Francis Troup and the Art Workers' Guild

Before reading about the beginnings of the Arts and Crafts movement, I had not appreciated the significance of Francis Troup being a member of, and designing the Hall at the Art Workers' Guild.  This places Troup firmly in the midst of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Art Workers' Guild logo

As Walter Crane (who you may have noticed is my oracle on all arts and crafts events before 1900!) noted "The Art Workers' Guild...was able more effectively to raise the banner of Decorative Design and Handicraft and to gather under it a larger and wider representative group of artists" (Crane, Walter, An Artist’s Reminscences, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1907), than The Fifteen.  Crane explains the demise of The Fifteen in 1884 "we kept our meetings up for two or three years, and should, no doubt have existed for longer, but for the ultimate but natural absorption of our members into a larger Society, which was formed in 1884, with similar objects to ours, namely, "The Art Workers' Guild" (ibid).  The Art Workers Guild describe themselves as "founded in January 1884 at the Charing Cross Hotel. It was the coming-together of two existing informal discussion groups: The Fifteen, composed of designers like Walter Crane and Lewis F. Day; and the St George's Art Society, composed of six architects, all but one being pupils of Richard Norman Shaw".

No. 6, Queen Square,
address of the Art Workers' Guild

According to Crane, many members of The Art Workers' Guild had attended meetings of the Chelsea Conspirators.  He also observes that in 1888 as part of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society "many members of the Art Workers' Guild took a prominent part as presidents of various sections, as paper readers, or in the discussions"(ibid).

F.W. Troup in the 1920s

Stamp (Stamp, Gavin, A Hundred Years of the Art Workers Guild) describes of the Guild "Meetings are held fortnightly in the Hall built in the yard of No 6, Queen Square, and Bloomsbury. This hall is a convivial place it was designed by F.W. Troup and built in the 1913-14...(the Master) wears a chain of office made by Sir George Frampton, sits in a chair designed by W.R Lethaby for the short-lived firm Kenton & Co behind a table provided in 1888 as a temporary measure by W.A.S Benson. Members sit on (uncomfortable) ladder-backed, rush seated Clissett chairs, based on a design by Ernest Gimson. All very formal, very quaint, very traditional; yet within the Guild, as in civilization in a more general sense, a tradition may enshrine and pass on great truths about human nature and life. In the case of the Guild this truth is summed up in the motto on the Master’s chain and in the symbol above the Master’s chair, designed by Walter Crane: ‘Art is Unity’".

Troup Hall, drawn by Thomas Raffles Davison 1918

The hall Troup designed seems to also be called 'Troup's Hall' which is a lasting testament.  Stamp (ibid) remarks "A bust of Morris sits in pride of place in the niche above the Master’s chair in Troup’s Hall, yet when Morris’s name was first put up forward as a member in 1888 he was literally blackballed in the election.  Fortunately, owing to what Gordon Russell called ‘an entirely reprehensible and utterly justifiable bit of fiddling on the part of a scrutineer’, the black ball was deftly removed from the box."  When I included the drawing of Troup's Hall (above) in my earlier Troup post, I thought the ceiling was wooden beams, but looking at more recent photographs of the Hall I was surprised to see that it actually glass.

Troup Hall, Art Workers' Guild

In terms of Francis Troup's participation in the Art Workers' Guild, it would appear that he was a prominent member, although he seems to have not been an original member, joining in 1895.   I have just come across a very interesting directory that lists Troup's exhibitions, speeches and business interests ('Mr Francis William Troup', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011).  An extract primarily listing the speeches he gave is below, from this his almost exclusive involvement in the Art Workers' Guild can be seen.

Extract of speeches and exhibitions of Francis Troup,
'Mr Francis William Troup', Mapping the Practice
and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951,
University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011).

Parry refers to him as "architect of the Art Workers' Guild" (Parry, Linda, Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Thames & Hudson, 2005).  Troup became Master of the Art Workers' Guild in 1923 in recognition of "valuable and untiring services as Architect to the fabric of the Guild premises" he was made an ex-officio member of committee (The fifty-second annual report of the committee of the Art Workers' Guild, 1936).  

