Thomas Barber the Portrait Painter 2 - Art Career part 1

 Art career - Nottingham, London, Nottingham, Derby

There are signs that Thomas Barber's career as a portrait-painter started shortly before 1800 and was a development from a more mundane kind of painting, for a Thomas Barber was described as a painter in Nottingham in two Directories of the 1790s, one of which gives his address as Peter's Churchyard. This may mean a house-painter. 

Universal British Directory (page 50 of, I think, the fourth volume, address is not given). Willoughby, 1799 Nottingham Directory p.92 with address. St Peter's Churchyard was where his mother lived. Unfortunately it has not been possible, yet, to access the Nottingham papers in which he might have advertised at this early period.

Indeed within thirty years of Barber's death, the art writer Samuel Redgrave said of Barber that “he was apprenticed to a house painter in Nottingham, and showing signs of superior ability, he came to London to study, and was assisted to receive some instruction from Sir Thomas Lawrence.”

Samuel Redgrave, (1874) [First Edition of] A Dictionary of Artists of the English School.

I am tempted to accept this unreferenced note, and my suggestion is that Barber's connexion with Lawrence was taking place rather later than might be supposed, perhaps around 1800 or later.

However Lawrence was not knighted until April 1815 (London Gazette 22 April 1815 p.747).

I believe that the death of portrait painter Elias Needham in 1800 may have opened up a market for Barber. Or at least removed a local competitor. 

Though he seems to have drawn or painted some landscapes early in his career ...

Mitford-Barberton at page 28 refers to pencil landscape sketches dated 1803 and 1804

...... Barber's forte was very clearly portraits. Redgrave implied that someone paid or sponsored him to go to London, this I think is the meaning of “assisted.”  It remains unclear whether this period in London was continuous or intermittent. I would think Barber went back and forth. It is said that demand for replicas of Lawrence's paintings was such that even before 1800 he may have taken on studio assistants, and perhaps that is the kind of function that Thomas Barber may have fulfilled.

I think as Barber was only two years younger than Lawrence he is not likely to have been his “apprentice” as was the case say with Thomas Hargreaves in 1795 (Williams, Life & Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence (1831) vol. 1 p.329). Someone would have had to pay if it were a formal apprenticeship, such an arrangement being I think unusual in the case of a man who was already married. On the other hand someone such as his father-in-law Hugh Atherstone or other people he knew surely would have had contacts in London who might have helped Thomas Barber in various ways to advance his career.

The early pictures?

A very early one, perhaps, was of Thomas Boothby Parkyns, of Bunny near Nottingham, who was created Lord Rancliffe in the Irish Peerage in 1795 and died in 1800. It was suggested in 1899 that this was a Barber picture (1899 Catalogue).

Another early picture by Barber would seem to be of Henry Kirke White. There are or were several of these, and if Barber painted one from life it would necessarily be no later than 1806, when White died. It might be an original from which many others were copied. Others who know far more than I do have written about Henry Kirke White.

See J.T. Godfrey & J.Ward, Homes & Haunts... pp. 240ff. The Bromley House Library tradition is that they have one (given to them in the 1820s by Neville White) which is a copy by Tom Barber of one by his father, and it may be that that original is the one in Nottingham Castle Museum.

Barber's drawing of a Nottingham mill or manufactory ablaze during the night of 28 November 1802 was said to be the subject of a fine engraving.

Blackner, Nottingham (1815) p.248.

Barber may have painted portraits of both Daniel Parker Coke, and the slave-trader Joseph Birch. These two fought the evidently bitterly disputed Nottingham Parliamentary elections of 1802 and 1803. Engravings of portraits – but by whom? - of both candidates were, or were intended to be, published at the time.

History of Parliament (online). Blackner, Nottingham. p.301. Birch had been elected in 1802 but in March 1803 the result was declared void. See “The Paper War carried on at the Nottingham Election,” 1803. Nottingham, 1803, printed by W & M Turner. George Coldham, the Town Clerk who Barber also painted, is nick-named Frigid-thighs the Scribe in “The Book of Chances,” an anti-Birch account of the events, written in mock-biblical style and emphasising that Birch was a slave-trader. One edition of “The Paper War” states at the end that engravings of Mr Coke and Mr Birch are to be published in a few days time. Another sets down a list of the burgesses and freeholders who voted, and who they voted for. There were two seats for Nottingham, this was an election for just one of them. The other was held by Sir John Borlase Warren at this date.

In her thesis on Nottingham artists Heather Williams made reference to the apparent lack of interest in art at Nottingham during the first decade of the nineteenth century. The artist Richard Bonington tried to establish an art shop but was obliged to close it in February 1807 (Williams cites Nottm Journal 28 February 1807) and indeed a few years later Messrs Moseley and Tunnicliff were to close their “Repository” (of arts, paintings, fancy goods is meant) in St.James's Street (NJ 10 August 1811). They were to continue their business in Derby as carvers, gilders, jewellers and silversmiths and I wonder to what extent those events may have conditioned Barber's own thinking about moving there.

Royal Academy

Barber exhibited pictures in many of the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibitions in London between 1810 and 1817. The artist is identified as “of Nottingham” in the index to the catalogue for most of those years, so I am confident that is he. In 1813 the index gives his address as 25 Clipstone Street, Fitzroy Square, and (assuming this to be the same man) this tells us that he took lodgings in town. He re-appears in the catalogues as “of Derby” in 1819 and intermittently between 1824 and 1829.

Royal Academy Summer Exhibition Catalogues for those years. In the 1817 edition of “Annals of the Fine Arts” “Barber, T. Nottingham” is listed as a portrait specialist in a listing of the “principal artists residing or practising in the Metropolis.” 

The portrait he exhibited in 1819 was of the famous actress Sarah Siddons, then already in her sixties, two of whose daughters are said to have had relationships with Thomas Lawrence. Here perhaps is a glimpse into Barber's time in London. It strikes me that whilst any number of Barber's sitters must have visited London, most of them could have sat for him in Nottingham or Derby. Mrs Siddons is an instance where I know of no Midlands connexion.

In 1829 Barber was exhibiting a portrait of the prominent Moravian clergyman Christian Ignatius LaTrobe.

