Altrincham History Society

HELEN ALLINGHAM, VICTORIAN WATERCOLOUR ARTIST AND HELEN ALLINGHAM’S ALTRINCHAM IN THE MID-l9th CENTURY

OCCASIONAL PAPER NUMBER 1 May 1991 HELEN ALLINGHAM—neé PATERSON Born 26 September 1848 at Church Gresley, Swadlincote, Derbyshire. Died 28 May 1926 at , . by Chris Hill

The Paterson family lived in the existed between the house and the house which is now 16 Market Stamford Estates Offices (now Street and also at Oakfield, now National Trust shop), allowing Levenhurst, on St. John’s Road access to the yard behind the near the corner with Higher Downs. frontage. Helen’s mother, whose Altogether the family lived in name was Chance Herford, Altrincham for thirteen years, recorded in her diary that their new leaving when Helen was fourteen. residence was nearly opposite the Helen was the eldest of seven house where she was born. She children of Dr Alexander Henry describes this as a cottage with its Paterson; all her brothers and garden running down Shaw’s Lane. sisters were born in Altrincham, The cottage was still occupied by One of her three brothers was her mother and her aunt, and had associated with the town through formerly been used by her father’s the solicitors’ firm with the name mother as a school for about thirty Dendy and Paterson. Caroline, one girls. Dr Paterson’s parents of her sisters, married Sutton followed shortly after the move to Sharpe, the etcher, and also Altrincham and took up residence achieved some success with her in New Street. figure painting which bears a In August, 1852, the family moved resemblance in style and subject to a house on The Downs (which in matter to that of Helen. those days reached as far as Chapel The family moved from Walks, now Regent Road), which Swadlincote to Altrincham in 1849 was said to be near Bowdon and lived at No.16 High Street Station. In 1856 the family moved (Market Street) which was then part again, to a house Dr Paterson had of the main Manchester to Chester had built at the top of St. John’s road. The back garden would have Road. This was called Oakfield reached as far as High Bank. A gap now Levenshurst, which enjoyed

2 uninterrupted views down The opposition to her entry, but the Downs to the Pennine Hills. President, Sir Charles Eastlake, Alexander Paterson became a thought her work good enough to member of the Royal College of deserve her admission for tuition. Surgeons and Practitioners in She started at the Academy Schools March 1859. In 1862 there was a in 1867 where she studied figure diphtheria epidemic and Dr drawing and painting under the Paterson and Helen’s youngest influence of such notables as sister, Isobel, aged three, died Millais, Frederick Leighton, ending the family’s happy days in Frederick Goodall, Fred Walker, the Altrincham district. By this time John Pettie and Briton Riviere, It Helen had started painting and was at this time, studying at the there exists a painting she did of a Slade School’s evening classes, that view at Alderley Edge. she met who was The family moved to to remain a lifelong friend. where Helen came under the In 1869 she obtained her first job as guidance of her aunt, Laura a freelance graphic artist producing Herford, who was a painter. Helen black and white drawings for the was invited to join a group of Graphic and Cornhill magazines. friends who had started a drawing She was also commissioned to club which met monthly to draw a illustrate children’s magazines set subject and then take advantage called Once a Week, Little Folk of the group’s comments on the (published by Joseph Swain), and finished result. Helen had more Aunt Julia’s Magazine originally success with pen and ink drawings produced by Juliana Ewing and her than with painting and, encouraged sister. Juliana’s family nickname by the appreciation of her work by was Aunt Judy and at one time she fellow club members, had ideas of lived on Higher Downs, where becoming a book illustrator. there is a Blue Plaque to However, in 1866, Helen’s aunt commemorate this period of encouraged her to apply for residence. In 1870, as a result of entrance to the Royal Academy her work for the Graphic, Helen Schools in London, submitting became one of the regular staff and examples of her work under her this lasted until her marriage. initials. When it was found she was a woman there was some