Gilbert Bayes (1872-1953),
dressed in the robe of Master of the Art Workers' Guild,
robe donated by F.W. Troup in 1924

Troup donated a number of items to the Art Workers' Guild:

• Donated a red gown of office to be worn by the Master of the Guild and black gowns to be worn by the two honorary secretaries in 1924 [AWG annual report for 1924, p.10] - these robes are doubtless the ones referred to on the Art Workers Guild website, and were designed by Voysey: "The Master serves for a single calendar year, and is supported by two honorary secretaries. They conduct the formal business of meetings in robes designed by the architect C. F. A. Voysey."  This is complicated by a history of the Guild that says "The current Master wears a strange red
  robe, designed, some says, by Voysey (though Ashbee thought this, and other traditions, were created by Troup along with the Hall)."  (Stamp, ibid)
• Troup was reported in the 1926 to have "not only safeguarded the interests of the Guild in connection with the new building next door [no further information given], but generously gave his 'party-wall' fee to pay for a new arrangement of the electric lighting of the Hall" [AWG annual report for 1926, p.9].
• In Troup's will he left a bequest to the Guild of £250.  He also left "The Works of William Morris" (24 volumes), 'a collection of valuable books on Architecture and other crafts' (45 volumes), a collection of slides, a red painted table (designed and painted by Burne-Jones), two armchairs designed by W.R.Lethaby and E.Gimson [Fifty-eighth annual report of the Committee of the Art Workers' Guild, pp.5-6].

Troup Hall ceiling, Art Workers' Guild

Details are given on the same website of numerous talks that Troup gave at  the Art Workers' Guild, such as: 

• the 1923 speech on 'Line': "Troup suggested a reconciliatory shaking of hands between Sullivan and Jackson at the end of the meeting"!
• 'Scottish Art, 1500-1800' also in 1923: "Troup spoke with slides of Scottish buildings, gardens and illustrations of period domestic life, all lent by Sir R. Lorimer courtesy of J. Warrack." - this is interesting as Troup worked with Lorimer on Whinfold, the house at Hascombe in 1898
• the 1925 talk on 'Substitutes in the Crafts': "Ladies' Night. Subject opened by H. Ricardo, followed by S. B. Caufield, A. Rackham, T. Wilson, F. W. Troup, C. R. Ashbee and N. Heaton"
• the 1929 Inigo Jones speech: "J. A. Gotch read paper and showed slides, followed by (C.R.) Ashbee and Troup"
• the 1938 speech 'Scotland's contribution to the Arts': "F. W. Troup spoke post-interval about Scottish architecture ancient and modern, showing many of his own drawings"

Past members of the Guild include the Dolmetsches, the famous Haslemere early music instrument makers.  Arnold Dolmestch was a member from 1899 and Carl Dolmetsch  in 1953.

Troup Hall detail, Art Workers' Guild

Generational conflict?

Having read Walter Crane's memoirs, it has become apparent to me that Henry Hine and his daughters and sons-in-law may well have differed in their view of art.

Special edition of The Studio, 1906
from archive.org

Henry George Hine (Ethel Blount and Maude Egerton Hine's father) was a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours ('the Institute') from 1864 onwards, becoming Vice President in 1887, a post he held until his death in 1895.  His son, Harry Hine became a member in 1879.

Wareham Bridge, Henry G. Hine,
from The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours,
The Studio, Special Number, Spring 1906

Walter Crane was a member of the Royal Institute of Watercolours from 1882.  Crane joined the Institute when it absorbed 'The Dudley', another watercolour group which organized an annual 'General Exhibition of Water-Colour Drawings' which was held in the Egyptian Gallery of the Dudley Gallery.  In 'The History of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours' (The Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, The Studio, Special Number, Spring 1906) it is noted that the Institute gained from 'The Dudley' "some of the best men...amongst these men may be noted some like Richard Beavis, Walter Crane and Herbert von Herkomer...twenty-seven men all of repute and distinguished capacity".  There is another connection here as Godfrey Blount trained under Herbert von Herkomer at Bushey.

The admission of "The Dudley" members swelled the Institute to what seems today a modest number of eighty-nine.  Walter Crane exhibited a number of works including La Belle Dame Sans Merci in their new Piccadilly galleries in 1884.  

La Belle Dame Sans Merci, by Walter Crane
exhibited at the Royal Institute of Watercolours, 1884

The conflict in the art scene at the time however led Walter Crane to resign from the Institute in 1886, along with George Clausen, one of his fellow Chelsea Conspirators.  Professor von Herkomer also left the Institute in 1890.   They all joined the rival organization, the Old Watercolour Society; Crane joined in 1888, Clausen in 1889 and von Herkomer in 1893.  Referred to at the time as the 'Old Society', this  is now called the Royal Watercolour Society.  They describe themselves on their website as "second only to the Royal Academy of Art in importance as an art society".  Crane states that at the time of resignation, he had done so "with no thought of being a candidate for another body" (Crane, Walter, An Artist’s Reminscences, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1907), so it appears that the Old Society had not lured the members away.

