An artist's reminiscences

Preface

WHEN Messrs. Methuen suggested to me that I might write my Reminiscences I was quite taken by surprise. In the midst of a busy life one does not think of such things, or if a thought of the possibility of recording one's personal happenings does occur, it is probably consigned to some dreamed-of tranquil time in days of retirement.

However, when a man begins to say " I remember," it is a sign that he has mental records of a different world from the present, and probably of actors long passed from the world's stage.

In these revolutionary times, when changes are so rapid, it needs no great pretensions to fulness of years to have witnessed extraordinary transformations in the outward aspects of life, in manners and customs, in dress, as well as in mental attitude. A comparatively short life would be sufficient in which to have observed most extraordinary changes in the aspects of London, for instance. Twenty or thirty years ago, measured by the changes which have taken place, might well be centuries, and this would also hold good of the less obvious and less noted, perhaps, shifting of intellectual focus, to say nothing of political and social change.

The main interest of reminiscences lies, however, I presume, in the direct personal impressions a writer may be able to give of eminent persons he has met, or of scenes and movements of which he has been a witness or in which he has taken part.

As the years roll by, and new generations arise who only know the names of certain distinguished men and women, or are acquainted with them only through their works or their fame — poets, savants, artists, statesmen — first-hand information or fresh personal impressions are apt to acquire an unusual interest. Such interest is often, too, concentrated on the notviii AN ARTIST'S REMINISCENCES

so-very-long-ago times, the days that are so near and yet so far — farther perhaps in some ways than much remoter periods of history. People are often said to resemble their grandparents, and there may be in consequence a certain sympathetic interest between the youngest and the oldest generation. The world before railroads and telegraphs seems lost in the mystery of fascinating romance, while the introduction of the motor marks an entirely new epoch, affecting as it seems to do both mental states and social life in so many ways. But sometimes even the very newest fashions are apt to hark back, and nothing seems so old as the out-of-date nowadays.

Life is a strange masquerade : as the procession passes in the glare of the full noontide one hardly grasps its full significance, but perchance partly lost in the mist of the past, one becomes aware of larger meanings, and in perspective both persons and events assume different proportions.

Well, I can offer no complete or systematic records of the last fifty years or so, and it may seem a rather curious medley of events, persons, and things which the following pages present. I do not even pretend that it gives a complete record of one's own artistic career. One's work as an artist is rather the warp in the loom through which are interwoven, like different wefts, the passing impressions of persons and events and of travel in various countries, coloured by those personal thoughts and feelings, which go to make up the fabric of a life.

Contents

I. Of Early Life and Associations, Torquay, 1845-57 II. Removal to London, 1857, and Early Experiences

THERE UNTIL 1859 .

III. Apprenticeship to W. J. Linton, 1858-62

Chapter I Of Early Life And Associations, Torquay, 1845-57

WHAT a curious thing is memory ! It is as if the stream of life, flowing through the mind, reflects upon its surface, often but dimly and partially, notable scenes and personages as they pass, soon to be effaced by others as shadowy, while it bears along upon its surface, in all the crispness of clear reality, trifles, like the image of some fallen leaf or toy boat, which ever come in front of the dimly outlined shapes of more important incidents in a life's story.

Thus it is often that the impressions of childhood are borne along with the course of one's life, retaining all their freshness and distinctness when many later ones have faded or passed out of view, like mountains or castles in the distant landscape of a river's banks.

How far back one's memory remains distinct, or rather, at what period it consciously begins, it is very difficult to be certain of, and the memory varies in retentiveness in different individuals. It may be, too, that hearsay may have something to do with it — I mean the hearing of the talk of older people recalling events and incidents which happened in one's early life long before the period when a child is supposed to be in possession of a memory at all.

My father (of whom I give a reproduction of a miniature painted by himself about 1839 or 40) and my. mother both belonged to Chester families. The picture of my mother given here is from a water-colour drawing of her by my father, signed and dated 1840.

