Walter Langley RI June
8 1852 – March 21 1922
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| Photo I took of poster at Newlyn Gallery |
On the 21st of March 1922,
someone important to Bess (Blaney) Welch, her Grand-Uncle Walter Langley RI, died
at the age of sixty-nine.
As written in a
previous blog entry, he was a painter, widely known for his en plein air watercolour
paintings of the Cornish region. He died at his residence on Clarence St. in Penzance
on the south coast of England leaving his second wife, Ethel, their son and the
three eldest children of his first marriage.
Walter had experienced
an extended period of failing health. His final exhibit was in the spring of
1920 with the Birmingham Society and his last recorded works were two sketches done
in 1921.
According to a local newspaper,
his funeral was held Friday March 24th and attended by three of his
sons (one had died in Canada in 1909); members of the Newlyn Art Colony;
friends and members of the Penzance Bowling Club.
Walter was born and
raised in Birmingham and began attending evening classes in design at the age
of 10. He was apprenticed to a lithographer for seven years. After teaching
himself to paint, he attended classes at the Society of Arts in Birmingham. He
continued painting in Birmingham and away from time to time, while exhibiting
his work there. In 1882, at the age of thirty Walter settled his family in Newlyn,
Cornwall after having visited the area several times. He was the first resident
artist of the Newlyn School of artists.
Langley was politically left wing for his time
and he was noted for his social realist portrayals of working class figures,
particularly fishermen and their families. Many of his paintings reflect his
sympathy with the working class fisher-folk amongst whom he lived and some of
them became his models. His early training in lithography gives his paintings a
detail and texture that show his technical skills.
As noted in Roger Langley’s
book, Walter Langley, Pioneer of the Newlyn Art Colony, “Langley’s contribution to Birmingham’s art was recognized in the year
following his death with a memorial exhibition of 103 paintings at the
galleries of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. A further tribute to his
memory was paid that year by his old friend and sometime studio colleague, William
Wainwright, when he made Walter Langley the subject of his Clarendon Lecture to
Birmingham students.”
Bess was undoubtedly saddened
by his passing and probably knew he was ailing. He was living in Newlyn at the
time she was born but over the years he continued to exhibit in Birmingham and
gained renown. She was interested in art and knew of and admired his work. Bess
was so proud to be a member of his extended family, she being the granddaughter
of one of Walter’s elder sisters, Ellen Elizabeth (Langley) Blaney. Bess’s younger
brother Albert remembered a visit by Walter Langley to his mother’s (Walter’s
Niece) home, when he was a boy between 1910 and 1920.
She likely saw the
last work he displayed in Birmingham at the Royal Birmingham Society of Arts in
1922, named “Peeling Potatoes” and perhaps the memorial exhibition in 1923.
She
also had some correspondence a Mr. Harper regarding his
"Brief History of Walter Langley RI" that he wrote for the Lord Mayor
of Birmingham in preparation for the memorial exhibit in January 1923. Bess
knew Mr. Harper when she was 16 and knew him to be a friend of Walter Langley, so
she wrote to the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists in 1932. Judging by Edward
Harper’s reply and given the date, she would have written to him during the
time her son, Lewis (age 16) would have been studying at the Ontario Art
College in Canada. I suppose she was interested in having more information
about Walter to share with Lewis and encourage him in his art. He became a
successful commercial artist as well as an accomplished watercolour painter.
In her later years
Bess collected prints of Walter’s work and on a trip to Birmingham in 1954 she
visited the Birmingham Art Gallery where she met with Tessa Sidley. The curator
showed her his work on display in the gallery and the paintings in the store
rooms. She purchased a large poster of
his work which she had framed and it hung for many years in her home until she
was well into old age.
She also had an original miniature watercolour of Lickey Hills that had
been passed down through her family.
The English economy
was still in trouble in 1922 and 1923 with many people on unemployment
including 2550 Cornish miners due to mine closures. There was an engineering
lockout/strike at the dockyards and even though the cost of living was falling
from the very high rates after the war many families were having trouble making
ends meet.
In 1922/23 Harry and
Bess were living at Cobden Place, Edward Road, Birmingham with the children Lewis
and Joan both in school nearby. Bess was working in 1923 but I don’t know about
Harry.
He usually did find
some kind of work, but it seems Harry at least, was thinking of leaving England.
