Edward Bawden On Liverpool St Station
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Liverpool St Station by Edward Bawden
Please come to our free SAVE LIVERPOOL ST STATION campaign event at 6pm tomorrow, Tuesday 21st November, at Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, EC2M 4QH. No need to book, just come along. Speakers include Griff Rhys Jones, Eric Reynolds and Robert Thorne.
Edward Bawden made this huge linocut of a smoke-blackened Liverpool St in 1960. It extends to almost five feet in length, so long that to allow you to see the details of this epic work I must show it here in two panels. In order to print it, Bawden laid a board on top of the linocut and asked his students at the Royal College of Art to assist him by standing on top
When I first visited the station it was just like this and I remember it as a diabolic dark cathedral. As a one new to London, I arrived back from Cromer one Sunday on a late train after the tubes had closed and spent a terrifying night here, shivering on a bench. Sitting awake, I watched all through the small hours as the trucks rattled in and out of the station, racing down the slope onto the platforms, delivering newspapers and mail sacks to the waiting trains.
But as this print reveals, Edward Bawden had a keen eye for elegant nineteenth century ironwork and, even before it was cleaned up, he was alive to beauty of the station. Contemplating Liverpool St on the BBC television programme Monitor in 1963, he said “I think the ceiling is absolutely magnificent, it is one of the wonders of London.” And he knew it well, because for nearly sixty years – between 1930 and 1989 – he travelled regularly through the station, whenever he took the train back and forth between London and Braintree station, just one mile from his home at Brick House in Great Bardfield, Essex.
He is one of my favourite twentieth century British artists and the span of Edward Bawden’s career is almost as wide as the Liverpool St arches. After leaving the Royal College of Art, he began designing posters for London Transport in the nineteen twenties, then became a war artist in World War II and was busy creating prints and paintings, alongside murals, wallpapers, commercial illustration and design, right up until the late eighties. I particularly admire his unique bold sense of line that gave an unmistakably appealing graphic quality to everything he touched.
John Thomas Smith’s Rural Cottages
Jonathan Pryce will read my short story ‘On Christmas Day’ at the launch at Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston next Thursday 23rd November at 6:30pm.
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Near Battlebridge, Middlesex
Once November closes in, I get the urge to go to ground, hiding myself away in some remote cabin and not straying from the fireside until spring shows. With this in mind, John Thomas Smith’s twenty etchings of extravagantly rustic cottages published as Remarks On Rural Scenery Of Various Features & Specific Beauties In Cottage Scenery in 1797 suit my autumnal fantasy ideally.
Born in the back of a Hackney carriage in 1766, Smith grew into an artist consumed by London, as his inspiration, his subject matter and his life. At first, he drew the old streets and buildings that were due for demolition at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Ancient Topography of London and Antiquities of London, savouring every detail of their shambolic architecture with loving attention. Later, he turned his attention to London streetlife, the hawkers and the outcast poor, portrayed in Vagabondiana and Remarkable Beggars, creating lively and sympathetic portraits of those who scraped a living out of nothing but resourcefulness. By contrast, these rural cottages were a rare excursion into the bucolic world for Smith, although you only have to look at the locations to see that he did not travel too far from the capital to find them.
“Of all the pictoresque subjects, the English cottage seems to have obtained the least share of particular notice,” wrote Smith in his introduction to these plates, which included John Constable and William Blake among the subscribers, “Palaces, castles, churches, monastic ruins and ecclesiastical structures have been elaborately and very interestingly described with all their characteristic distinctions while the objects comprehended by the term ‘cottage scenery’ have by no means been honoured with equal attention.”
While emphasising that beauty was equally to be found in humble as well as in stately homes, Smith also understood the irony that a well-kept dwelling offered less picturesque subject matter than a derelict hovel. “I am, however, by no means cottage-mad,” he admitted, acknowledging the poverty of the living conditions, “But the unrepaired accidents of wind and rain offer far greater allurements to the painter’s eye, than more neat, regular or formal arrangements could possibly have done.”
Some of these pastoral dwellings were in places now absorbed into Central London and others in outlying villages that lie beneath suburbs today. Yet the paradox is that these etchings are the origin of the romantic image of the English country cottage which has occupied such a cherished position in the collective imagination ever since, and thus many of the suburban homes that have now obliterated these rural locations were designed to evoke this potent rural fantasy.