The Cranes of Chester date back to the time of Elizabeth, Mr. T. Cann Hughes, M.A., F.S.A., of Lancaster, to whose researches I am indebted, has discovered a long list of Cranes who were freemen of Chester city from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries ; craftsmen and traders, chiefly, of various kinds, beginning with Ralph Crane (stringer), 8th Eliz. ; and ending with William Francis Crane (painter), 1 847.

In this list appears the name of Thomas Crane (bookseller), 1 8 1 2, sworn freeman of the city in that year — this was my grandfather. He was not only bookseller but editor of the Chester Courant at that time, and also captain of the Chester volunteers or " trained bands " of that period, and his children remembered playing with his cocked hat, sash, and sword. He lived in Crane Street and afterwards in Bridge Street, and from there moved to Newgate Street in the parish of St. Werburgh. He had six daughters and three sons. My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Swinchatte. Both these grandparents died in the Newgate Street house in 1836. Two of the daughters (my aunts Bessie and Catherine) kept a school at Whitchurch in 1834, and after the death of their parents this school was carried on in the old house in Newgate Street, which belonged to the family, having been left to my grandfather by a cousin — one Parson Crane, of St. Oswalds, Chester ; ^ he was a learned man and an antiquary, who left his collections of coins and seals to Sir John Gerard — a connection on my grandmother's side — the Gerard Swinchatte family.

My great-grandfather was in the Royal Navy — a lieutenant on board the Monarch of 60 guns. He was in the Napoleonic wars, and wrote in the Chester Courant an account of a fight with the French in which his ship " ran the gauntlet of the whole French fleet." This officer died at sea.

My great-great-grandfather was appointed house-surgeon to the Chester Infirmary when that institution was built about

' There was a local saying about Parson Crane, he being as remarkable for his height as his sister was for her shortness of stature : the long and short of it was that when folks saw a long and a short candle on the table they said, " There's Parson Crane and his sister."

THOMAS CRANE

PAINTED BY HIMSELF, AROUl^ 1840 the middle of the eighteenth century. I possess a Bible, a 1 2 mo in three volumes, printed at Oxford by Thomas Basket, and dated 1756. It is in contemporary binding, and is inscribed " fe Libris Thomas Crane, 1756"; on the fly-leaf at the end of t>vo of the volumes is written : " Thomas Crane, Apothecary and Secretary to the General Infirmary in Chester, 1756," and in the same careful script some missing verses from the Book of Kings are supplied upon the fly-leaves. There are other notes and references, including a Latin, quotation from Erasmus, and preceding the New Testament a comment as follows : " In this collection you will find the Book of God written by the Evangelists and Apostles comprised in a most admirable and comprehensive Epitome. A true Critic will discover numerous Instances of Speech more Chaste and Beautifull than the most admired and shining passages of the Secular writers."

My father had three brothers — William, John, and Philip. With these he was associated in a lithographic press in Chester, This was at the old house in Newgate Street, where they worked in a separate building in the garden. By this means my father reproduced many of his portraits and other works at this time (in the late " twenties " and early " thirties "). Among the works issued, bearing the imprint " Drawn and lithographed by T. and W. Crane, Chester," were Mr. Rowland Warburton's " Hunting Songs," 1836, and The History of Mr. Pig and Miss Crane. The verses accompanying the latter were written by Lady Delamere of Vale Royal, and the book was produced by the brothers for a bazaar at Chester. I have a copy, and am able to give a reproduction of one of the plates designed by my father.! Among his early portraits were those of Lady Louisa Grey with her child ; the Earl of Stamford and Warrington and his sister, with a parrot in a cage; members of the Stanley of Alderley family ; the Greys of Groby ; the Wilbrahams ; and the late Duke of Westminster.

