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J. Davies Enys, Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929)

Oil on canvas, Newlyn School, early 20th century. John Davies Enys (1837-1912) was born at Enys, near Penryn, Cornwall, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1861. He was devoted to the natural sciences and travelled widely in search of specimens. Despite his scientific discoveries and published papers, Enys only ever saw himself as a gentleman collector'. He sent many objects back to Cornwall from New Zealand, some of which are in the Royal Cornwall Museum collections. He returned to the Enys Estate in 1891, which he inherited in 1906. Enys was twice President of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, in 1893-1895 and again from 1911 until his death in 1912. Mount Enys, the highest peak in the Craigieburn Range, Canterbury, is named after him. Henry Scott Tuke was born into a Quaker family in Lawrence Street, York. In 1859 the family moved to Falmouth, where his father Daniel Tuke, a physician, established a practice. Tuke was encouraged to draw and paint from an early age and some of his earliest drawings, aged four or five years old, were published in 1895. In 1875, he enrolled in the Slade School of Art. Initially his father paid for his tuition but in 1877 Tuke won a scholarship, which allowed him to continue his training at the Slade and in Italy in 1880. From 1881 to 1883 he was in Paris where he met the artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, who encouraged him to paint en plein air (in the open air) a method of working that came to dominate his practice. While studying in France, Tuke decided to move to Newlyn, Cornwall where many of his Slade and Parisian friends had already formed the Newlyn School of painters. He received several lucrative commissions there, after exhibiting his work at the Royal Academy of Art in London. In 1885, he returned to Falmouth where many of his major works were produced. He became an established artist and was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy in 1914. Tuke suffered a heart attack in 1928 and died in March 1929. In his will he left generous amounts of money to some of the men who, as boys, had been his models. Today he is remembered mainly for his oil paintings of young men, but in addition to his achievements as a figurative painter, he was an established maritime artist and produced as many portraits of sailing ships as he did human figures. He was a prolific artist, over 1,300 works are listed and more are still being discovered

© RIC

Black John of Tetcott, James Northcote (1746-1831)

Oil on canvas, English School. In 1784 Northcote painted the portrait of John Arscott (1718-1788) of Tetcott, Devon, and it is probable that he painted this portrait of Black John of Tetcott at same the time. Black John was under four foot in height and suffered from kyphosis, known at the time this portrait was painted as hunchback'. The descriptions of his life, spent in the service of John Arscott, record his success as a jester and his devotion to his master'. It was common for servants lives to be overlooked and trivialised by the households they worked for and for their histories to be re-written, ensuring that they had no voice of their own. For example, it was noted that "his role as jester included swallowing and retrieving strings of live mice and mumbling sparrows, removing their feathers with his teeth while the sparrow was in his mouth. He died of grief shortly after his master." There is no history of Black John's life (not even a record of his real name) that is not in relation to that of his master'. James Northcote was born in Plymouth, the son of a watchmaker and optician. He was apprenticed to his father's trade but showed a talent for art. In 1769 he left his father's work and set up as a portrait painter. He was admitted as a pupil into the studio and house of Sir Joshua Reynolds in London as a pupil and assistant between 1771 and 1776. He came to consider himself an authority on his master and in 1813, after Reynolds death, he published his posthumous Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds

© RIC

James Tangye (1825-1912) in his workshop at Aviary Court, Illogan, Cornwall. Around 1900

Mr James Tangye pictured in his workshop at his home, Aviary Court. He is seated, wearing a hat and holding a cane, amid various pieces of machinery. James was one of the five sons of Joseph Tangye senior, an Illogan miner, who commenced their engineering and manufacturing business together in Birmingham in 1856. James (1825-1912), the eldest, was very skilled with the lathe; Joseph (1826-1902) was the creative engineer; Richard (1833-1906) dealt with public relations and sales; George (1835-1920) was the businessman; while Edward (1832-1909), a Quaker, soon left to found his own business. Velocipedes, also known as Boneshakers, due to their iron tyres, were one of the many things that were manufactured at Tangye's Cornwall Works. The business also provided the hydraulic rams required to launch the Great Eastern, Brunel's ill-fated steel ship in 1857-1858, and to raise Cleopatra's Needle to its present position on the London Embankment in 1878. The first direct-acting steam pumps in Europe were made at the Cornwall Works in 1867 and the firm produced James Tangye's horizontal steam engines from 1869. By 1876 the firm employed 1300 workers. The Tangyes were also philanthropists and from 1880 were founders and major benefactors of the Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum and the Birmingham School of Art. Upon his retirement in 1872, "James returned to Illogan, where he purchased Aviary Cottage - a smallish house in a gentle green valley sheltered from the sea and the mines. There he established his own workshop in which he could follow the craft which he truly enjoyed. He spent much of his time giving a free training to young men of the neighbourhood who wished to prepare for engineering careers, but who, in the prevailing depression of the Cornish tin industry, had not the means to pay for apprenticeship. James also fitted up his own observatory with telescope and sidereal clock so that he could seriously pursue his hobby of astronomy. He made many journeys back to Smethwick to give help and advice whenever it was needed, but he never again felt tempted to leave for long his native village, where he died in 1912". (Rachel E. Waterhouse, 1957, A Hundred Years of Engineering Craftsmanship, Tangyes Limited 1857-1957). Photographer: Unknown

© From the collection of the RIC