C.I. LaTrobe was born at Fulneck in 1758 and worked at Bedford, Chelsea, London, and no doubt elsewhere. When he died, in 1836, he was buried at a Moravian settlement at Fairfield (on the east side of Manchester). LaTrobe may have introduced Barber to his second wife (below). My very limited research about the Moravians has revealed nothing if not a web of inter-marriages.

Nottingham work

In summer 1814 there had been great celebrations of the defeat (as it was then believed) of Napoleon Bonaparte.  People hung illuminated pictures from their houses all around Nottingham, and several of these were by “Mr Barber.”

This is all detailed in Nottingham Gazette..., 10 June 1814. The joy was premature for Napoleon  escaped from Elba and events then led on to Waterloo the next year. I think that the pictures were painted on white cotton sheets or large pieces of paper, hung outside the windows, and illuminated from within the house. As it was June, this must have been quite late in the evening to be effective.

But Barber seems to have moved to Derby about that time, for although his own house on Standard Hill was one of those decorated that summer (showing Peace, sitting on a cloud, pointing towards France) his youngest child Frederick was baptised in Derby just before Christmas that year.

Frederick Barber was born 20 May 1814 and baptised 8 Dec 1814 at Brookside Independent chapel, Derby, parents being named in the record as Thomas and Mary (from Family Search site).

Thomas Barber was described as “meritorious” and a “clever local artist [who] was extensively employed by the noble lords” [Middleton], in the context of several pictures which were hanging at Wollaton Hall.

Rambles round Nottingham, vol. 1, 1856.

Round about 1815 might be the date of Barber's portraits of Thomas Beaumont, clergyman of East Bridgford, near Nottingham, and his wife Charlotte

(with acknowledgments and thanks to the owner of these two)

..... and also perhaps the same sort of date, of Rev J.T. Becher of Southwell

Image from Wikepedia. See this blog, 30 January 2019. Portrait now belongs to Southwell Minster.

“Barber, Thomas, portrait-painter, Standard-hill” is listed in the 1815 Nottingham Directory published by Sutton & Son. Such publications are apt to give information a year or so behind. But the Nottingham house was not given up when Barber moved to Derby. Perhaps it was a base for Thomas Barber junior, now about eighteen years old, who was starting to develop his own career as a painter.

Nor did Barber senior desert Nottingham entirely, for his work on the altar-piece in St Peter's church, for which the (then newly-appointed) Rector R.W. Almond paid nearly all of the £50 price, has been dated to about 1815.

By Peter Hoare, in an article on the claves.nottinghamchurches website (Claves Regni). This article must date from the 1990s. Barber also painted two portraits of R.W.Almond. One of these is at Bromley House Library. The other may still be in the church. What Barber painted as the altar-piece, depicting Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, is today the ceiling of the west entrance to the church, at the bottom of the tower.

The Agony in the Garden (of Gethsemane)
St.Peter's Church, Nottingham
by permission of the Rector Rev. C.Harrison

Indeed I would not be surprised if the Barber house is what was referred to as the “Chapel of the United Brethren, on Standard Hill, Nottingham” where sermons were to be preached.

Nottingham Gazette…..10 September 1813.. See Holland Walker, as cited above. 

I have not heard of any Moravian chapel as such in Nottingham, so perhaps meetings took place in a private house as they had earlier at Brewhouse Yard.

I think it is significant that the land sold off from the Castle estate for development was like Brewhouse Yard, “extra-parochial.”

Premises at Standard Hill were the location an exhibition of painting by Thomas Barber (father or son), by a certain B. Saunders, and by John Rawson Walker, and Standard Hill was also the address or studio of the latter  in 1822. Nottingham-born artist J. R. Walker was a close contemporary of Thomas Barber junior.

Williams, Thesis p.449; citing eg Nottingham Journal 6 Jan. 1821.

Derby work

In early 1818 “Mr Barber, Portrait Painter,” respectfully advertised that he had moved his residence from Nottingham to Derby, where he gave his address as Friar Gate and added that specimens may be seen in his exhibition room.

Staffordshire Advertiser 7 Feb. 1818.

Certainly during this period Barber painted a number of portraits of local gentry, aristocracy and public figures.  Mr Mitford-Barberton wrote that Barber was twice offered a knighthood, and turned it down.

Mitford-Barberton, p.20…. “…….preferring the more rural existence… to the honours offered him in London.” And from page 27:- “Barber’s modesty alone was the effectual bar to his obtaining the rank of Academician. To qualify for admission to the Royal Academy he would have had to reside in London, but not even the glittering prospect of one day succeeding his tutor Lawrence in the Presidency could tempt him from retirement in his Midland home.” This is word for word from the article in the Nottingham Journal of 24 February 1893, which I will refer to below!

The idea that Barber disliked society does not really stack up, when it was his bread and butter. His business model was to offer an almost London-quality product without needing to ask a London price. As such, he was better off in Derby and Nottingham.

One of the best summaries is from Timothy Langston Fine Art/Antiques - “Thomas Barber was a Nottingham based portrait painter who showed early enough promise to study in London and assist Sir Thomas Lawrence, whose influence is clear. Given his ability, he founded a successful practice, and exhibited steadily in London at the Royal Academy from 1810 until 1829. During the Regency he moved for a time to Derby thus offering comfortable families in the Midlands and North of England an elegant portrait style, in convenient surroundings, at a fraction of the cost of London painters...” This is in the context of Barber's portrait of Sempronius Stretton.

The pictures from that period include one of two young boys called Bateman, of Hartington in Derbyshire. Some writers have assumed that they were the family of the second Mrs Barber, thus implying that her first husband William Bateman, was a member of Derbyshire high society. He was in fact a Yorkshireman, and (as will be seen) a Moravian schoolmaster. 

Barber certainly paid professional visits elsewhere, for example to Sheffield in about August 1824 when he painted James Montgomery, the Fulneck-educated poet and writer.

The price, raised by subscription, was 150 guineas, and it was a full length portrait, the work being done at the Tontine Hotel and taking about seven days to do (John Holland, Memoirs ….. James Montgomery, vol. 4 (1855), p.75).