The two main UK watercolour organizations c.1900,
both of which are still in existence today

Walter Crane refers to his resignation from the Institute in 1886 as a follow-on from the early history of the Arts and Crafts movement.  He reproduces a letter from Sir James Dromgole Linton, president of the Institute at the time, Crane comments that prior to the letter Linton had tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to withdraw his resignation, "my dear Crane, I am sorry there was no alternative but resignation" (Crane, ibid).  Interestingly Linton was residing at Haverstock Hill in 1886 as was Henry G. Hine and family.

Study of St Albans Abbey at Sunset,
Harry T. Hine, 1880

The discontent with the established art organizations at the time, is demonstrated by Walter Crane in his public request for sponsorship of the first exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1888 "It has not been possible for a craftsman to test his work by the side of others, or, by a careful selection of examples, to prove that there are artists in other ways than oil or water colour, and other art than that enclosed in gilt frames or supported on pedestals." 

190-195 Piccadilly, London,
home of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour 1883-1970
where Henry G. Hine was Vice President 1887-1895

Throughout the emergence of the Arts and Crafts movement, Henry G. Hine held the position of Vice President at one of the rigid arts establishments.  I wonder what debates may have been had between him, his son Harry and his daughters and sons-in-law?  Would Henry have embraced the diverse crafts that the Blounts and the Kings called art?  Ultimately it would appear that Henry G. Hine left many of his paintings to Maude Egerton King (his youngest daughter), so whatever differences they may have had about art were overcome.

Godfrey Blout, from Arbor Vitae, 1899

The Blounts, the Holidays & the Cranes - dress & exhibiting

The reason why I wrote my previous posts about the birth of the Arts and Crafts movement was because there were some connections that I had not appreciated previously between the Peasant Arts movement and some of the people involved in the Arts and Crafts movement and the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union.  It would appear that the Blounts, Holidays and Cranes all produced some work as joint collaborations of husband and wife, and were all interested in the anti-corset movement.

Honesty plaster frieze by G. J. Frampton,
exhibited at 1896 Arts and Crafts Society Exhibition,
The Studio vol 9, issue 44, November 1896

Godfrey Blount exhibited works at the 1896 and 1899 Arts and Crafts Society Exhibitions (Parry, Linda, Textiles of the Arts and Crafts Movement, Thames & Hudson, 2005).  Unfortunately it is not clear what works these were, but we do know that Godfrey and his wife, Ethel Blount, worked together on tapestries.  Parry noted that the 1899 exhibition contained an increased representation of hand-weaving.  Walter Crane was the President of the Society at the time.  Then in 1904 the Godfrey and Ethel Blount joined the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union committee of which Walter Crane was one of the Vice-Presidents.

The Dress Review, January 1904
President Henry Holiday, Vice-President Walter Crane,
General Committee members Godfrey Blount and Mrs Godfrey Blount

Henry Holiday was the President of the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union, and was an original member of The Fifteen with Walter Crane back in 1886.  Holiday exhibited embroidery in the 1896 Arts and Crafts Society Exhibition. 

Bed cover designed by William Morris,
made by Catherine Holiday c.1876,
Victoria & Albert Museum

Linda Parry (ibid) refers to his wife, Catherine Holiday, as William Morris’ favourite embroideress, the only one ‘whose work is as good as the old’.  She worked for Morris & Co., embroidering Morris and Henry Holiday’s designs.  Her work was “mostly large-scale bedcovers, hangings and portieres which were drawn out in Morris & Co.’s workshops and embroidered in the firm’s silks.  She was a hard-headed businesswoman, and all her work for Morris was done after mutual agreement on colours and materials.  He was often worried that her prices of £100-150 per hanging were too high.  Three panels embroidered by her, one designed by Morris and another by Henry Holiday, were exhibited in 1888 and 1890.” (ibid)

Healthy & Artistic Dress Union leaflet detail

Walter Crane’s wife and daughter also exhibited works at the Arts and Crafts Society Exhibitions.  In the 1888 exhibition “of all the embroideries exhibited, Mrs Walter Crane’s mantel valance worked in white cotton on black wool was singled out for praise by several journals” (Parry, ibid).  Although not appearing as a Committee member on the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union, the July 1906 Dress Review reported Mrs Walter Crane as presiding over a Healthy and Artistic Dress Union meeting "A few highly appreciated words were spoken by Mistress Crane, who emphatically condemned tight-lacing, though she admitted she now liked a little support herself".

