were built.

A map produced by Thomas Oliver in 1833 shows the layout of the town before Grey Street was built. Dean Street is at the bottom of the map section, to the right of St Nicholas Church (now Cathedral).

Detail from Thomas Oliver’s map of Newcastle of 1833

Richard Grainger bought the huge estate of Anderson Place after the death of its owner George Anderson in 1831. The estate is shown in between Pilgrim Street and the area marked THE NUNS on the map. Grainger also bought Nun’s Field at the same time (long before, it had been the grounds of a nunnery). The new Grey Street was built over Anderson Place– Lloyds Bank occupies the site of the house.

The construction of Grey Street meant that the meat market (shown as a roughly rectangular black outline around 8 black rectangles) had to be demolished. However, Grainger persuaded Newcastle council to sell him the old market and buy a replacement from him – this was the Grainger Market, opened in 1835. After this, Grainger could get on with developing Grey Street.

In his historical notes in  Architectural and Picturesque Views in Newcastle Upon Tyne of 1841, M Ross wrote:

The capabilities of this piece of ground, twelve acres in extent, seem to have long engaged the attention of Richard Grainger, Esq., whose enterprising mind had been early attracted to the vacuum, as it might be called, in the very heart of the town.

Carmichael’s painting certainly supports the idea that Grainger had already been thinking of how he might develop the land before he bought it.

Grainger’s building scheme created another 8 streets, including Grainger Street.

Grey Street, engraving by William Collard, 1841

This is William Collard’s engraving from a drawing by Carmichael showing Grey Street after it was completed. It is one of the illustrations from Architectural and Picturesque Views in Newcastle Upon Tyne of 1841, published by M Ross and William Collard. Ross’s accompanying text commented:

The carriage road of this, as well as of the other new streets, is Macademized; a wide flagged foot-path on each side affords a convenient promenade to the pedestrian who may be disposed to examine the numerous splendid shops, &c., which sparkle in the sun-beams or the gas-lights around him.

The buildings on the western side of the street, on the left of the picture, were designed by the architects John Wardle and and George Walker, who were employed in Grainger’s offices. Other buildings were designed by other local architects, such as John Dobson.

‘Grey Street’, print from a design by JW Carmichael

Grey Street was an important addition to the routes through Newcastle. Previously, Pilgrim Street and Side had been the two main streets from Mosley Street to the north of the town. This print from a design by Carmichael of the upper part of Grey Street shows the busy roadway. Grainger had kept a domed building as a focal point, but moved it to the top of the street – this is the Central Exchange Buildings. The Theatre Royal is on the right. The Monument to Earl Grey, in the centre of the view, was completed in 1838, creating a spectacular new culmination to the view up the street.

Grey Street was described by renowned architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘one of the finest streets in England’. In 2002, it was voted ‘Best street in the UK’ by BBC Radio 4 listeners. The street is a central part of the Grainger Town Conservation Area.

Richard Grainger at the age of about 31

Richard Grainger (1797-1861) was a remarkable man. He didn’t come from a wealthy family – his father was a quayside porter. He set himself up as a builder at the age of 20, and quickly expanded his business, helped by marriage to the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Grainger built several important building projects, including old Eldon Square in 1824-26 and Leazes Terrace in 1829, before developing the Anderson estate.

M Ross, in his 1841 history of Newcastle, wrote that:

never before such extensive improvements effected in any one place by any individual; and that our canny town, “the coal-hole of the north” now stands, through his exertions, as proudly pre-eminent for architectural beauty, as it has …done for …mercantile enterprize and respectability.

John Wilson Carmichael at the age of 40

The artist John Wilson Carmichael (1799-1868) was born in Newcastle. He was one of the leading artists of the area for many years. Although mainly known as a painter of ships and sea subjects, he also painted architectural scenes. Carmichael moved to London in 1846 to capitalise on the success of paintings he had shown in London exhibitions. (Carmichael’s view of the Quayside, Mayor’s Barge on the Tyne of 1826/7 is on show in the Northern Spirit display on the ground floor of the Laing Art Gallery.)

Carmichael’s painting of the proposed design for Grey Street remained in the Grainger family until the picture was sent for sale at auction. The subject of the painting and its importance for Newcastle was then spotted by Dr Grace McCombie, co-author of the Newcastle and Gateshead volume of the Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides. The painting was bought with the aid of a grant from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund.

More information about Grainger’s transformation of Newcastle can be found in these publications: A City of Palaces. Richard Grainger and the making of Newcastle upon Tyne, by Ian Ayris, and John Dobson: architect of the North East, by T. E. Faulkner, Andrew Greg. Both can be viewed in the Local Studies section of the City Library, and are published by Tyne Bridge Publishing.

John Wilson Carmichael, ‘Proposed new street for Newcastle’, 1831. Purchased with the aid of a grant from the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, 2010

John Wilson Carmichael, ‘Proposed new street for Newcastle’, 1831.