Indeed he was sometimes working further afield. In 1819 “Mr Barber, Portrait Painter” advised the nobility and gentry of Hull that he would be happy to attend to their commands at No.55 Whitefriar-gate, in that town.

“Next door to the Bank” (Hull Packet 27 April 1819). I don't think he meant the Hull office of Nottingham-based Smiths Bank, which moved to that street in 1829 (Leighton-Boyce, Smiths the Bankers, p.189). Nevertheless the principal directors  of Smiths may well have been amongst Barber's clients. Apart from those Smiths listed in my Table, the Smith Family portraits booklet includes two or three ascribed “Circle of Lawrence.” Furthermore Rev. Thomas Beaumont, one of Barber's sitters, was closely related to the banker Smiths.

But in general the relative infrequency of his advertisements seems to point to him not being short of work.

Another picture of the Derby period apparently is the one of Cornelius Smelt, Lt-Governor of the Isle of Man, and brother of the Rector of Gedling just outside Nottingham. Barber is said to have charged £52 for this portrait.

An article in Wikipedia says this picture was commissioned by subscription in 1826 and cites Journal of Manx Museum 1 Dec. 1937, page 9. The brother of Col Elliott, who was also the subject of a painting by Barber, lived at Gedling House, being the brother-in-law of Rev. Thomas Beaumont.

Barber never signed or dated his pictures, apparently. 

Williams, Thesis p.263.

...... to be continued 

Thomas Barber portrait painter 3 - Art Career Part 2 and family losses

 Nottingham Subscription Library

From 1816 onwards Barber's client at St.Peter's Church, Rev Mr Robert White Almond and others were setting up the Nottingham Subscription Library (“NSL”), and Barber became a member of it, if not in 1816, then by 1820 or 1822. 

The Library's historian seems to confuse our Thomas and his son Tom with Thomas Barber of Lamb Close House, Greasley.

Neal Priestland compiled an astonishingly detailed “database” of the people connected with the Library. At the period of its foundation c.1816 and move to Bromley House c.1822 there were three Thomas Barbers involved with it, and it would be necessary to trawl right through the archives to be sure as to which one any particular piece of information refers to. However, Lamb Close House was the address of the Greasley Barbers, who appear unconnected with the painters.

A leader of the Nottingham non-conformists was Richard Alliott, who had been at Castle Gate since the 1790s. From 1816 he was a member of the NSL, as was Jonathan Dunn, a bookseller amongst other things ......

Bromley House records. Jonathan Dunn had been the publisher, if not indeed author, of the work published in 1807 which stated that the Moravians prayed at Brewhouse Yard. Bromley House records suggest that in 1822 Mr Dunn gave the Library a portrait of the lawyer and [later] MP and Lord Thomas Denman, which the Library no longer had in 1916. This portrait may well have been by Thomas Barber; so much is suggested in respect of an engraving of it, and it looks very much in the Barber style (see Nat. Portrait Gallery D1738).

...... and several others whom Barber no doubt knew very well. The Library formed itself into a formal company in 1822 and bought a fine house in the centre of the city, which it still occupies (Bromley House).

Bromley House 1 October 2020

The list of names of members then includes Messrs Alliott, Almond, Barber, Dunn, and a name I have not yet mentioned, Dr John Storer.

Of the three Barbers who were members in 1822 at the time Bromley House was purchased (Bromley House title deeds, schedule to the 5000 year demise), “Thomas Barber Esq., Eastwood” is the one from the Greasley family, “Mr Alderman Barber” is John Houseman Barber the future Mayor of Nottingham, and “Mr Thomas Barber” is the portrait painter.

The Bromley House records show that in about 1819 a portrait of Dr Storer, then retiring as the Library's first President, was painted by Thomas Barber junior. He was admitted to membership in lieu of payment for the portrait, but after his son died Thomas Barber senior refused to pay alleged arrears, saying that the picture was worth fifty guineas. It was a full length picture, and hung on the stairs for many years. The Library does not have it today, and was said to have been stolen.

Russell, History of the NSL, pp.39-41. It was on the stairs in 1916. In 1929 when it was taken down for cleaning and was said to have been returned (Nottm Journal 17 Jan. and 12 February 1929), inaccurate information was taken from a publication called “Highways and Byways.” The story of it being stolen comes from a short “biography” of Dr Storer by Terry Fry for the Thoroton Society's Newsletter in [date not known]. Neal Priestland's notes, up-to-date about 2007, don't seem to mention the theft. I joined the Library in 2016 and don't recall seeing the picture there myself.

The portrait of R.W. Almond, who succeeded Storer as the second President and which Bromley House Library still has, must I feel surely be the work not of Lawrence but of Thomas Barber, and I might suggest that it was done in the 1820s when Almond was around forty. He had been the Rector of St.Peter's since 1814 having earlier been curate at Bulwell and Basford.

Robert White Almond (by permission of
Bromley House Library)

My own notes on R.W.Almond, the sources for which include an article “R.W.Almond,” by J.Bramley, in Thoroton Society Transactions vol. LX (1956) pp.44-49. The Clergy Database does not mention the curacy. The Rector of Bulwell and Basford at that time was Robert Stanser, who as far back as 1771 had succeeded my own relative Rev. Thomas Beaumont (not the one who was painted by Barber).

Family losses – change of address in Derby

Barber's teenage daughter Anne, the subject of a nice portrait by her father..... 

Illustrated in Mitford-Barberton's book with some other family pictures.

....... very sadly died about Christmas 1819 after the coach in which she was travelling was caught all night in a snow storm between Nottingham and Derby.

Nottingham Review, 31 December 1819.

Young Tom Barber also died, at Standard Hill in 1824.

….. in his 27th year, universally respected by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance, Mr Thomas Barber, artist, of Standard-hill, Nottingham, eldest son of Mr Barber, the eminent portrait painter, of this town; his illness was short, but very severe (Derby Mercury 19 May 1824)…..on Friday last, at his father's house, Standard-hill, Nottingham, of typhus fever, Mr Thomas Barber, portrait painter (Stamford Mercury 21 May 1824).

Mrs Mary Barber (nee Atherstone) died the following year.