His facility in and taste for drawing came out at a very early age, and he made clever portraits when quite a boy it was

' Other works from the press were a portrait of the violinist Paganini, and " A Ballad by the Rev. Reginald Heber, late Bishop of Calcutta — a grotesque and humorous set of verses with eight illustrations." This latter I have never seen a copy of. There was also a series of cards designed for the Chester Musical Festival of 1829, said. He went to London, and entered as a student in the Royal Academy schools. I have his circular ivory student's ticket, inscribed on one side: " T. Crane, March 31, 1825 ;" and on the other: "Royal Academy Antique School, 1768."

My father having been born in 1808, could only have been then sixteen or seventeen years old.

William Crane died in 1843, but I think the partnership and the press must have been given up on my father's marriage in 1839-40, as William Crane seems to have gone out to Australia (Melbourne), where he died. Philip Crane also went out to Melbourne, where he opened an hotel with a friend named Bird, but he was afterwards thrown from his horse and killed. Of the other brother, John, less is recorded, but he appears to - have worked with the others at the lithographic press, and also to have been an oarsman. All the brothers were fond of rowing, and they built a boat for themselves, too. There are records of exciting races on the river Dee, in one of which William Crane's boat was swamped as it reached the winning post. I have a relic of this in the shape of a piece of one of the timbers with a silver plate inscribed : " A piece of the Deva, swamped September 16, 1839, presented to William Crane the Coxswain." I have also a curious old bill of the Chester Regatta, September 13, 1839, with a woodcut at the head showing four-oared boats racing on the Dee, with the tower of St. John's Church in the background, and " Row, Boys, Row ! " printed across the sky. In the list of competitors below appear the names of both William and John Crane, the former in the Deva, a four-oared gig, and the latter as a " gentleman amateur sculler."

My father and mother went to live in Liverpool in the early " forties," and my father became Secretary and Treasurer of the Liverpool Academy of Art, a post which he resigned on being ordered to Torquay on account of his health, as consumption was feared.

One of his artist friends at Liverpool at that time, also, I believe, a member of the local Academy, was the late Alfred W. Hunt, R.W.S., the distinguished landscape painter, who afterwards lived in Durham for some years, before he established himself in London, where Mrs. Alfred Hunt, and later her

MARIE CRANE

FROM A WATER-COLOUK DRAWING BY THOMAS CKANE, 184O

I84S-57] OF EARLY LIFE AND ASSOCIATIONS 5

daughter Violet, became well known for their literary work.

Of my mother's family I have very little information. She had remarkable energy and sense, and devoted herself in the most self-sacrificing way to her family. Her maiden name was Kearsley, Her father was a " maltster," a prosperous man in a good position in Chester. Her mother seems to have died early, and her father married a second time. I had an aunt and an uncle on my mother's side. The former. Aunt Emma, I remember well staying with us in Torquay — a very attractive personality, but unfortunately she did not enjoy good health, and died young. She married a Mr. John Coglan, who was on the Liverpool Stock Exchange. The uncle was my uncle Edward Kearsley, whom I speak of later. There was another uncle, " Tom," whom I never saw, who went to Australia and was not again heard of.

It has been generally supposed that Sir Francis Crane, of Mortlake Tapestry fame in the reign of James i., was an ancestor of ours, which certainly brings in a pleasant association with decorative art. Sir Francis belonged to the East Anglian branch of the Crane family. Sir Francis Crane, from his brass in Wood Rising Church, appears to have died in Paris about the age of 57 on June 26, 1636, his body being brought to Wood Rising and buried "the loth daye of July following." Another East Anglian Crane — Sir Richard — from a brass in Wood Rising Church, appears to have been buried at Cardiff, so that there may have been a branch of the family in Wales in the seventeeth century, and so from Wales they may have come to Chester. The arms which my father used shows the same coat as that of the East Anglian branch, and occurs as the first quarter on a much-quartered shield of a Crane monument of Elizabethan date at Chilton Church, near Sudbury, and also on the tabard of Sir Robert Crane (1480), a kneeling knight in the east window of Long Melford Church, Suffolk, as well as on the brass of Francis and William Crane at Wood Rising, 1655, the coat of Sir Francis Crane being the bearings of the second and third quarters sinister of the dame's arms, which are impaled with her husband's. A precedent for my own rebus, curiously enough, occurs on a seal of a charter by one William Crane

SHIELD ON CRANE MONUMENT, CHILTON CHURCH, SUFFOLK

CRANE SHIELD IM- PALED, WOOD RISING CHURCH

CRANE ARMS AS USED BY THOMAS CRANE (MY FATHER). FROM A HERALDS* COL- LEGE DRAWING, EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

SEAL OF WILLIAM CRANE, SOUTH CREKE, TEMP.