On Scotland Green, Ponder’s End
Near Deptford, Kent
At Clandon, Surrey – formerly the residence of Mr John Woolderidge, the Clandon Poet
In Bury St, Edmonton
Near Jack Straw’s Castle, Hampstead Heath
In Green St, Enfield Highway
Near Palmer’s Green, Edmonton
Near Ranelagh, Chelsea
In Green St, Enfield Highway
At Ponder’s End, Near Enfield
On Merrow Common, Surrey
At Cobham, Surrey – in the hop gardens
Near Bull’s Cross, Enfield
In Bury St, Edmonton
On Millbank, Westminster
Near Edmonton Church
Near Chelsea Bridge
In Green St, Enfield Highway
Lady Plomer’s Place on the summit of Hawke’s Bill Wood, Epping Forest
You may also like to take a look at these other works by John Thomas Smith
John Thomas Smith’s Ancient Topography of London
John Thomas Smith’s Antiquities of London
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana
John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondiana II
Harry Harris, Lighterman
Jonathan Pryce will read my short story ‘On Christmas Day’ at the launch at Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston on Thursday 23rd November at 6:30pm.
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Workers on the Silent Highway
These excerpts are from the account by Harry Harris entitled Under Oars, Reminiscences of a Thames Lighterman 1894-1909, written in a ledger which was passed on to his son Bob Harris and published by Stepney Books in 1978.
“At the age of thirteen, I was asked, ‘What do you want to be?’ The answer was obvious. Aunt Louie wondered whether Harry boy would like to become a missionary? I said, ‘A lighterman or perhaps go to sea?’ I was then warned of the dangers of these two jobs. The true story was related about a ship-wrecked crew eating the boy. Rather cheekily, she was reminded that missionaries had met the same fate.
Father was then a foreman for W. Pells & Son and had an opportunity of having me with him to get some experience, or perhaps a warning, before the actual apprenticeship. In June, 1894, I saw the opening of Tower Bridge by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, who was aboard the leading vessel. A large number of guests were invited to view the scene from one of Pells’ barges moored below London Bridge, and refreshments were provided. I was the boat boy and busy with the passengers to and fro. Pocket money was scarce in those days for me, but I was not allowed to accept any money or tips. I can still feel the itch in my hand to pick up sixpences and coppers.
On the 14th August, 1894, I was apprenticed to my father. A brother foreman wanted a handy boy, so arrangements were made for me to commence at twelve shillings a week, but after two weeks work – the governor having seen me – he decided that my size of boy was only worth ten shillings. My father was indignant, so he took me into his firm at twelve shillings a week.
The following winter was the coldest for years, the river becoming unnavigable owing to the ice. Heavy snow having fallen in the London district, the City Council dumped the snow into the river. Every bridge and embankment saw this dumping going on day after day, it quickly froze together forming ice floes. The ice adhered to barges, and many broke adrift and were to be seen floating up or down river. But looking back on that time, the remaining impression is they were light-hearted days. We found fun all the time, hours were long, work was strenuous, yet I cannot remember any dissatisfaction with my sphere in life. Summertime always compensated for Winter.
I must wander from this journey to mention the fog. The river then becomes a black area, if one was suddenly caught. One would never start in a dense fog but, if caught in one, might carry on and be lucky to finish the job. The ears became eyes, and all senses alert to get a bearing, yelling out to anchored craft, ‘Where are you?’ Fog is the worst enemy of river work. Signs of fog can be observed but indications of its clearing other than a breeze are very few.
We young lightermen were rather clannish and somewhat despised the ‘landsman.‘ Our chief topic of conversation was the river or life on the river. This had a language of its own, so I presume that our shore friends were often fed up by attempting to listen to an account of an incident in the day’s work given in the vernacular. You either ‘fetched’ or ‘went by,’ ‘saved tide’ or ‘lost tide.’ Arches were called ‘bridge holes.’ Flood tide work was ‘bound up along,’ ebb the reverse. The point was the ‘pint.’ The Quay man would be bound to ‘K dock,’ or ‘the German,’ or ‘the Batty,’ ‘down the Vic and dock her’ or perhaps ‘Jack’s Hole.’ The creek was always ‘crick.’ Back-slang was often used, cabin becoming ‘nibac’ and so on.
