by Sue Johnson
In February 1912 readers of Salisbury’s local newspaper received the news that the city was to be given a collection of local paintings, a purpose-built gallery to house them and an endowment to pay for the upkeep. The donor was a local artist Edwin Young, who for the last 30 years had been recording scenes in and around Salisbury.
FAMILY
Edwin was one of at least 13 children of Isaac Young, shoemaker, and Mary Randell Sutton, who married on the 20 January 1818 at St Edmunds church, Salisbury. Isaac was described as ‘of Southampton’ and so far, nothing has been discovered about his parentage. Mary was the youngest daughter of William Sutton, clothier of Salisbury. The frequent changes of address revealed in the baptism records of their children, together with Isaac’s award of a ten-year interest free loan only given to poor men, and an appearance in court as an insolvent debtor do not suggest a prosperous family background. When Edwin and his brother Henry were baptised at St martin’s church on the 27 March 1831, they were living in Barnard Street.
In late 1833 or late 1834 the family moved to Canal/Butcher Row area where Isaac’s tender of £90 per annum to operate the cities weighbridge was accepted. Much used by vehicles coming to the market, a fee was charged for each load weighed, the tenant hoping that revenue would substantially exceed the amount they had paid to the Directors & Trustees of Highways to operate it. The weighbridge, facing the Canal, backed onto the watch-house for the city’s constables in Butcher Row, and it was a condition that ‘the tenant do officiate as a perpetual constable’. Following an inspection both the watch-house and the weighbridge were found to be in a bad state of repair, and in March 1834 a bill for £12.19s for expenses incurred by Mr Isaac Young ‘in consequence of the untenable state’ of the watch-house was referred to committee. It was subsequently rejected, though he was allowed £5 on account of his rent. In 1836 when the city police force was created Isaac was no longer a constable, but the watch committee resolved that ‘The duties of Billet Master be for the present performed by Isaac Young’. Exactly what this entailed is not specified, presumably he had to look after the accommodation for the constables and attend to any prisoners kept overnight in the cells before being brought up before the magistrates. The existing provision for the new police station was declared to be inadequate and, following the abandonment of plans for a completely new building on the grounds of cost, it was decided that the Directors of Highways would give up the house and premises usually occupied by the lessee of the ‘weighing engine’ except for a small counting room in the front. This was to be blocked off from the rest of the building and adaptations made so that the Superintendent of Police could reside there and perform the duties of Billet Master.
The Young family were on the move once again, but this time probably only a short distance away from as their address is subsequently gone as ‘Woodmarket’. Things took another turn for the worse a few months later when the latest additions to the family, twin boys named Walter and Frank, died in June when they were only a month old. In September came another blow – the death of Isaac at the age of 49, ‘after a long and painful illness’. He left seven children under 15, Edwin being just 8 years old at the time. Following Isaac’s death Mary Young continued as tenant of the weighbridge until 1850. After losing her tenancy, the family were living in Brown Street by 1851, Ox Row ten years later, and then Queen Street, where Mary died in 1870. She must have been a very strong-willed lady to keep her family together after her husband’s death. The census returns perhaps give a hint of this – in 1851 she is described as the head of the household even though her eldest son Henry was 21 and normally would have had that title.
CAREER
Of Edwin’s eight surviving siblings, Clarissa died three years after her father in 1841, Mary and Eliza married and Sarah Maria kept house for the brothers after their mother’s death for a time, but then seems to have suffered some sort of illness or injury as she is described as an ‘imbecile’ in 1881. None of the boys took up their fathers’ occupation as shoemakers but all worked at first as some kind of clerk – they had perhaps honed their writing skills by helping out with the weighbridge? Henry and Thomas worked in the Probate Register in The Close, with Thomas later becoming a music seller before retiring, William was an accountant and land agent and Herbert, described as an accountant 1871, later became a hosier – the ‘Young of Eldridge & Young, Catherine Street as a well know Salisbury shop.