At Derby on 25 Sept. 1825 (Mitford-Barberton p.19). Derby Mercury 28 Sep. 1825 reported the recent death of “Mrs Barber, the wife of Mr Barber, an eminent portrait-painter, in the Friar-gate, in this town.”

Thomas Barber is said to have arranged to have a “family vault” at the Brookside Chapel in Derby, in which they were all buried.

Mitford-Barberton p.27. He said that all trace of it had disappeared. I don't know Derby but it seems to me the site was no more than a hundred yards or so from where Barber moved to at Greenhill, Brookside being the former name of Victoria Street. The meetings were originally held in Cross Street (now Macklin Street).

After this Barber's (rented) house in Friar-gate was offered for sale,

Derby Mercury 9 and 16 Nov. 1825.

.... and he moved to Greenhill-Lane (or -Street) where he lived and no doubt worked for several years.

Mitford-Barberton p.27. Glover's Directory for Derby (prepared say 1827-1828) and published in 1829).

In 1826 Barber's son Joseph, then aged 22, a music teacher, left Derby and went to America. But he returned the next year eager to marry the girl he had left behind, whose name was Violetta Newton. She was hesitant, but after Thomas Barber intervened the marriage went ahead in May 1827 and a couple of weeks later Joseph sailed back to New York with his bride. Much detail of this is known only from a letter printed in Mitford-Barberton's book, written by Hugh Barber, it is said there from “Ever Hill,” which seems certain to be a misreading of Green Hill.

Mitford-Barberton pp.33-35 for the letter. Sailings and marriage details from the FSS. Thomas Barber himself witnessed the marriage, giving us an example of his signature!

Greenhill was the name of a district of rising ground lying broadly to the west and southwest of St.Peter's Church, Derby. In the early nineteenth century it was practically bordering on countryside.

See Derby City Council's 2013 Character Appraisal and Management Plan for the Green Lane and St.Peter's Conservation area, passim. Plate 9 is an 1852 map showing how Green Hill [Street] may have joined into [the narrower, offset] St Peter's Churchyard in Barber's day.

Hugh Barber noted in the 1827 letter that Father had recently finished “the Marquis,” and I wonder if this refers to a portrait of the Duke of Wellington.

Over the next few years, three more of Barber's sons got married. First in 1828 Henry married a cousin called Hannah Atherstone, then in 1830 Hugh (then living at Twickenham) married Derby girl Ann Hoare

(whose sister the year before had married the artist John Rawson Walker)

.... and in August 1831 Alfred married Elizabeth Gill.

Alfred had established himself as a printer and/or bookseller after c.1827 and by c.1831 but exactly where is not yet clear to me. He must have had access to his father's pictures and he was certainly interested in the developing technologies for reproducing images. More on him below.

As will be seen below, Thomas Barber remarried in July 1831. A house in Green Lane, Derby that “Thomas Barber Esq” had lately occupied, was then available for re-letting.

Derby Mercury 26 October 1831.

Although the new Mrs Barber had several children, I do wonder if there was now something of a honeymoon period when Mr & Mrs Barber had the opportunity to travel a little and look at landscapes.

........ to be continued

Thomas Barber the portrait painter 1 - early life and first marriage

 His birth and family background

Traditionally Barber was born in Nottingham on 28 March 1771.

Ivan Mitford-Barberton, “Barbers of the Peak,” Oxford, 1934, p.17.  This author was Thomas Barber's great-grandson. The exact date may have been a family memory. Redgrave (below) says Barber was 75 when he died in 1843, if this were true he would have been born in 1768 - several writers have followed that. But the announcement of his death in the Derby Mercury (27 September 1843) states he was in his seventy-third year, meaning that he was seventy-two.

Again traditionally his father, also Thomas, was the well-to-do owner of a spinning-mill and a descendant of an old Derbyshire family.

Mitford-Barberton, p.6.

However there were plenty of other people called Barber round and about, including some evidently gentry or wealthy families.

Notably a family of gentry colliery owners at, or who lived near, Greasley. In about 1822 the Nottingham Subscription Library seems to have had four members called Barber, three of whom were called Thomas!

I am afraid Barber's great-grandson wanted an upper-class ancestry which he did not actually have! 

Added this at Christmas 2021:- By chance, very recently, I spotted this note in my Gale Ecco reproduction edition of the 1754 List of Burgesses and Freeholders of Nottingham.  The copy scanned for this edition had a great many notes in manuscript, some of which seem to have been written on additional (unnumbered) pages inserted, notes perhaps for record-keeping purposes, certainly by someone with local knowledge! On printed page 4 is given the name of Joseph Barber, baker of Petergate, a burgess and voter in 1754, and opposite that on a blank page, in the same hand as many other notes:- “Joseph Barber lived at the corner house of St.Peter's church yard – his son a Shoe maker lived in the same house, whose son Thomas became so eminent as a Portrait Painter.” 

Thomas Barber senior is described as a shoemaker in August 1762 in the marriage bond, and again in his will, made in 1775. He and his wife were married in St. Peter's church in Nottingham, his bride being a young widow who had married a “currier” four years earlier.

Blagg, T. M. (ed.) 'Abstracts of the Bonds and Allegations for Marriage Licences in the Archdeaconry Court of Nottingham, 1754-1770' Thoroton Society Record Series Vol X, 1947, p.118.

Nottinghamshire Archives ref. PR/NW. I hoped to be able to get a copy of the will before finalising this article. It might even prove not to be the artist's father!

Blagg, ibid p.58 (April 1758). Ann's maiden name was Abbot. Her age in 1758 was stated to be 27. The currier was called William Tomlin.

The (senior) Barbers' four eldest children – girls – were all baptised at Castle-Gate Independent, which I surmise was where the family worshipped most regularly.

Mitford-Barberton, p.7, also Family Search site.

The baptism of Thomas, apparently the youngest of the five children, has not been found but nothing found conflicts with the tradition of his being born in 1771.

Education and early life

Thomas Barber's early education remains a blank page, and the tradition that he displayed such talent in painting that he was packed off to the Royal Academy in 1786 – aged about fifteen - must be treated with suspicion.