Mrs Walter Crane, 1882
by Walter Crane, Musee Orsay

Walter Crane and the birth of the Arts & Crafts movement

Completing my foray into the not very well-documented birth of the Arts and Crafts movement, it is interesting to note that Walter Crane recalls “the title “The Combined Arts” headed our first circular, and it was not until later that our title “Arts and Crafts” was adopted, I think on the suggestion of Mr. T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, who acted as Hon. Secretary.” (An Artist’s Reminscences, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1907)

Arts and Crafts Society header by Walter Crane

The circular written by Walter Crane as chair of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society requesting guarantors to hold the first exhibition is reproduced by Crane in his memoirs:

“Something very like a revival of the arts and handicrafts has been taking place amongst us of late years; but while the awakening of interest is undeniable and widespread, there has hitherto been no means – except such chance opportunities as have been from time to time afforded by various trade exhibitions – of enabling those concerned with the more purely artistic side of the applied arts, or crafts of design, to gauge our general progress.  It has not been possible for a craftsman to test his work by the side of others, or, by a careful selection of examples, to prove that there are artists in other ways than oil or water colour, and other art than that enclosed in gilt frames or supported on pedestals.  In short, there is no existing exhibition of art which gives an opportunity to the designer and the craftsman as such to show their work under their own names, and give them at least a chance of the attention and applause which is now generally monopolised by the pictorial artist.

detail of The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society ticket, 1890
designed by Walter Crane

"It is believed that such opportunities of public recognition and distinction would supply a stimulus not hitherto felt by workers in the handicrafts, and would tend to draw artistic invention and skill again to the arts in their endless forms of application to daily life and its associations and surroundings, to the charm of which their beauty may contribute so much, and so, perhaps, we should go far to nourish the tree at the roots instead of, as now, too often attempting to grow it downwards.

"Art exhibitions have hitherto tended to foster the prevalent notion that the term ‘Art’, is limited to the more expensive kinds of portable picture-painting, unmindful of the truth that the test of the condition of the arts in any age must be sought in the state of the crafts of design…

New Gallery, Central Hall,from New Gallery Catalogue No. 1, Summer 1888

"The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society has been formed with these convictions, and with the aim (1) of taking measures for organising an exhibition of the decorative arts, which shall show (2) as far as possible the inventive and executive powers of the designers and makers of the various works that may be exhibited, such as textiles, tapestry, and needle-work, carvings, metal-work, including goldsmith’s work, bookbinding, painted glass, painted furniture, etc. etc. to illustrate the relation of the arts in application to different materials and uses, without, however, excluding paintings or sculptures less directly of a decorative kind when space is available for showing them in proper relations.  (3) It is not proposed to undertake the sale  of works, but to refer intending purchasers directly to the exhibitors. (4) All work will be exhibited under the name of the designer and responsible executant…

New Gallery, Regent Street interior, 1888
site of the first, and subsequent, Arts and Crafts Society Exhibitions

“The Society have the refusal of the New Gallery in Regent Street for their exhibition in the ensuing autumn, and a sum of £260 has been already guaranteed by the members, but while there is reasonable prospect of the exhibition being self-supporting, since it is not desirable to conclude final arrangements until the whole of the estimated costs are at command further guarantees are invited to make up a further sum of £500.  The profits of the exhibition, after exonerating the guarantors, would be devoted to future exhibitions of the Society.

“As one interested in the welfare of the arts, we venture to put our objects before you, and invite you to become a guarantor.

“In order to make the necessary arrangements, we should be obliged  if you would kindly favour us with your reply by the 26^th of March.

                                                                        Walter Crane, President

Harry Bates                                                      William De Morgan

W. A. S. Benson                                              William Morris

(Hon. Sec. and Treasurer)                                J. Hungerford Pollen

Somers Clarke                                                  G. T. Robinson

Lewis F. Day                                                    T. J. Cobden-Sanderson

Onslow Ford                                                     J. D. Sedding

F. Gerrard                                                         Heywood Sumner

C. Guiliano                                                       Emery Walker

Thomas Godfrey                                              Thomas Wardle

W. R. Lethaby                                                  Metford Warner

Henry Longden                                                Stephen Webb

W. H. Lonsdale                                                N. H. J. Westlake

Mervyn McCartney”

The first exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Society was held in October 1888, and the ensuing rise of the movement is well-documented elsewhere.