Edwin was not at home in the 1851 census – the only person of the correct age and birthplace is at Winchester in the Diocesan Training College for School Masters, then located in Wolvesey Place. Surviving records are scarce but do reveal that Edwin’s first post was St Thomas’s School Salisbury. A daily school had been established in 1832 but did not have purpose-built premises, being accommodated I ‘a small ill-ventilated (room) above the vestry of the Church’. No early admission registers or log books survive but in 1859 there were 60 boys at the school, possibly a similar number had been there when Edwin was appointed at a salary of £50 per annuum on 19 March 1852 when he was said to be a former pupil of the school. The next five annual meetings continued his employment on the same terms but in 1857 no meeting is recorded, and in 1858 someone else is ‘re-elected’, with no mention at all being made of him. Fortunately, the Salisbury Journal is a little more informative, revealing Mr Young had resigned, that the School Committee had passed a resolution commending his efficiency during his 5 years as master, and voted a sum of money for a suitable testimonial. His pupils had apparently been equally appreciative ‘on Monday evening last an elegant silver butter knife was presented to him by the boys who attended the school’. In 1861 Edwin was described as a ‘Land Agent & Surveyor’s Clerk’. Before becoming like William and accountant. He was for some years connected with Messrs Rigden’s estate agency business. By 1891 he was ‘Living on his own means’ and ten years later his occupation is given as ‘Landscape Painter’.
LEISURE
Salisbury Literary & Scientific Institute was founded in 1850and by 1851 had about 400 members. No membership lists survive but it is possible that Edwin young and his brothers were among the 400 – the committee minutes of 1854 note that a letter had been received from Mr Young ‘recommending two educational serials’ and alongside the list of committee members retiring later that year are some names in pencil, including ‘E Young’. ‘Mr Young’ continues on the committee for a number of years and by 1858 there is also an H Young, possibly Edwin’s brother Henry. In 1864 Edwin became assistant Secretary and, in the years, following the names of Edwin Young and Alfred Watson, joint Hon. Secretaries appear in adverts for lectures and entertainments organised by the Institute. In September 1868 both declined to continue due to other commitments. However, in the absence of any other candidates Edwin was persuaded on for another year ‘at great inconvenience’. On being thanked for his services he modestly said that it has given him a great deal of pleasure to serve the institution and that ‘if anything he had done had tended in the slightest degree to benefit and prosperity of the institution he was sufficiently rewarded for his services’. Edwin Young continued as a committee member, but for exactly how long has not been established as no minutes survive after 1859. When the institution decided that it needed a new home Mr E Young and Mr Watson two members of the building committee, appointed on 17 December 18 then became trustees of the new premises. Edwin Young was also a founder member of the Salisbury Church of England School Institute.
32 HIGH STREET
The unmarried Young brothers stayed together in the family home till at least 1871, when they were living at 2 Queen Street (the Guildhall side near the corner with the Canal). Thomas married in 1874 and it was perhaps this that prompted the others to move – by 1881 they are living at 32 High Street which was a large building on three floors. The front portion was a shop, while the living accommodation had drawing, dining, breakfast and morning rooms, seven bedrooms, servants’ bedrooms, principle and back staircases, kitchen and scullery, wash house etc. The gardens ran down to the river Avon, and it was here that Edwin has his ‘brick and tile studio, 14ft. 6in. by 9ft. 6in.’ the building was demolished in 1976 but a picture of its fine staircase appears in the Royal Commission inventory of buildings of historic interest and a glimpse of the interiors is found in adverts for the Blue Bird Café which it subsequently became.
Sometime between 1881 and 1891 William married and moved out henry died in March 1910 and William a few months later leaving 32 High Street, which he owned to Edwin, who continued to live there for the rest of his life. William also left his share of houses in Clarendon Terrace, which he jointly owned with Edwin to him. The 1911 census describes the household at 32 High Street as Edwin himself, a gentleman of private means, with his housekeeper, Mrs Britten, her husband (occupation: ‘carpenter & man-nurse’), their 2 children and a young lady assistant in the dairy which occupied the shop premises.
EDWIN THE ARTIST
No information has been discovered about how the son of a shoemaker came to be an accomplished artist. One possible influence was Richard Cockle Lucas, the son of his mother’s older sister, Martha. Lucas was a sculptor (his works including the statue of Sir Richard Colt Hoare in Salisbury cathedral) who studied in the Royal Academy Schools, and who came into contact with some of the finest artists of the day including Turner and Constable. He was considerably older than Edwin, but his son Albert Durer Lucas, also an artist, was just 3 years younger. Edwin’s earliest surviving painting is ‘Common Friends@, a copy of ‘Rustic Scene’ by Robert Hills, dated 1849. It was said to be ‘about the first of his attempts that he felt worth preserving’. His style was described in the local papers at the time as being reminiscent ‘of the famous Birket Foster’, who was a painter, illustrator, engravers and member of the Royal watercolour Society. A modern opinion is that he was ‘competent and prolific Victorian watercolourist – the best of his work being fine examples of the genre’. In 1962 ‘A view from Milford Bridge’ and ‘The cathedral Spire from Stratford-Sub-Castle’ were borrowed by the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery Bournemouth to form part of their ‘painters of Wessex exhibition. The majority of surviving paintings are watercolours, but he also worked in oils, exhibiting at the Bath & West Show when it was held at Salisbury in 1866 and 18667. In 1866 his ‘Meadows, Harnham’ was described as ‘a very pleasing and naturally painted picture’ and was priced at £15 15s. The following year ‘Landscape – View from the Butts, looking towards Salisbury’ was said to be ‘a very clever picture…. very creditable to the painter, who is only an amateur, and not a professional artist’. Analysis of the dated items in the only known list of works shows that the bulk are from the 1890’s/1900s, obviously when Edwin was well enough off to devote much time to his hobby. Although in failing health Edwin’s interest in art continued to the ed of his life and he produced at least one painting in 1911 – yard of the Crown Inn just a few doors away in the High Street. Unfortunately, this cannot be identified among surviving paintings in the Edwin Young Collection.