A large number of lightermen went by nicknames, all very apt, either featuring physical or psychological defects or assets, such as Tubby, Podge, Narrow, Rasher, Dabtoe, Winkle-eye, Hoppy, Humpy and Wiggy. Little Biggie was a tiny man of that name. Man Green was the smallest ever. Titty Mummy was about six foot two and big in proportion. Happy Wright, Bosco Dean, Whisper Rivers, Moaner, Doctor Brooks, Mad Brady, Bonsor Corps, Knocker, Knacker, Knicker, Sancho, Pongo, Walloper, Curly, Gingers, Coppers and Snowies. Robinsons were Cockies, Blythes were Nellies, Hopkins and Perkins, Pollys. Mashers, Starchers, Stiffies and Rum and Rags. Fireworks, Redhot, Burn’em, Never Sweat, Dozey, Slowman, Squibs, Gentle Annie, Soft Roe, and Pretty.
‘A full roadun’ was a week’s work including Sunday and nights. A ‘thgin’ (tidgeon) was an easy night. Tarpaulins were ‘cloths,’ extra rope a ‘warp,’ oars ‘paddles’ and a pump was the ‘organ.‘ Tugs were ‘toshers,’ the space aft of the cabin bench was ‘Yarmouth Roads.‘ Anchor the ‘killick.’ If a lighterman had a ‘waxer’ (cheap drink) for a friend, he would be told that ‘there was one behind the pump.’ The dock official whose duties were to enforce charges on craft when incurred was and still is the ‘Bogie Man.’ The ‘ditch’ is the river, ‘fell in the ditch’ is falling overboard. ‘Gutsers,’ ‘sidewinders,’ ‘chimers,’ ‘stern butt’ (always a more vulgar word is used) and ‘glancing blow’ were terms describing blows to craft by collision with other craft.
When reporting damage, a man would often say ‘ just a glancing blow,’ especially if he was responsible. These were viewed suspiciously by the foreman. I worked under a foreman to whom this term was a ‘red rag.’ Lightermen were ever optimistic!”
Harry Harris, Lighterman, photographed in 1947.
Photographs courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Sights Of Wonderful London
Jonathan Pryce will read my short story ‘On Christmas Day’ at the launch at Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston on Thursday 23rd November at 6:30pm.
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It is my pleasure to publish these splendid pictures selected from the three volumes of Wonderful London edited by St John Adcock and produced by The Fleetway House in the nineteen-twenties. Not all the photographers were credited – though many were distinguished talents of the day, including East End photographer William Whiffin (1879-1957).
Roman galley discovered during the construction of County Hall in 1910
Liverpool St Station at nine o’clock six mornings a week
Bridge House in George Row, Bermondsey – constructed over a creek at Jacob’s Island
The Grapes at Limehouse
Wharves at London Bridge
Old houses in the Strand
The garden at the Bank of England that was lost in the reconstruction
In Huggin Lane between Victoria St and Lower Thames St by Andrew Paterson
Inigo Jones’ gate at Chiswick House at the time it was in use as a private mental hospital
Hoop & Grapes in Aldgate by Donald McLeish
Book stalls in the Farringdon Rd by Walter Benington
Figureheads of fighting ships in the Grosvenor Rd by William Whiffin
The London Stone by Donald McLeish
Dirty Dick’s in Bishopsgate
Poplar Almshouses by William Whiffin
Old signs in Lombard St by William Whiffin
Penny for the Guy!
Puddledock Blackfriars
Punch & Judy show at Putney
Eighteenth century houses at Borough Market by William Whiffin
A plane tree in Cheapside
Wapping Old Stairs by William Whiffin
Houndsditch Old Clothes Market by William Whiffin
Bunhill Fields
The Langbourne Club for women who work in the City of London
On the deck of a Thames Sailing Barge by Walter Benington
Piccadilly Circus in the eighteen-eighties
Leadenhall Poultry Market by Donald McLeish
London by Alfred Buckham, pioneer of aerial photography. Despite nine crashes he said, “If one’s right leg is tied to the seat with a scarf or a piece of rope, it is possible to work in perfect security.”
Photographs courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
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Lost In Long Forgotten London
Jonathan Pryce will read my short story ‘On Christmas Day’ at the launch at Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston on Thursday 23rd November at 6:30pm.