Heather Williams' 1981 Nottingham University Thesis on Nottingham Artists devotes over 50 pages (pp. 242-294) to a very careful study of the Barbers' work and lives (father Thomas and sons Tom and Alfred). Williams admits to having been heavily reliant on Mitford-Barberton for family details. To me it seems her work is strong on the portraits themselves and useful as regards her notes from some of the newspapers early in Barber's career, as I have not been able to get some of these from the British Newspaper Archives (BNA) and the Nottingham City Library is not open.

There was a school at the RA, but it seems misleading to imply that Barber studied there under Sir Thomas Lawrence. Lawrence (not yet a knight, of course) was only two years Barber's senior, and himself a Royal Academy student at that sort of date.

Information from notes on National Gallery website. There seems to be no mention of Barber in D.E.Williams' Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1831. Nor in Sandby's History of the Royal Academy. One of the published statements about this – only a newspaper article in fact - even gets Lawrence's first name wrong. As to other possible associates, Richard Bonington was three years older than Barber, and a close look at his career might hint at possible associations. Also Elias Needham (?1766-1800?), a portrait painter from Chesterfield with London and Sheffield experience, was briefly based in Hounds Gate in Nottingham in about 1797.

I wondered whether Barber has been muddled up with a young Academician of that time named John Thomas Barber.

.....who would later call himself Barber Beaumont (no known relation to author).

Barber's father had died when he was five and I believe that Mrs Barber lived near St. Peter's church (see inserted information above). The girls grew up and in due course all married – all at St Peter's. I don't think that Castle-Gate Independent was able to conduct marriages, so these weddings were in the established church. This may mask the fact that the husbands may also have been non-conformists.

St.Peter's Churchyard. A later house perhaps very near where
the Barbers lived.

Barber's mother is, I surmise, the Mrs Barber who was buried in 1803 at Castle-gate beneath a stone which had been placed two years earlier for one of her grandchildren who had died in infancy.

A story was published in December 1846 in the Nottingham Review - a reminiscence from an anonymous correspondent about “the Infidel Thomas Paine.” The correspondent said that when he was a child, he [Paine] lived in St Peter's churchyard, at the second house from Peter-gate and that [the correspondent] “often heard Mrs Barber, the mother of the celebrated painter, name him” [not in a good light] and that “Mrs Barber frequently got up in the night to save his wife from his fury.”

See Mitford-Barberton, pp.6-7. Elizabeth Barber married John White in 1788 (I think that this is not the father of the poet Henry Kirke White). Ann married Samuel Harris in 1785 (he a Quaker, I think). Sarah married William Tunney in 1792 (there was a Wesleyan minister of that name). Mary married Robert Beeby in 1793. The Beebys appear to have remained in Nottingham. Mitford-Barberton notes that Robert Beeby's brother John studied portrait-painting for a time under Thomas Barber and painted portraits of Hugh and Ann Atherstone which were in his (Mr Mitford-Barberton's) possession.

The burial register (Nottingham University, part of collection ref. CU) states that a Beeby child was buried in 1801 and that Mrs Barber's place of burial was marked by Mr Beeby's stone.

Marriage and Moravians

Thomas Barber's own marriage took place at St Nicholas' church, Nottingham, in June 1795.

Parish Register; Mitford-Barberton p.8. It was by licence but I have not found that.

His wife Mary Atherstone came from Brewhouse Yard at the foot of the castle rock,

Having once been part of the Castle, Brewhouse Yard was not part of any of the Nottingham parishes. It became something of a centre for Non-conformists. See for example Bethany Marsh's article “Wealthy Women, Bankers, and Cloth-Workers; the lives of the nonconformist families of Brewhouse Yard, Nottingham, 1650-1750” in East Midlands History & Heritage Magazine, Issue 6, January 2018.

..... where meetings of the Moravian church (the United Brethren) took place, served by a Minister from the Moravian settlement at Ockbrook, half way between Nottingham and Derby.

In his Diary covering the early 1750s John Ockershausen wrote of coming over to Nottingham from Ockbrook. See John Ockershausen's Ockbrook Diary: The first three years of a Derbyshire Moravian Community 1750-1753, by Roger H. Martin, in Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society, Vol. 29 (1996), pp. 1-22. The History of Nottingham which was printed in 1807 by J[Jonathan] Dunn states, on page 35, that “the Moravians have their place of worship in Brewhouse-yard.”

This was perhaps the start of Barber's long relationship with the Moravians. Ivan Mitford-Barberton said (p.19) that Barber himself was not a member of that church, but Mary certainly was, and so was Barber's second wife. So equally were some of the people he would paint in later years.

Mary was one of the numerous children of Hugh Atherstone, a [?silk-] dyer who may have been wealthy some years, but not others.

London Gazette, several entries as to his bankruptcy, including one in 1793. Leicester Chronicle 24 May 1817 contains notice of a forthcoming sale by Mr E B Robinson by order of the Executors of the late Mr Hugh Atherstone, of the whole household furnishings including “four valuable paintings, of large dimensions, on sacred subjects,” trading utensils (detailed) “proper for conducting the Dying Business on a large scale,” and a six horse power steam engine… all which could be shown by Mr H. Atherstone junior, on the premises [at Brewhouse Yard]. Hugh Atherstone had been buried at Ockbrook (Mitford-Barberton p.187). Apparently the Atherstones of Nottingham were suppliers of “brown lake” to artists (NPG resource British Artists' Suppliers).

At least one of her brothers had been educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck near Bradford,

Edwin Atherstone 1788-1872 was born at Brewhouse Yard and educated at Fulneck (see The Corvey Poets Project at the University of Nebraska). He must have been Mary Barber's brother.

and perhaps Mary herself was at school there too, as girls' education was catered for by the Moravians. Perhaps even Thomas Barber had been there: it was said from about 1785 that "a few children of parents who, without entirely connecting themselves with our Church, yet kept up an intimate acquaintance with it, had been already admitted to our schools.”

Simeon Rayner, History & Antiquities of Pudsey, (1887) p.249. The quote seems to come from Bishop G. Traneker (d.1802).

Barber children 

Thomas and Mary Barber had nine children over the next fifteen or more years.  The eldest, Thomas, is said to have been baptised in January 1797 at the Wesleyan chapel, which I think at that time was in the Hockley district of Nottingham. The next seven children were baptised at Castle-Gate between 1799 and 1809.