THE PICTURE GALLERY
In February 1912 the City Council learned of Edwin Youngs intention to donate his collection of ‘about 200 watercolour drawings, about 100 of which were newly mounted and framed by him for the purpose of the gift and the other 50 (sic) would be placed in interleaved with descriptive verses’. He would provide a suitable building to house the collection, and an endowment ‘would at once convey by deed of gift to the Town Council 4 houses in Clarendon Terrace’. The income from these was to cover the cost of exhibiting the pictures and the balance devoted to purchasing works of arts for the proposed gallery. In the meantime, the pictures would be on display in the Free Library. The Council unanimously passed a resolution thanking Mr Young and expressing their appreciation of his ‘patriotism and citizenship’.
By 8 March 130 watercolours had been placed in the Library’s Reading Room. ‘chiefly of rural scenes in the immediate vicinity of Salisbury’, many of them the meadows around Harham. A ‘complete list of the pictures already hung’ completed the article. A month later the second batch of pictures was added, bringing the total to 200 – again listed in the Salisbury Times – and the Council increased the insurance on them while they were in the Library to £600. Alderman Haskins was much concerned in the matter, spending time writing the descriptions on the backs , s that they might label them later on’, and with the Mayor and Chairman of the General Purposes Committee forming one of the sub-committee appointed to liaise with the architect about the new gallery. No proper catalogue of the pictures ever seems to have been produced. The list in the newspaper contains 201 items, though nothing is written against number 138, and there must have been another six items as later official documents clearly refer to 207 watercolours by Edwin Young but no information about these has been found.
A site for the new gallery adjacent to the recently opened Public Library in Chipper Lane was purchased in May 1912 and in June the plans were submitted to the Council were passed. They show a single room on the ground floor, lit by all windows at the front, and a sloping rooflights at the rear, with the upper floor also having a large ‘lantern’ in the centre of its high ceiling. Both rooms were panelled. The architect was Mr G L Blount, possibly a personal friend as the 1911 Kelly’s directory gives his address as 39 High Street, the builders were Messrs Chivers of Devizes, though most men who worked on the building were from Salisbury, Mr Ernest Usher provided the furniture, and Mr Frank Uphill the picture frames. The only information about the internal layout of the gallery found so far is an undated floor plan drawn on two sheets of notepaper showing two rooms each with four seats, one display case in the centre and paintings all around the walls. Whether this was the actual layout or merely a suggested is not clear but would be a logical design.
Unfortunately, Edwin Young did not live to see his picture gallery completed, dying on 22 March 1913 just a few weeks before it was finished. He was buried at London Road cemetery after a funeral service, which was in accordance to his wishes ‘of a very simple character’. His brother Thomas one of his executors completed the project and presented another 181 framed pictures plus a number in three bound volumes, though it is not clear whether these were all by Edwin Young or not, nor whether Edwin put the pictures into ‘volumes’ himself or if it was done after his death by Thomas. No list of these additional items has been found.
Once the gallery was finished the date for the official opening was set for 28 July 1913. This was subsequently postponed due to delays in finalising the legal transfer of the property to the Council and instead the gallery seems to have simply opened its doors quietly to the public on the set date. There was, however ne event to mark the construction of the building – a dinner given by Thomas Young at the Assembly Rooms (now Waterstones) FOR THOSE WHO HAD WORKED ON THE PROJECT WHEN IT WAS NEARING COMPLETION. After a meal and various speeches, the evening was rounded off with a selection of songs!
Copyright – Sue Johnson
A local historian with a particular interest in early Victorian Salisbury. She has been researching Edwin Young since reading a newspaper article in 1994.