EDWARD IV.

S'^'fkANcis CRA^E Ki Chancellor, of

TE MOST NOBLE ORESROF TE GARTE" (ACEDABOVi'TJ-/ years) dyed TE 16 DAYE OF FvNE AT FkRIS IN FrANCEFRO •VVhENCE HIS BODY MCAS BROVGHTAN) BVRIED IN TIISPLACE T£ Io'dAYEOFIv LY FOLLOWING And DnI}<336

BRASS OF SIR FRANCIS CRANE IN WOOD RISING CHURCH

SIR ROBERT CRANE (I480), EAST WINDOW, LONG MELFORD CHURCH, SUFFOLK of South Crane in Norfolk, which bears the date of the twelfth King Edward IV. (1473).

Such details may have in themselves but a limited interest, but I have often thought if family records could be completely kept from generation to generation, the character of a particular member could be much more completely accounted for ; though, of course, the effect of different environment must count for a great deal, as well as hereditary tendencies.

I cannot say that I have any recollection of my birthplace — Liverpool ; but this is accounted for by the fact of my transportation from thence at the early age of three months, when, in October 1845, on account of my father's state of health, the family removed to Torquay — then coming into high repute as a health resort.

It was in Maryland Street, Liverpool, however, that I first saw the light — the same street, I believe, which claims to have been the birthplace of Mr. W. E. Gladstone.

The isth of August was my natal day — a day marked in the calendar as the date of the death of Napoleon the First and that of the birth of Sir Walter Scott.

I cannot say whether the latter circumstance had any influence over the choice of my name, however.

I can claim, without any special egoism, to have made a noise in the world at a very early period. The journey to South Devon from Liverpool in the " forties " must have been somewhat trying. The last part of the journey, I think from Exeter, was performed by stage coach, and the legend is that it was here that the voice of my crying made the coach impossible for any inside passengers unconnected with the family, who must have been very long-suffering, and it was said only a particular aunt of the party had the power of soothing my inarticulate infantine troubles.

My memory, fortunately perhaps a blank as to this period, cannot discover any distinct visual impressions until at least three years later. The very earliest, I think, is one of sitting in a swing suspended between two elm trees in the old garden of the first house we inhabited on settling in South Devon. This was at Tor, and known as Beanland Place. The house is vague, but the garden, where, probably, with brother and sisters, most of this time was spent, seems more distinct, and there was in one corner the woodhouse, where the garden tools were kept — a dark and shadowy temple in a world of wonder and mystery.

I have a very, early recollection — a strange one — of being seized with " croup " and waking my parents in the middle of the night with strange squeaking sounds from my throat, and being dimly conscious of lights being struck and carried about, and the doctor being sent for.

My next primitive memory picture is of a tall house on the side of a hill — Walden or Waldon Hill, with a long sloping walled garden, and a good many stone steps, rather perilous to us children, and I do not think residence there could have been very lengthy, and probably recollections of the place are merged in later memories of the aspects of the town and harbour, of which Waldon Hill commanded a fine view.

The next move was inland again to the village of Upton, then quite distinct from Torquay. Here memory is much less vague and impressionistic, and, in fact, becomes almost pre- Raphaelite. I have a distinct picture of a rather pretty villa, one of a pair in early Victorian taste, with a verandah having light trellis supports, which were covered with climbing white roses in great profusion. French casement windows opened out on to this verandah from the drawing-room, which was decorated by a plaster cast of Thorvaldsen's popular circular relief " Night " on the mantelpiece, the companion " Day " occupying a corresponding position in the dining-room, which, according to a usual plan in those days, was divided from the drawing-room by folding doors.