Baptism dates etc are from the Family Search Site and the information is generally consistent with information in Mr Mitford-Barberton's book though he entirely omits the daughter Marianne who was baptised on 27 Nov. 1809, the same day as her brother Alfred. There had been an earlier Alfred, who must have died between 1805-1809 aged three or less, and I do not think that the second Alfred (1809-1884) and Marianne were necessarily twins. However perhaps she also died in infancy.

The Minister at Castle Gate was Richard Alliott.

c.1769-1840, Minister there for almost fifty years, one of several people Thomas Barber knew who were founder members of the Nottingham Subscription Library (Bromley House). Barber was to paint a portrait of Mr Alliott, much later.

Six (or five) of those children survived beyond infancy so that by 1809 there were seven  (or six) children, after which, a gap of four years until the last one, Frederick, who was baptised in Derby.

Standard Hill

I do not yet know where the Barbers lived for the first fifteen or so years of their marriage. He had a house at Standard-Hill near Nottingham Castle but that can only mean after about 1808, when the land there was sold off by the castle's owner the Duke of Newcastle.

.....in 32 Lots, one of which was bought by Robert Goodacre for his school: F. Arthur Wadsworth, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, vol.45, p.65. See also J. Holland Walker, An itinerary of Nottingham: Standard Hill and Postern Street, Transactions of the Thoroton Society, 32 (1928) (from nottshistory.org). Standard-hill was an area of about five acres comprising a church *St.James's”, the gardens of the General Infirmary, and “four handsome streets,” namely King-street, Charles-street, Standard-street, and Hill-street (see James Orange, History & Antiquities of Nottingham (1840) vol. 1 pp.485-6)...Also see the Smith & Wild map of Nottingham, about 1820. St James's church, Standard-hill, whose minister c.1834 was Rev. John Burnett Stewart [or Stuart], should be distinguished from St.James's chapel. St.James's street, where the minister was John Wild.

..... to be continued. 

Elias Needham, Portrait Painter (1765-1800)

I found myself researching Elias Needham as I have been working on the Nottingham artist Thomas Barber (1771-1843) and it seems that Barber knew Needham and may have been influenced by him.

As far as I know Needham is nothing to do with this Beaumont Archive.

At first I could find very little solid information about Needham. However I am fairly confident that he was born in late 1765 and was christened both at Wormhill and at Chesterfield. His father, also Elias, was a lawyer in Chesterfield. Needham, who was the eldest of several (but a number of his siblings may have died young), was articled to his father in 1783 but surely did not complete his legal training.

He went off to London where he exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy in the late 1780s.

How he learned to paint such good portraits is a mystery to me.

In 1786 and 1788 he exhibited at the Royal Academy from addresses in London (17 Red Lion Street Holborn in 1786) (19 Dean Street Canterbury Square [Southwark] in 1788) and in 1787 and 1790 from Chesterfield. All five pictures being of unidentified people: 1786 a young gentleman, 1787 a lady, 1788 a girl reading, and a lady, and 1790 a boy.

In 1788 he painted a portrait of the clergyman and antiquary Samuel Pegge, also a Chesterfield man. 

The 1786 young gentleman, or the 1790 boy, could be the one of a youth that I found online.

Needham's father died in late 1788.

Needham became enamoured of a teenage girl called Anne Burgoyne Fernell, who lived at Spring House, Calow, just outside Chesterfield. She was the eldest of several, and her father too had recently died - aged only 38. His name was John Burgoyne Fernell, and he was only about 15 years older than Needham, and without any evidence I have a bit of a hunch that Needham may have known him from childhood and been introduced by him to London contacts.

I am intrigued too by references to a certain John Fernel in the late 1790s and later, a portrait- or miniature-painter in Liverpool but have not had time to see if there seems to be any family connexion between him and J B Fernell.

The young couple went off to London together "on a matrimonial expedition" as one newspaper put it, and are said to have married at Tottenham on 7 June 1790. I don't know how or indeed whether this wedding actually happened. The papers say the girl was 17 but I would not be surprised if she was even younger!

Needham was then working in Sheffield in 1791 but is untraced for several years after that until in 1797 he is said to be in Nottingham. This is known only from a newspaper notice on 29 April that year when Richard Bonington announced the establishment of a "public drawing school at his lodgings at Mr. Needham's, the Portrait Painter, in Houndsgate." 

This then is a time when Bonington, Needham, and Barber must all have met.

Heather Williams says that the Cutlers' Hall in Sheffield commissioned Needham in 1797 to paint portraits of Colonel Robert Athorpe and the Reverend James Wilkinson. Engravings of these can be found online and these suggest that Needham's style was somewhat more old-fashioned than that of Barber.

Needham died in Sheffield in late May 1800 and was buried at Chesterfield. His wife's mother having also died, the Fernell family home was being let out as a school for a few years but Anne may eventually have gone back to live there with her younger brother William Burgoyne Fernell. She remarried in 1811 to a certain David Champion of Sheffield, and as Mr Champion's widow she died at her house at Chesterfield in March 1821. No mention of the Needhams having any children has been found.

Perhaps Needham's death in 1800 at the early age of about 35 helped Thomas Barber's career - removing a serious competitor not merely in Nottingham (a small enough market anyway in portrait-painting terms) but someone who would - by birth as it were - also have had influential connections in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire.

I think Elias Needham had a younger brother Samuel who is seen in various Chesterfield references but I have not researched those.

NB Needham is a frequently-seen surname in Derbyshire.  I did find some conflicting information but at least some of the above is right! Sometimes his name seems to be rendered as Ellis and there were certainly others of that name but the references I have collected do seem to make a pattern of the biography I am suggesting. As always, I am keen to say that one new fact may change everything.

Main sources:

Newspapers in the BNA (mainly Derby Mercury and the Sheffield papers)

Unfortunately the Nottingham papers from the 1790s are not available in the BNA and the reference from 1797 is from Heather Williams' thesis.

Graves, Algernon, Catalogue or Dictionary of Royal Academy Contributors / Exhibitors, Vol. 5 p.347

Williams, Heather, Thesis on Lives and Works of Nottingham Artists pp.299-300, pp.791-2. 