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If you got lost in the six volumes of Walter Thornbury’s London Old & New you might never find your way out again. Published in the eighteen-seventies, they recall a London which had already vanished in atmospheric engravings that entice the viewer to visit the dirty, shabby, narrow labyrinthine streets leading to Thieving Lane, by way of Butcher’s Row and Bleeding Heart Yard.
Butcher’s Row, Fleet St, 1800
The Old Fish Shop by Temple Bar, 1846
Exeter Change Menagerie in the Strand, 1826
Hungerford Bridge with Hungerford Market, 1850
At the Panopticon in Leicester Sq, 1854
Holbein Gateway in Whitehall, 1739
Thieving Lane in Westminster, 1808
Old London Bridge, 1796
Black Bull Inn, Gray’s Inn Lane
Cold Harbour, Upper Thames St, City of London
Billingsgate, 1820
Bedford Head Tavern, Covent Garden
Coal Exchange, City of London, 1876
The Cock & Magpie, Drury Lane
Roman remains discovered at Bilingsgate
Hick’s Hall in Clerkenwell, 1730
Former church of St James Clerkenwell
Door of Newgate Prison
Fleet Market
Bleeding Heart Yard in Hatton Garden
Prince Henry’s House in the Barbican
Fortune Theatre, Whitecross St, 1811
Coldbath House in Clerkenwell, 1811
Milford Lane, off the Strand, 1820
St Martin’s-Le-Grand, 1760
Old Bethlehem Hospital (Bedlam), Moorfields, in 1750
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
Firefighter Artists Of The Blitz
Jonathan Pryce will read my short story ‘On Christmas Day’ at the launch at Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston on Thursday 23rd November at 6:30pm.
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Today Dinah Winch uncovers the lost history of the ‘Firemen Artists’
Resting at a Fire by Reginald Mills
London Fire Brigade has a collection of paintings by the ‘Firemen Artists’ – including some women – who witnessed the terror and turmoil of the Blitz, and documented it in an extraordinary body of work which is now being exhibited under the title Fire in The City .
In March 1941 the Firemen Artists Organising Committee held the first of six exhibitions in London of over 100 paintings. More than 30,000 people visited in three weeks. Further exhibitions were held at the Royal Academy and other London galleries, then in 1941 paintings were sent on a touring exhibition of the United States as part of the government’s efforts to encourage the Americans to join the war.
Yet this is a story which has been largely forgotten, despite examples of paintings by firefighter artists in the collections of the Imperial War Museum and several local museums, as well as London Fire Brigade.
While the LFB Museum is closed for redevelopment and the collections are in storage, the Museum has taken the opportunity to contribute to this year’s commemoration of the anniversary of the death of Sir Christopher Wren by exhibiting from our collection in a number of Wren churches. We are showing paintings and drawings by firefighter artists alongside photographs from London Fire Brigade’s archive, many of which are probably more familiar to the wider public than the paintings.
As the political climate intensified in Europe in the late thirties, plans were drawn up to form an Auxiliary Fire Service drawn from volunteers. Over 28,000 were recruited to supplement London Fire Brigade’s 2500 officers and firefighters, including many men who were too young or too old to join the armed services. It was the first time that women joined the London Fire Brigade and among the new recruits to the AFS were a number of artists. Some already had established careers as painters, graphic artists and illustrators, while others were amateurs.
The Blitz started on 7th September 1940, and this first night of bombing was the first experience of firefighting for many of the AFS volunteers.
Portrait of an AFS Messenger, by Bernard Hailstone. Messengers could be as young as sixteen
Artist Reginald Mills, who painted Blitz Scene, East End, 7th September 1940 recorded this incident in The Fireman describing the white heat of the huge fire in the distance ‘where the glare in the sky brought back daylight’. However, you can also see a smaller fire to the left of the painting; ‘people in the crowds were calling us to stop and tackle fires nearby, [which] made such a deep impression on my mind that I decided then and there to record it in paint.’
Blitz Scene, East End, 7th September 1940
‘I was riding on a heavy pump at the time, just at the back of the scene I have painted, and next day I made some sketches which I kept by me. The first chance I had of working on the painting was this year during the lull but even though it happened years ago, I can remember the sight that night as if it were but yesterday.’