Walter Crane & the Chelsea Conspirators - Arts and Crafts movement

I am exploring the emergence of the Arts and Crafts movement here to better understand it, and also as I have found that whilst the works of the Arts and Crafts movement is well-known, what sparked the movement itself off is not very well known at all.  Having read further into Walter Crane’s An Artist’s Reminscences (The MacMillan Company, New York, 1907) I am less convinced of the significance of the Fifteen as a precursor to the Arts and Crafts Movement as a whole.  I believe that is an over-simplistic interpretation of events at the time.  There were numerous groups from 1881 onwards, of artists, in the wider sense of the word, joining together to discuss a more comprehensive view of art and design.  

Burlington House, Piccadilly, London
home of the Royal Academy since 1867 & catalyst for the
Arts and Crafts Movement

Crane writes that “In the summer and autumn of 1886 I was considerably engaged in agitation for a really representative National Exhibition of Art as distinct from the Royal Academy and its methods, and on much broader and more comprehensive lines, including a better representation of architecture and sculpture, as well as decorative design and handicraft.

The New English Art Club, established in 1885

"There had been rather more than the usual crop of surprising rejections at the Royal Academy that year, and the group of artists who then formed the leading spirits of the New English Art Club felt that something ought to be done – if only to bring their own forms of art more prominently before the public.

"There was a lively correspondence in the newspapers; the subject became a quite exciting topic – in fact, a burning question, as indeed it is apt to do when it happens to suit the convenience of editors as copy to fill their sheets with when the silly season comes on.

"In 1886, however, things looked really more serious.  Complaints were loud and deep from disappointed artists and their friends, and grew into something like a clamour.” (ibid).

Sir George Clausen, Study for a self-portrait,
probably early-mid 1880s, Royal Academy

It is here that George Clausen, then a prominent member of the New English Art Club played a important part.  He contacted Walter Crane to try and convince him to influence the creation of a new movement “which will help to place art matters – or rather the exhibition of pictures and sculpture on a better footing than they now have here…instead of making another little society, to start if possible a national movement on a broad and fair basis…an exhibition open to all artists…every artist who has exhibited in the United Kingdom in the last three years (to be) invited to send…Every artist will be eligible to serve on the hanging and selecting committees, and will have a vote for these committees, that is the principle – that artists have the right to elect their own committees (i.e. juries) – what could be more simple or more just?” (ibid).

These principles encapsulate those that were then adopted by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.  It is interesting to read them asserted by an artist not primarily linked to the Arts and Crafts movement now, as clearly his contact with Walter Crane was a significant contribution.

William Holman Hunt, Self portrait, 1867,
Galleria degli Uffizi

Crane recalls that “these principles at once claimed my sympathy, and after a lengthy correspondence, Clausen drafted a letter for publication, embodying these principles…asking me, if it had my approval, to sign it…we then asked Mr. Holman Hunt (who was engaged in the newspaper warfare on the question at the time) to sign it also, which he agreed to do, and in the letter I received from him a the time he says: - “I gladly sign, finding it to express in a manly and distinct manner the absurdity of the position of English artists in the present day, and to appeal not less distinctly for a redress of injustice which the Royal Academy does to the whole profession by its opportunity to assume authority over without acknowledging responsibility towards outsiders.

"The letter with our joint signatures duly appeared in all the principal papers and attracted a considerable amount of attention and discussion." (ibid)

Clausen, Crane and Hunt then followed up the letter with an appeal to artists to support this proposal.  Their letter read:

Exterior of Wentworth Studios, Manresa Road, Chelsea
Meeting place of the Chelsea Conspirators,
from the London Metropolitan Archives, City of London

“Dear Sir, - The proposals for a National Exhibition of Art lately put forth in the public press have raised the whole question of the adequacy of the present representation of the Arts in Exhibition.

The principle put forth in these proposals, namely, that artists should have the right to choose the committees entrusts with the selection and placing of their works, the undersigned hold to be sound and just, and that it is the basis on which a representative Exhibition of the Arts should be conducted.  Believing that it will, on fair consideration, meet with the agreement and cordial support of artists generally, they beg to ask you if you will consent to join with them in forming a Provisional Committee to consider the best means of carrying out this principle?......