Williams referred to B.H. Hoole, Sheffield Portraiture, but I have not been able to find a copy of that.

British Museum website (portraits of Athorpe, Wilkinson, and the youth)

Needham family one name website

George Beaumont - Land Surveyor (4) - Winthorpe

The previous articles on George were about his early career and especially his work for Robert Harvey, a period which ended unhappily.  And yet the clouds had a silver lining.

I showed that (having finished with Mr Harvey and with his former Principal, Richard Court) George established himself in about September 1818 at Newark. I said that his family, particularly his three uncles Rev. Thomas Beaumont, Walter Beaumont, and Abel Beaumont, had many connections in Nottinghamshire and may have introduced him to potential clients and other useful contacts in Newark.

Now it seems that the introduction was not through a useful uncle, but rather, a useful aunt!

My family always knew that George lived at Winthorpe (very near Newark) for about the next twenty years. He married in July 1821 and newspaper announcements of that happy event (Leeds Intelligencer and other papers) say that he was "of Winthorpe House" - somewhat implying that he occupied one of the principal houses there. Those announcements contain other errors so I didn't think I could take them as good evidence of exactly which house George lived in, but it did seem to raise the question of whether he was working for a main land owner at Winthorpe.

I knew that a gentleman named Roger Pocklington had been a land owner at Winthorpe and that he became bankrupt in 1809. Soon after that, his property was of course sold. The sale particulars are in Nottinghamshire Archives dated 17-18 Jan. 1810. I knew that somewhat later a gentleman named Slingsby Duncombe had owned property there, but it seemed there was a gap. Slingsby Duncombe is mentioned in newspaper reports in context of nearby Langford, but not in context of Winthorpe itself until somewhat later.

Back to the British Newspaper Archive......

An advertisement for the estate stated that at Winthorpe there was a "mansion-house lately occupied by Roger Pocklington, the banker," with 80 or 90 acres. It now appears that the purchaser, of that, was John Elliott of Nottingham, often referred to as Colonel Elliott. 

The British Press Monday 29 January 1810 reported that:-

Col. Elliot [sic] of Nottingham has purchased Mr Pocklington's mansion at Winthorpe, Yorkshire [sic] with about a hundred acres around it, for fifteen thousand guineas; the wood to be taken at a separate valuation, and every tree to be valued, to the amount of a shilling.

Colonel John Elliott was the brother of William Elliott Elliott Esq of Gedling, whose wife Frances (Fanny) (nee Beaumont) was the land surveyor George Beaumont's aunt. I have published a piece on this blog about the Elliotts' fine house in Castlegate, Nottingham, which was where John Elliott mainly lived. Who knows whether he ever resided at Winthorpe? More than one Gazetteer of the period refers to Col. Elliott's Winthorpe Hall (eg William Owen, New Book of Roads (1814)). But I am sure enough that he retained his house in Nottingham.

I recently obtained a copy of his will (PROB 11/1676/314) mainly because of my interest in the Castlegate house, and I found to my surprise that buried in one of the longest wills I have ever seen (he was undoubtedly a very wealthy man), there was a family revelation as well.

From John Elliott's Will. PROB 11 1676/314

In his second codicil dated 9 June 1823 (the day before he died, in fact), John Elliott refers to the fact that he has lately entered into a contract to sell "my estate at Newark and Winthorpe" to ... [blank] … Duncombe, Esq.

Then I found that George Beaumont himself had been acting as agent at Winthorpe in early 1822, his client surely being John Elliott himself! Although "Winthorpe Hall" and "Winthorpe House" are different properties in terms of their names today, I think it quite likely that the "mansion" John Elliott had bought (the Hall) is the house called "Winthorpe House" in an advertisement for letting or sale in 1822, stating that besides garden, stabling etc it could be offered with over 85 acres of meadow land sloping gradually to the river Trent. Enquiries to George Beaumont, land-agent, Winthorpe or Newark (Stamford Mercury 25 January 1822).

Having that much land, sloping to the Trent, is not a description that seems to me to match what is now called "Winthorpe House," but does match the Hall. I think it likely that this January 1822 advertisement led to Col. Elliott's agreement to sell to Mr Duncombe. (see note)

Perhaps the "House" and "Hall" names were interchangeable at this period. I do not know where George Beaumont and his wife (my grandfather's grandparents) actually lived at Winthorpe, but somewhere in Mr Elliott's property there may have been some secondary accommodation.

The extended Beaumont / Elliott family must have networked as regards finding somewhere for George to set himself up after his apparently bad experiences with Robert Harvey.  He landed on his feet with a wealthy family-connected client and somewhere to live for a while, all which helped to provide the base for building up his wider practice.

A family tree chart (not complete, only shows relevant people):

Beaumont
Rev George Beaumont -1773 (sometime curate at Gedling, later Rector St Nicholas,' Nottingham)
        Rev Thomas Beaumont -1835 of East Bridgford
        Richard Beaumont -1828 of Birmingham
                George Beaumont 1796- the Land Surveyor
        Frances Beaumont -1836 (wife of William Elliott Elliott of Gedling)
        Walter Beaumont -1841 [lived at East Bridgford some while]
        Abel Beaumont -1838 [lived at East Bridgford some while]

Elliott
William Stanford -1796 of Nottingham (he and his sons took name Elliott)
        William Elliott Elliott 1756-1844 (husband of Frances Beaumont), of Gedling House
        John Elliott 1757-1823, of Nottingham [Colonel Elliott]

After John Elliott's death it would seem to me likely that the sale was completed. Mr Duncombe is said to have sold both Langford and Winthorpe to Lord Middleton in 1833.

George Beaumont and family continued to live at Winthorpe perhaps until early 1841 when they moved to East Bridgford Hill following the death of his uncle Walter.

Box 1-180 in this Archive is a scrapbook of anecdotes and cuttings which may have been started by George's father Richard (d.1828) in Birmingham but which continues through the Winthorpe period and indeed to the 1870s. In the middle are items which relate to Newark if not actually to Winthorpe itself, including an illustration of the "Chauntry House." Also a water colour of a Trent scene (perhaps somewhere near East Bridgford).

