J.T.Becher, the Workhouse, and Southwell Minster

I put up a piece some years ago in which I touched on this portrait, displayed by the National Trust at The Workhouse, Southwell, Nottinghamshire. Here is the great man:

Portrait of Rev. J.T. Becher (from Wikipedia)

I will call him JTB for short. He was born about 1770* and died in early 1848, at Southwell. The portrait is usually said to be by Thomas Barber, and this seems likely.

The portrait was hanging in Mrs G.V. Becher's house in Southwell when she died in early 1970 (Note 1). As she was the widow of JTB's direct descendant (Note 2), the picture had in all likelihood been passed down the generations of this distinguished Southwell family.

A few months after Mrs Becher's death the Minster owned the portrait. They had sent it to be hung at Hill House in Southwell (Note 3). Hill House, which had been JTB's own home, was at that time a boarding house for the Minster [Grammar] School. (Note 4).

There can be very little doubt that the portrait was given to Southwell Minster by Mrs Becher's daughters (Note 5), the last representatives of that family, very shortly after their mother's death, i.e. between March and June 1970.

Subsequently the National Trust has opened the Workhouse, and the portrait is displayed there. The Bechers would be pleased.

The (now excellent) National Trust collections catalogue, available online, includes a number of Becher items (Note 6) but I think not the portrait itself, and I think this is because it still belongs to Southwell Minster and is merely on loan to the National Trust. That is how the portrait is referenced on Artuk today.

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* In Ireland, I think. The timing is based on his being 18 when he matriculated in 1788, and being admitted to Lincoln's Inn that year, whilst still a student. I think he had been brought up in England.

Note 1. "An oil painting of Reverend John Thomas Becher" 30 x 24 inches. Probate Valuation by Walker, Walton & Hanson dated 17 March 1970 (Notts Archives). The house was called Popely's Piece. It was hard by the Minster, in Bishop's Drive. Mrs Becher had moved there from a house in Church Street, called Minster Lodge.

Note 2. Major John Pickard Becher 1880-1916. He died on 1 Jan. 1916, from wounds received.

Note 3. Letter of 19 June 1970 from the Headmaster to Mrs Beaumont (Notts Archives). 

Note 4. Also in the 1920s and 1930s the home of Archdeacon & Mrs Hacking, my great-grandparents!

Note 5. Mary Veronica Becher (Mrs Beaumont - she died in 1997 and I was her executor), and Joan (Margaret Joan) Becher who died in 1995. Their only brother Squadron Leader John Henry Becher was killed in Yemen in 1940. Neither Mary nor Joan had children. Mary's husband was my uncle.

Wedding of R.M. Beaumont and Miss Mary V. Becher
(inter alia) - the Groom and Bride (standing, centre),
Miss Joan Becher (standing, right side as viewed),
Mrs Gertrude V. Becher (seated, right side as viewed)
Mrs Edith Beaumont (nee Hacking) (seated, left side)
EMB (seated on ground)
In the garden of Minster Lodge, Church Street, Southwell
30 May 1960

Note 6. As Mary's executor I gave a number of items to the National Trust in about 1998 for the Workhouse, and those are the items in its catalogue today, some with numbers beginning NT151515. Further Becher papers are held by Nottinghamshire Archives as Accession No. 8454. I deposited those there in 2013. I looked at them there in August 2018. Even in 2024 those items seem not yet to have been put into the Notts Archives online catalogue

EMB

30 January 2019 & 11 September 2024