3 Her fees were substantial, being childhood for the first time in twelve guineas for a full-page modern art. In 1883 in a lecture on illustration and eight for a half- Fairy Land, Ruskin specified as her page. One of her assignments was true gift, the representation of “the to draw the actor Sir Henry Irving, gesture, character and humour of who remained another lifelong charming children in country friend. Through her work for the landscapes”. He also praised her in Cornhill Magazine, in 1873 Helen The Art of England, 1884, placing was commissioned to illustrate a her name with Kate Greenaway. serialised version of Thomas On 22 August, 1874, Helen married Hardy’s novels Far from the the well-known Irish poet, William Madding Crowd and Miss Angel. Allingham (1842-89). Allingham was very pleased was born at Ballyshannon in with her work and declared himself County Donegal, where his father “a little in love with the lady.” was a bank manager. He had been a In 1872 and 1874, two of her Customs Officer before moving to watercolours were accepted for London. In 1874 he was editor of exhibition by the Royal Academy: Frazer’s Magazine and lived in The Milkmaid and Wait for Me. Trafalgar Square. He had become This encouraged her to spend more one of the intellectual ‘Cheyne time on water colour paintings and Walk’ or ‘Chelsea’ set and on in 1875 she was elected as an marrying Helen was able to associate of the Royal Watercolour introduce her to such people as Society. This was probably the Rossetti, Ruskin, Browning, result of her submission of a Tennyson, Thackeray, George painting called The Young Eliot, Marie Stopes and Thomas Customers showing two young girls Carlyle. Helen is well-known for sitting on high stools in a hardware her portrait of Carlyle in his garden shop. This subject was originally which has been reproduced many used as a line drawing illustrating A times. He said she was the “only Flat Iron for a Farthing, a story by person who has made a successful Juliana Ewing. The picture was also portrait of me though many have exhibited at the Paris Exposition in tried.” 1878, where it was seen by Ruskin After seven years of living in who made a point of praising it, London the Allinghams moved to commenting that she represented the Surrey countryside at Sandhills,

4 near Witley, not far from Her work has seen a revival of Haslemere. Kate Greenaway lived interest in recent years so that her nearby and often accompanied pictures may now be seen in nearly Helen on painting trips into the every good quality shop that stocks surrounding countryside. Another postcard reproductions of artists’ painter who was a neighbour was work, or greetings and anniversary , who had cards. It is also possible to find moved there in 1861. His subjects examples of her sister’s work, were similar to Helen’s. attributed to either Caroline For the next eight years Helen Paterson or Sharpe. produced many detailed water- Helen and William had three colours of country cottages, children: two sons, Gerald Carlyle gardens and country life, all at the (after ) born height of summer; most including Chelsea, 1875 and Henry born in women, children, and often 1882 at Witley. A daughter Eva chickens. As an artist of the Margaret was also born at Chelsea. countryside and flowers, Helen was Both brothers died in 1961. Eva rather unusual in only using nine died sometime before her brothers colours on her palette. These are having been an invalid. At the end listed in M. B. Huish’s book of of 1888, the family moved back to 1904 as cobalt, rose madder, London, living in Hampstead at aureolin, yellow ochre, raw sienna, Eldon house, near her brother permanent yellow, light red and Arthur. Helen’s death occurred on orange cadmium. Few painters 28 May 1926 whilst visiting a have penetrated so close to the soul friend at Haslemere. She was of the English countryside. cremated at Golders Green and a plaque was erected in Rosslyn Hill Chapel in Hampstead.

References Happy England (now entitled The Happy England of Helen Allingham) by Marcus B Hulsh (1903), reprinted 1985. Cottage Homes of England (1909) by Helen Allingham and Stuart Dick. Helen Allingham’s England by Ina Taylor (1991). Acknowledgements to Mr P Kemp of Bowdon and Mr F Stanford of Marley Associates.