I remember that another room was converted into a studio for my father by having a skylight inserted, and recall seeing the workmen cut the hole through the plaster ceiling for the purpose.

This house was at the foot of a grassy hill, cut into by a stone quarry, and I well remember seeing the quarrymen, when a charge was to be fired to blast the rock, trooping away to a safe distance. Our proximity to this quarry, indeed, was the cause of some alarm, as stray fragments of stone ffom the explosions would occasionally fall into our garden.

Upton was a pretty, old-fashioned Devonshire village of thatched cottages with whitewashed walls, nestling among tall hedgerow elms. I remember a stream flowing across the road and a foot-bridge over it, an attractive place from which to watch the fish and the ducks. Near by was a cider press — a most mysterious affair, turned by a horse in the recesses of a dark shed. It was a joy to see the heaps of apples and to taste the new sweet cider. Amid such scenes and with such surroundings a very happy child-life was passed, not oppressively shadowed by much governessing or schooling.

I have a very early recollection of going with a large picnic party on a four-horse coach, which was most exciting, to a place some miles off called Hugbrooke Park, famous for the beauty of its scenery. I remember quite distinctly the luncheon spread out on the white cloth on the green grass, and afterwards the grown-up ones of party — father and mother and an aunt and the older children, and possibly other guests I do not recall — going off for a walk into the park or to see the house or some lion of the place at a distance, and that I was left with two little girls, as being too small for such an excursion, in charge of the servants, who certainly must have had their fun over their lunch, as there was plenty of laughter, and they were amused, too, at the sight of my gravely taking the two little girls for a short walk, walking between them and holding the hands of both, for I remember the maids pointing at us and laughing. I fear the names of my little companions have passed from my memory, but there is no doubt that I formed quite serious attachments from a very tender age — but " the cold world shall not know,"

About this time my father and mother went to London and brought back wonderful accounts of the marvels of the great Exhibition of 1851, with which we became further familiarised by the pictures in the Illustrated London News, which, as children, we delighted to experiment on in colour, more especially the pictures of the opening ceremonies, and the royal progresses with plenty of smart dresses and soldiers' uniforms in them. These figures and the London crowds in such pictures were at that time put in by the facile hand of John Gilbert, afterwards the famous Sir John Gilbert, painter in oil and water colour, the veteran president of the old society in Pall Mall. The same artist was the chief illustrator of the small children's story-books published by the Religious Tract Society at that time, such as Georges First Journey, which told of the wonders of the late stage coach and the early railway period. Such works, too, as Goldsmith's Natural History and Animated Nature, one of Charles Knight's popular publications, I think — a folio crammed with woodcuts from all sorts of sources, including some of fearsome "antediluvian animals," as they were then called, very impressive to a child's imagination. These and such as these were the earliest pictorial influences I can remember outside my father's studio. He painted mostly portraits at that time, and frequently made studies of his own hand in the looking-glass to assist him in arranging the pose of the hands in his full or half-length portraits. These were generally cast aside and often lay on the floor, which was generally also my drawing table at that early period. To some of these studies of hands I attached fancy portraits of gentlemen — reversing the usual portrait-painter's process of painting his heads first and putting in his hands afterwards — often, I fear, with but little regard to proportion and with more interest in the superficial decorative effects, such as the truly " fancy waistcoats " of the early " fifties," which frequently blossomed in large floral or tartan designs of a most striking character. These early ingenious efforts were shown by a fond mother to friends of the family, who seemed to have risen to the occasion remarkably well, as it was a joke for a long time afterwards that they expressed quite cordial admiration for these efforts, " especially the hands!' I could not have been more than six or seven years of age at the time, so there may have been some excuse for my artifice in thus utilising a parent's artistic skill and experience.