The water colour is likely by George himself (there are others) but the style of it is similar to pictures by Rev John Swete, the husband of another of his aunts.

I don't think the scrapbook (over 400 pages) contains anything relevant to surveying or land-management work. But further work may reveal whether George continued to work on the Winthorpe estate eg for Mr Duncombe or for Lord Middleton. He certainly did work for W.E. Elliott on various of that family's property including an estate - at Plumtree - mentioned in John Elliott's will.

Intriguingly there was a building at Winthorpe or Newark called "Fort Elliot." I believe this is a coincidence and not connected with John Elliott. The excellent local website

https://www.winthorpe.org.uk/the-village-and-its-houses
has many details of houses in the village!

EMB 17 & 18 July 2020

(Note: I saw mentions of a certain J.T. Terrewest Esq at Winthorpe Hall, about 1821. I guess he was a tenant there, only for a year or two. The advertisement above and a sale of genteel furniture etc which was to take place at the Hall on 21 February 1822 (Stamford Mercury) were I suppose in context of Mr Terrewest moving out. To some extent I assume that "Winthorpe Hall" and "Winthorpe House" at this period, are the same.)

Thomas Barber 1771-1843 of Nottingham and Derby: portrait painter and associate of the Moravian Church

I have written about the above and have prepared a draft listing of his pictures that I have heard of.

Summary
Thomas Barber may have begun his career as a house-painter but went on to paint many portraits in the North Midlands between about 1800 and 1840, and a few landscapes. His style of portraiture emulates that of Sir Thomas Lawrence - from whom he may well have received some instruction, perhaps as a studio assistant. Barber exhibited portraits at the Royal Academy over a number of years, but only starting in 1810 when he was nearly forty. He lived and worked in Derby from about 1814 - 1830 and later returned to Nottingham. In 1822 his son or more likely he himself was a member of the Nottingham Subscription Library, which purchased Bromley House that year. He painted portraits of several of the other early members there. Barber's religious background was non-conformist. He married twice, both his wives being from families who were members of the Moravian Church (United Brethren). Barber knew a number of members of that church but seems not to have been a member as such. Thomas Barber's eldest son, who had the same name, and who was also a portrait painter died in his mid-twenties. One of the other sons, Alfred, was an artist / printer and photographer who worked in Nottingham until the early 1840s before moving away. Nearly eighty of Thomas Barber's works were exhibited in Nottingham in 1893, fifty years after his death. The Castle Museum there still has several of the pictures.

Article

Removed as being amended 24 Sep. 2020

List of Pictures

Likewise

I hope to republish this in the form of several posts on this blog in the near future.

EMB

24 Sep. 2020

Dodsworth's Manuscripts: making sense of references

The Dodsworth MSS consist of 160 bundles or volumes of transcripts, notes, family trees and so on. They are not a primary historical source as such but may in some instances be the the best source now available.

The volumes are numbered from 1-160 except that there is no number 77. It has of course been common to refer to them in Roman numerals I - CLX rather than 1-160.

These are the same as / correspond to (but not exactly in the same order) to Bodleian Library MSS 4143-4199  and 5000- 5101 (numbers 4200 - 4999 not being used).

If you think this is bad enough, now consider that Dodsworth's own system was entirely different.

He grouped his documents in largely alphabetical sequences:- A through Z followed by AA through ZZ, then AAA through ZZZ and continuing with letters in circles, letters in squares, and letters in triangles. As Joseph Hunter noted, though these sequences were themselves incomplete, placing the items in a different order breaks the continuity and causes confusion.

An especially useful volume for anyone interested in the Beaumonts - of Whitley - is no. 133 corresponding to 5074 in the Bodleian series and letter K in Dodsworth's own system. These appear to be notes Dodsworth took when he visited Whitley Hall in August 1629.

I wondered whether R.H. Beaumont (of Whitley, 1749-1810, the antiquary) had had any hand in the cataloguing? He certainly spent time at Oxford and used information from the Dodsworth MSS. But I think the numbering was already done long before his time, and when he refers to Dodsworth's MSS (for example in the 1796 Family Tree in this archive) he uses the number sequence 1-160.

Many of the 160 "volumes" comprise well over 100 pages or folios, and I have no doubt that fairly often more than one item (such as a summary of a deed or will) is placed on a page. There are some original indexes, and there are several catalogues available but I have found none which is in any sense complete.

However, some extracts and copies were made, and these have the advantages (a) of being arranged topgraphically, by Wapentake (eg Agbrigg), and (b) of being easily available online. No doubt some errors have been made as is almost inevitable when a large amount of text is copied out, so these (being copies of copies) are even less of a primary source. But they are certainly useful.

We can also use the West Yorkshire Archives online catalogue of surviving Whitley deeds, where we can see for example:-

- that some but perhaps not all of the documents Dodsworth saw there in 1629 still exist,
- that some which one would expect to have interested him, are still there, and yet it seems he did not note them.


References:

For the MSS themselves:

Falconer Madan, Summary Catalogue of Western MSS in the Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1937), vol. ii, part ii, covers the Dodsworth MSS (4143-5101) on p.865 to p.961.

For Dodsworth's system:- Joseph Hunter, Three Catalogues..., (1838) p.77.... and Hunter's notes against each item (I-CLX) are important, as not everything there was noted in Falconer Madan's catalogue, though in general terms Hunter's notes are less full.

An old catalogue:- Bernard, Catalogi librorum Manuscriptorum Angliae at Hiberniae (Oxford, 1697), vol. 1 pp.187-233.

For the topographical transcripts:-

Catalogue of the Harleian MSS (1808), vol. 1 pp. 443-444:- MSS 793-804. Agbrigg is in 803.

Yorkshire Arch Journal, volumes 6, 7, and 8 for the Agbrigg items, and a reprint issued in 1884 by the Yorks. Arch. & Top, Assn.

The Agbrigg deeds etc noted show, against each, the source using Dodsworth's system, with headings showing typically where each item was found. It would appear that the numbers indicate folio or page numbers. I have not checked this widely but deeds seen at Whitley Hall are in "K" Series with numbers between about 85-149, generally corresponding to those folio numbers in Dodsw. MS. 133 and 5074 in the other system.

Enjoy!

EMB July 2020