(Signed) George Clausen, Walter Crane, W. Holman Hunt

N.B. – Informal meetings are held each Saturday evening at he studio of J.H. Thomas (1 Wentworth Studios, Manresa Road, Chelsea) of the friends and supporters of the movement, and all artists interested are invited to attend and state their views freely.” (ibid)

Frederick Brown by Philip Wilson Steer, 1894
National Portrait Gallery

Crane goes on to describe that “We had a large number of adherents among the artists, and the meetings at Chelsea were very numerously attended, and there being so many of the Chelsea colony in the movement and the meetings being held there, we were eventually nicknamed “The Chelsea Conspirators”.

Crane lists some of these “conspirators”:

• "Mr. Frederick Brown, now Slade professor at University College, was elected Chairman of these meetings
• Mr. Whistler gave us his benison, but did not attend
• Mr. Oscar Wilde was present on one occasion and spoke, I think
• Mr. H. H. La Thangue (who acted as Hon. Secretary pro tem.) was keenly interested in the movement
• Mr James Stanley Little (at one time the active Secretary to the Shelley Society) also worked hard in the movement, using his pen vigorously, and really he remains one of the few men in it who have stuck to their guns.
• Mr. S. J. Solomon
• Mr. T. B. Kennington
• Mr. M. H. Spielmann" (ibid)

Henry La Thangue, self portrait, 1890
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, New Zealand

Crane notes that George Clausen, Mr. H. H. La Thangue and Mr. S. J. Solomon “have all since those days been admitted into the Academic citadel.  The walls of Jericho refused to fall at the sound of the Chelsea trumpets, so in the end certain of the trumpeters went in to reinforce (not reform) the garrison!

"Much steam was let off, and I think much time and energy wasted, and although, ostensibly, the object was to further the original scheme of a National Exhibition of Art, with a jury annually elected by the artists of the country, and make a wider appeal, so as to enrol a very large body of supporters, one became aware that behind a few earnest men there were others who were by no means anxious to see the scheme realised, and the result was the when at last the question was put to the test it was discovered that the majority were too timid or too politic to support the big national scheme, but fell back on the pretence and the forlorn hope of reforming the Royal Academy, the real secret being that certain prominent artists in the movement having had, I suppose, second thoughts, when it came to the point were not willing to forego their own chances of election to the privileged body they had made a show of opposing.  So, as far as the painters and sculptors were concerned, the agitation, which had attracted so many adherents and had become more important than any outsiders’ demonstration previously, fizzled out in a mild manifesto of pious opinion, which yet obtained, I believe, some three hundred signatures.” (ibid)

Burlington House, home of the Royal Academy,
present day

Walter Crane & the Fifteen - Arts and Crafts movement

After having done some reading on the Arts and Crafts movement I have realized that there are some details and interconnections that I have previously overlooked due to my amateur understanding of this area!  So I would like to set them straight.  Firstly with Walter Crane.

Walter Crane, by G. F. Watts, 1891
National Portrait Gallery

I had thought of Crane as principally an artist with an interest in the Arts and Crafts movement, but it seems that this is not correct.  Walter Crane was one of The Fifteen, a group at the forefront of the creation of the Arts and Crafts movement.  Then in 1887, Crane was elected Chairman of a new organization, The Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, and wrote a letter of appeal asking for guarantors to fund the first Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1888, signing himself as President of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.  He therefore had a very active part in the Arts and Crafts movement, including shaping it's very beginning.  I am surprised that Walter Crane's pivotal role in the Arts and Crafts movement does not really feature in his Wikipedia entry!

Detail of cover of Arts and Crafts Essays, 
by Members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society
(Preface by William Morris), Rivington, Percival & Co.,
London, 1893

There are many parallels between Crane and the Peasant Arts movement that I have explored previously:

• Crane was a Vice President of the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union when Godfrey and Ethel Blount were on the Committee.  See previous post
• Crane admired peasant clothing and travelled Europe admiring examples of it.  See previous post
• Crane had links to the local area through his publisher Edmund Evans in Witley, his artist friend G.F. Watts in nearby Compton and George Bernard Shaw, from this connection he painted the Fox and Pelican public house sign in Grayshott.  See previous post
• Crane was a member of the Institute of Painters in Watercolour during the time Henry G. Hine was also a member and then Vice President