I daresay my early efforts with the pencil may have been encouraged by some of my father's friends who visited at Laureston Villa (the name of the Upton house) about this time. I remember he and a few other artists formed an

I84S-57] OF EARLY LIFE AND ASSOCIATIONS il

evening sketching club, meeting at each other's houses or studios and making sketches in charcoal by lamplight. Among these friends was Field Talfourd, a sketch of whose head I recall made by my father in charcoal on toned paper and heightened with white chalk. There were also two brothers named Stockdale of whom he did similar portrait sketches. Mr. Walker, an artist of more advanced years, who made rather a special line in charcoal landscapes, used to visit the house about this time, but I am not sure whether he belonged to the sketching club.

The years went by happily enough at Upton, at least from the irresponsible child's point of view, pleasantly varied by excursions on donkeys, combined with picnics in the pleasant and romantic places with which the neighbourhood abounded, such as Anstey's Cove and Babbicombe. These outings were an institution on birthdays, and as there was no great disparity of years in the little family of five, we could all join in the same childish pleasures and were quite companionable. My father was very fond of walking, too, and often took us for long rambles among those pleasant Devonshire lanes and hills. There was the quarry hill, and a hill we called " Thehill-with-the-rock-on," a green hill having a peculiarly shaped limestone crag emerging near its summit. Another hill was crowned with a ruined castle, a conspicuous feature of which was a round tower, which was commonly called " Caesar's Tower." Most of these were visible from our windows. Then there was the quarry, where we watched the men laboriously drilling holes with crowbars for blasting, and the rope-walk along the side of the same hill, where an old weather-beaten, more or less seafaring sort of man, with a belt of hemp around his waist, used to walk to and fro twisting the fibre into rope, while his boy turned a wheel at the opposite end.

I remember in some of our walks coming upon gipsy encampments. There was a favourite spot on the broad grassy margin of the road to Newton Abbott bordered by a wood. Here one could see the low-pitched, semicircular, arched tents, canvas over hooped sticks, somewhat like the tilts of waggons placed upon the ground. Swarthy children tumbled in and out of their dark interiors, where now and then an old camp

12 AN ARTIST'S REMINISCENCES [i845-57

follower would be seen sitting smoking. The iron pot suspended on three sticks, with a fire crackling beneath, figured in front ; donkeys and large ponies browsed near by. Dark brown men with slouch hats, long ringlets, and bright orange scarfs, sleeve waistcoats and corduroys, hung about, and perhaps a dark-eyed and black-haired handsome gipsy woman would come forward smiling and showing her white teeth as she offered to tell your fortune for a small consideration.

From one of these encampments my father induced a singularly handsome gipsy woman to sit to him as a model. I remember the picture of her with an orange kerchief tied over her blue-black hair; but I believe she proved a very uncertain model.

These were the boundaries of our little world, and in such scenes, with the usual quickly passing child-like joys and troubles, life's early chapters were soon run through, and the first schooldays commenced.

My first school experiences were at a small mixed school — what, I suppose, would now be considered a sort of kindergarten, though the Froebel system of teaching was not then established in England. It was kept in an amateur sort of way by two sisters — the Misses Nicholson. I have the faintest recollection of the sort of lessons we learned, and was far more interested in the doings of a mysterious brother of the schoolmistresses, who was one of the early and then rare experimenters in amateur photography. One of the causes of my remembering this circumstance was no doubt the personal interest I had in at least two of the results of his operations.

It must have been about the time of the outbreak of the Crimean War, when it was considered mostly an affair of Russians versus Turks — at all events, the picturesque and dramatic side of this useless war at that time fascinated one's boyish imagination. The school slate, however, was then the chief, if not the only, medium for the expression of one's pictorial ideas, and the slate-pencil, and I was glad to turn from the troublesome cyphers of the simple addition sum to the forming of more varied if equally conventional figures. One slate-picture of a terrific combat between the

I84S-S7] OP EARLY LIFE AND ASSOCIATIONS 13