The docks were a target and the large numbers of warehouses were a particular concern. The anonymous author of The Bells Go Down: The Diary of a London A.F.S. Man recorded his first visit in September 1939. ‘This morning I took a trailer pump all round the East End and the Docks. If this place catches fire all the LFB and the AFS won’t be able to put it out’.
Reginald Mills specialised in painting firefighters in action but there are notable examples of other artists capturing the experience of being at the scene from a different perspective.
Driving by Moonlight by Mary Pitcairn
Mary Pitcairn’s romantically title Driving by Moonlight depicts the extraordinary bravery of AFS Firewoman Gillian ‘Bobbie’ Tanner driving a truck from Dockhead in Bermondsey to deliver supplies of petrol to her AFS colleagues fighting Blitz fires with trailer pumps. Her courage earned her a George Medal and the citation stated, ‘Auxiliary G.K.Tanner volunteered to drive a 30 cwt lorry loaded with 150 gallons of petrol. Six serious fires were in progress and for three hours Miss Tanner drove through intense bombing to the points at which the petrol was needed, showing coolness and courage throughout’. Pitcairn was also instrumental to the success and impact of the firefighter artists as exhibition organiser for the committee.
Bells Down by Julia Lowenthal
Women joined the fire service for the first time through the AFS and, though they were not trained as frontline firefighters, they worked in a variety of roles from control operators to motorbike despatch riders, as well as more conventional female roles in the canteens that provided relief to exhausted firefighters on the incident ground.
While many firefighter artists’ paintings have the intensity of being at the scene even though they were painted later, some give an insight behind the scenes. Julia Lowenthal was based at Kilburn Fire Station and drew her fellow firefighters, at rest or on their way into action.
Cannon Street by Paul Dessau
In the background of Paul Dessau’s Cannon Street is St Paul’s Cathedral, symbol of resilience to Londoners and the Nation, and in the foreground, a trailer pump, providing the water for the firefighters. Trailer pumps were easier to move in bomb-damaged areas that were inaccessible to fire engines, and were a critical piece of equipment featuring in many paintings including Mills’ Resting at a Fire.
Red Sunday, 29th December 1940 by W S Haines
W S Haines’ dramatic Red Sunday shows the skyline of the city with St Pauls and several church spires through the distinctive silhouette of Tower Bridge. Haines had an unusual perspective amongst the artists as a firefighter with the London River Service, which gave him a wider view of the City. The night of 29th December 1940 was one of the worst nights of the Blitz and sometimes known as the Second Fire of London.
Nearly all of Wren’s great churches in the City, built after the first conflagration of 1666, suffered damage in the Blitz and many were completely destroyed. The direct hit from an incendiary bomb which destroyed the church of St Clement Danes was captured by Reginald Mills in his painting Fire on the Strand.
Fire on the Strand by Reginald Mills
Other paintings are considerably more than documentary, exploring the psychological terror of the experience. Paul Dessau’s quartet of paintings Menace were conceived as the movements of a symphony, charting the terrible escalation of the demon fire and its eventual defeat.
Menace No.4, Diminuendo, by Paul Dessau
Self Portrait, 1941, by Paul Dessau
When AFS firefighters first joined the service they experienced resistance and disdain with regular firefighters and civilians alike thinking they were ‘army dodgers’. Their bravery and dogged hard work in the Blitz led Churchill to hail them as ‘heroes with grimy faces’. The artists amongst them contributed to this change in fortunes through their paintings which created a shared visual culture of the London Blitz.
Fire in the City is on display in five churches, St Clement Danes, the Temple Church, St Brides, St Andrew Holborn and St James Piccadilly until 8th December.
Click here for more information about the exhibition
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Furniture Trade Cards Of Old London
Jonathan Pryce will read my short story ‘On Christmas Day’ at the launch at Burley Fisher Books in Haggerston on Thursday 23rd November at 6:30pm.
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The Gentle Author picks up the threads of Christmas fiction from Charles Dickens, Dylan Thomas and George Mackay Brown to weave a compelling tale of family conflicts ignited and resolved in the festive season.
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It is my pleasure to show this selection of old furniture trade cards which had fallen down the back of a hypothetical armoire.
Images courtesy Bishopsgate Institute
You may like to see my earlier selections
Furniture Trade Cards of Old London
More Furniture Trade Cards of Old London
More Trade Cards of Old London
Yet More Trade Cards of Old London
Even More Trade Cards of Old London