Arts and Craft Society private view invitation 1903,
designed by Walter Crane,
Victoria and Albert Museum

Around 1886 discontent with the attitude of the Royal Academy put the wheels in motion for the creation of the Arts and Crafts movement.  The two key areas of public discontent were:

• the lack of democracy at the Royal Academy - "journalists and correspondents alike believed that a fairer election of members would be gained by offering all exhibitors equal suffrage and that elected membership of the Council and the Hanging and Selection Committees should be for a fixed term only" (Parry, Linda, Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Thames & Hudson, 2005)
• the favouring of painters to the exclusion of other artists - this was highlighted by the omission of a Professor of Architecture, whilst at the same time architects were widening their scope into all-round designers.  In 1886 over 80% of Academicians were painters.

As part of the opposition to the Royal Academy, a group of general designers established 'The Fifteen'.  Crane states in his memoirs that "Personally, I may say, I had little interest in the reform of the Royal Academy, and less belief in its possibility.  Threatened men live long, and threatened institutions still longer".  Walter Crane relays the beginning of this group:

Detail of the symbol of the Fifteen
by Walter Crane, Lewis F. Day is shown riding a chariot,
Walter Crane is riding a crane;
from Parry, Linda, Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement, Thames & Hudson, 2005

"It was during the winter of 1881 that a group of designers and decorative artists formed themselves into a little Society to discuss subjects of common interest to themselves and bearing upon various branches of design.  The idea was initiated by Mr. Lewis F. Day, whom I had not seen since the old days of “The Quibblers,” and it was pleasant to renew my friendship with him when he invited me to join this Society.  The other original members where Mr. Henry Holiday, Mr. Hugh Stannus…We used to meet at each other’s houses or studios about once a month from October to May, the host of the evening being responsible for the refreshment of both the outer and the inner man, and he had to provide a paper or open a discussion on some subject or question of decorative art.

The name “The Fifteen” was adopted from a popular puzzle with which people were wont to exasperate their spare moments about this time – some trick with fifteen numbers and one blank in a square box.  We never, however, really numbered fifteen.  Some joined and some left …”The Fifteen” was really born in a snowstorm. The first meeting was at Mr. Lewis Day’s house in Mecklenburgh Square, on a certain Tuesday in January, I think – known as “Hurricane Tuesday.”  In fact, Beaumont Lodge was almost buried in the drifts of snow, and the blizzard was so severe that I did not turn out.  However, there were a dauntless few who made a quorum and started the Society, which was the means of bringing forth many interesting papers and pleasant fireside discussions.”

Mecklenburgh Square, venue for the first meeting of the Fifteen;
Snow in Mecklenburgh Square, Enslin Hercules de Plessis

…we kept our meeting up for two or three years, and should, no doubt, have existed longer, but for the ultimate but natural absorption of our members into a larger Society, which was formed in 1884, with similar objects to ours, namely, “The Art Workers’ Guild,” but which was able more effectively to raise the banner of Decorative Design and Handicraft and to gather under it a larger and wider representative group of artists.”  (Crane, Walter, An Artist’s Reminiscences, The MacMillan Company, New York, 1907)

Weaving in Walter Crane’s loose ends: friends or acquaintances?

So far I have found some mutual interests between the Peasant Arts movement and Walter Crane that I highlighted in previous posts: that Walter Crane was a Vice President of the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union when Godfrey and Ethel Blount were on the Committee, and that Walter Crane admired peasant clothing and travelled Europe admiring examples of it.  I have found some more connections, but before I go into them let us consider whether Walter Crane and the Blounts were actually friends or just acquaintances?

from The Baby's Own Aesop, 1887 taken from Crane, Walter, Triplets, 
George Routledge & Sons, London, 1899.
Printed by Edmund Evans of Witley

Crane and Godfrey Blount were both artists, with a fascination for peasant clothing and they both sat on the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union committee between 1904-1906 and maybe longer.   In addition, Crane had links to the local area: his printer friend Edmund Evans lived in nearby Witley (as did Joseph and Maude Egerton King from 1894) and Crane was a socialist, friends with George Bernard Shaw (who gave a speech at Joseph’s King house in 1930, and in 1898 gave a lecture to the Microscope Society on Kings Road on ‘Why I am a Socialist’), G.F. Watts in nearby Compton and painted the sign for The Fox and Pelican pub in nearby Grayshott.  Another connection is that Crane was a member of the Institute of Painters in Watercolour from 1882-1886, Henry George Hine (Ethel Blount and Maude Egerton King’s father) was a member of the Institute from 1863 and became Vice President on the Institute in 1887. 