5 HELEN ALLINGHAM’S ALTRINCHAM IN THE MID- l9th CENTURY by Don Bayliss The period of Helen Allingham’s before was now installed in some of childhood residence, 1849- 62 was the better houses and there were 60 a time of momentous change for the gaslamps round the town. town. At the outset there were over In 1849 she would have overheard 4000 people (4488 in 1851) in more her father talking about two other than 900 houses and the main urban main events. The first was the area stretched from about the knocking down of the old George and Dragon past Regent courthouse-buttermarket which Road (Chapel Walk), up The stood in Old Market Place and its Downs and to the end of New replacement at Lord Stamford’s Street. There were great social expense by Altrincham’s first town contrasts between the area of hall at the side of the Unicorn. As a Higher Town extending from Old doctor, her father would have Market Place down Market Street spoken seriously about a recent (then High Street) with its grand survey by Isaac Turton, the houses and persons of a high social Overseer of the Poor, of the bad class, contrasted with Lower Town health conditions in the town, and (George Street and New Street) that there had been outbreaks of where there were poorer houses and cholera, dysentery and typhoid people. from the contaminated public wells In 1849 she would have seen the and springs. The details were so new building of the Congregational alarming that the Town’s Meeting Church on Higher Downs. Also as had requested a full government a child of one year she might have enquiry under the 1848 Public been pushed in her bassinet to the Health Act. new railway station to see the first Sir Robert Rawlinson carried out engine arrive from Manchester, to the survey from the confines of the loud huzzars, and no doubt would Unicorn and reported in 1851 that have been frightened of the noise, there was no local power to pave or smoke and steam. Nor would she cleanse the town. The death rate have liked the smell of gas which was nearly 30 per 1000 annually after its introduction five years (about three times what it is today). 6 There were 26 common lodging to see the new Local Board enter houses taking 546 lodgers per night the town hall for the first time in at three to a bed. There were 10 1851 ending the administrative courts and alleys with 67 houses authority of the Court Leet after and cellar dwellings. New Street, many centuries, and she would with 104 dwellings was not paved, have been interested later to see the had no piped water and was not clerks and officials enter the Local paved, drained nor sewered. Board offices, Isaac Turton’s Cesspits and middens abounded. house, 14 High Street next door to Timperley Brook was the open where she lived. sewer for untreated sewage. It was not until she was six that the Another problem arose because of North Cheshire Water Company Irish residents who, Rawlinson brought piped water at a cost to stated, “would resist any attempt to each house of 5% of the rack rent, move their pigs or dunghills.” with a w.c, six shillings, and a bath Apart from the Great Well there 12 shillings a year extra. At least at was one pump for every 150 the age of six there was no excuse houses. for her not to be clean, even if she Two of Rawlinson’s conclusions did not understand the details of the were that every house should have rack rent. a tap and a drain, and that the town That year she could have run to should be run by a Local Board of Broadheath to see the opening of Health with nine elected the Warrington to Stockport representatives (men of substance railway with its high new bridge with over £1000), each serving for over the Manchester road. Next three years, the forerunner of the year, in 1855, she probably walked modern elected local council. up Dunham Road (not yet cut Unfortunately Helen would not, as through to Old Market Place), to a child of three in 1851 have see the new St.Margaret’s Church understood a word her father was with its lofty spire, consecrated. saying on these great matters, nor When she was eight, St.George’s would have appreciated that the was extended and a new infants’ widow of Jeremiah Lloyd had school built, the Wesleyans built a given money to found a new day school, and when she was hospital on Pinfold Brow (Lloyd twelve the first Catholic church was Street). She might have been taken built. In 1861, at thirteen, she could

7 have watched the building of the Isobel, aged three, both die. The new British School on Oxford public health improvements Road. envisaged when she first arrived in There was great rejoicing next year Altrincham had not made enough when the railway from Altrincham progress to prevent her own family was extended into the outback of tragedy. And that proved to be the Cheshire to reach Knutsford. Sadly end of her close family’s sojourn in in that year, there was an epidemic Altrincham. They left for of diphtheria and she saw, aged 14, Birmingham. her father and her youngest sister,

Part of the Local Board of Health map, 1852. References Rawlinson, Robert, Report to the General Board of Health, HMSO, 1851. Town’s Meeting Minute Book, 1852-59. The two sections of this Occasional Paper were prepared for material for a leaflet and an address to mark the unveiling of a Blue Plaque to Helen Allingham at 16, Market Street, on 15 May, l991. The plaque was sponsored by Bellway Homes Limited under the aegis of Trafford MBC’s Blue Plaques Committee on which the Society’s representative is Chris Hill. Occasional Paper 1 restored by David Miller, 2009

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