George Bernard Shaw c.1900 from Winter and Collyer, Around Haslemere 
and Hindhead in Old Photographs, Alan Sutton Publishing, 1991

It is doubtless therefore that Walter Crane was acquainted with the Peasant Arts movement, it would be easy to assume that due to so many shared interests, Crane was friends with Godfrey Blount and others.  Having thought this through though, I have concluded that this is incorrect.  Walter Crane, the prolific producer of commercial art and friend of William Morris held different beliefs from the Peasant ‘artists’. 

Was Godfrey Blount the black sheep of the arts & crafts movement?!
From Baby's Opera, taken from Crane, Walter, Triplets, 
George Routledge & Sons, London, 1899.
Printed by Edmund Evans of Witley

Blount’s “assertion that the amateur is the only artist and merchant” was at odds with Crane’s more traditional pursuit of publication.  Greville MacDonald nicely sums up this difference between Godfrey Blount and other artists at the time "That artist (Godfrey Blount) had revealed his genius for design in a truly noble book Arbor Vitae, which will yet be accepted as the one inspiring manual on the subject.  If he, in addition to his intense faith in handicraft, and his unremitting industry in securing its practical recognition, had envinced some personal ambition - of which no man I ever knew had less - his work and influence would be this time have stood alongside of William Morris's - and perhaps of a surer stability because dissociated from political illusions." (MacDonald, 1932, Reminiscences of a Specialist, London, George Allen and Unwin).

Crane did work on tapestry, but this was on William Morris’ first figure piece tapestry, which used Crane’s “Goose-girl” design (Crane says in his An Artist’s Reminiscences that this is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but I cannot find it).

from Crane, Walter, The Song of Sixpence,
John Lane,  London 1909.
Printed by Edmund Evans of Witley

Crane had visited the local Haslemere area. His friend the printer Edmund Evans, who collaborated with Crane on various publications, such as The Baby’s Opera lived in nearby Witley.  Next door lived Myles Birket Foster, the famous artist.  And down the road at Sandhills lived Helen Allingham, another artist.

In 1876 Crane recalls visiting Edmund Evans “ I remember my wife and I went to stay at Mr. Evan’s charming house at Witley, in Surrey and it was there that the general idea and the size and bulk of the book (The Baby’s Opera) were settled upon, Mr. Evan’s experience as a printer being most valuable in the pracrical details of cost and make up…Mr. Evan’s house was pleasantly situated on the brow of a hill commanding a view of Blackdown and the sunny Weald, associated with the home of Tennyson.” (Crane, Walter, An Artist's Reminscences, Macmillan Company, 1907).  Crane met Birket Foster on that occasion.  The Baby’s Opera had published over 40,000 copies by the time Crane wrote An Artist’s Reminiscences.

The Fox and Pelican pub sign by Walter Crane

Walter Crane’s involvement in the Grayshott and District Refreshment House Association with George Bernard Shaw is interesting.  According to Trotter (The Hilltop Writers, The Book Guild, 1996) this was formed “in 1898 when a local brewer threatened to install a conventional public house at Grayshott…at that time there was a good deal of alarm at the spread of drunkenness among the working class, and temperance societies were active.  

  

'The Hazels' on Kings Road c. 1910:
this was a private temperance hotel, restaurant and confectioners
from Winter and Collyer, Around Haslemere and Hindhead in Old Photographs,
Alan Sutton Publishing, 1991

The Association sought to steer a path between excessive drinking and total abstinence.  They managed to pre-empt the brewer’s action by building The Fox and Pelican, a refreshment house…the only source of alcohol provided was ‘a little three-handled beer engine, hidden modestly away behind a curtain’.    The original inn sign was painted by Walter Crane, ostensibly because of his friendship with George Bernard Shaw, one of the drivers behind establishing The Fox and Pelican.  The sign shows a pelican sheltering it’s young under it’s wings from a fox.  The sign was missing for a long time, but happily it was tracked down by the Grayshott Archive last year (2010), and bought at auction for £3,500.

The Fox and Pelican pub c. 1899 with the writing side of the Crane sign facing
from Winter and Collyer, Around Haslemere and Hindhead in Old Photographs,
Alan Sutton Publishing, 1991