The Friends of Haworth Art Gallery would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our readers, members, supporters and kind helpers for their valued contributions over the course of the past year. It’s been an excellent year for the group, raising funds and awareness for the benefit of the Gallery, embarking on new endeavours and making strides in our continuing projects.
Probably our most significant project over the course of the year, our research into the lives of staff who worked at the house when it was the privately owned Hollins Hill (from 1909 to 1921), has proven to be an exciting endeavour that promises continuing rewards as we open up new avenues of association.
We have enlisted assistance from the relatives of former household staff from near and far: from Accrington and Littleborough in the local area, for example, and further afield from Oxfordshire and Cornwall. Our crack researcher, Jean Emmett, continues to unlock the secrets of this beautiful house and its former occupants.
Spreading the word about this project has helped elicit more details of these families and we hope to extend this reach even further as the picture continues to build. Thank you to all who have helped explore this fascinating line of investigation. A very merry Christmas to all and a happy and healthy 2019!
Sunday afternoon at the Haworth was packed with seasonal delight when Father Christmas came to visit! Throngs of excited children got the chance to meet Santa, who talked to each one in turn and made notes of all the Christmas wishes of gifts and toys for girls and boys. Ably assisted by two of his trustiest helpers, Elves Roger and Liz, Santa handed out sweets and wrote the names of all the good girls and boys in his magical book, to make sure he doesn’t forget anyone on Christmas Eve!
As well as meeting Santa, children joined in making Christmas crafts with Gallery staff and volunteers, creating wonderful Christmas wreaths and beautiful baubles for the tree. A winter wonderland of fun was enjoyed by young and old alike – a hubbub of happy voices ringing throughout the Gallery.
The huge raffle attracted lots of interest from parents and children alike, with a range of fabulous prizes, generously donated by staff and community members. Of equal interest to all ages was a delicious chocolate stall, full of festive treats!
A new and important fundraising project of the Friends of Haworth Art Gallery is to raise money to buy a defibrillator for the Gallery and grounds. In total, the Friends raised £370 over the course of the afternoon – a brilliant start to this fund! The Friends would like to extend an enormous and, dare we say, heartfelt “thank you” to the local community for their support in contributing to this critical acquisition.
Special thanks also go to Daniel and Chloe Fullalove, who organised and ran the chocolate stall, which accounted for more than £100 of the funds raised, so huge thanks and well done to them! The Fullaloves and a good number of our members should also congratulated for breaking out the most christmassy of jumpers – nicely done, folks!
We would like to wish all our supporters, visitors and readers all the very best for Christmas and the New Year and would like to thank the local community and all those who have provided help and support for our many projects over the course of 2018. Thank you!
The Friends of Haworth Art Gallery are seeking descendants of the Cowling family in Lancashire and potentially beyond: did you have a father, grandfather or other relative – or perhaps knew someone – named Joseph Cowling, who lived in Baxenden, Accrington, in the 1910’s through to 1971?
The Friends are seeking information about Joseph as part of their research into the lives of staff who worked at Hollins Hill, as the gallery was known when it was a private house owned by the Haworth family from 1909 to 1921. Joseph was then an under gardener at Hollins Hill. Originally from Yorkshire, he came to Accrington and married local girl, Rachel Hindle, at St John’s Church Baxenden in 1914. They had three children: Thomas, born in 1915; Joseph born in 1921; and Mary, born in 1929.
Leaving Hollins Hill on the death of his employer, Anne Haworth, Joseph set up a successful market garden on land just off Hill Street, Baxenden, eventually moving into number 2, Glen Cottages, adjacent to his business. In 1936, his brother Richard moved to number 5, Glen Cottages, and in 1938 also married a local girl, Maggie Jane Hunter.
Joseph died in 1974 in Rawtenstall, perhaps near to one of his children. Another of his children moved to Clitheroe and a great niece still lives in the Baxenden area, but we know little else about his family and appeal to your help in finding out more, or locating documentation.
Can you help fill in the gaps? If you are related to Joseph, have family documents, photographs (especially of Joseph and Rachel), or family stories, please contact us by email at haworthaccrington@gmail.com. Alternatively, please leave a message with the duty staff at Haworth Art Gallery during your next visit. We will be thrilled to receive any relevant information and add another branch to the tree of the Haworth’s heritage. Thank you.
Accrington Library was bursting with colour and creativity on October 6th, when the Friends joined with other groups in the local Fun Palace action. Fun Palaces give children of all ages the chance to join in free and fun cultural activities at selected venues around the country, supported by groups like the Friends.
Our team got cracking (not literally, thankfully!) with Tiffany glass-themed activities, where children had the chance to make brightly coloured lanterns of their own or to bring to life drawings of Tiffany objects with colour.
Great fun was had by all! Lots of laughs were had in between the deep concentration required to produce a lovely lamp, which children decorated with twinkling stars and emoji stickers Everyone could take their lanterns home, where some were planning to illuminate them with electric tea lights. Brilliant!
The crafts proved so popular, we almost exhausted supplies (note to self: bring more next time)! Friends’ members Jean, Harry and Alison were joined by our kind volunteer, Jav, who was a much-needed extra pair of hands.
Children and parents flocked straight to the table, eager to get started, and over the course of two hours we managed to help 40 children to create and colour their lamps and drawings.
An amazing afternoon for everyone involved. Thank you to the Library for hosting, to Jav for helping out, and to everyone who joined in . . . Tiffantastic!
Lyndhurst: a Gothic Revivalist mansion in the romantic style, built in the ghostly pale marble of its Hudson River surroundings in Tarrytown, New York. A shimmering example of Gilded Age glamour, this former home of three successive prominent New York families was latterly that of the infamous industrialist and financier, Jay Gould, whose children, nonetheless, had a social conscience. His daughter, Helen, was a noted philanthropist and, among her many acts of benevolence, used the house to help retrain women in service to sew. Her younger sister Anna (who would become Duchess of Talleyrand-Perigord) inherited the house on Helen’s death in 1938 and, despite mainly living in France, kept it fully staffed. On her own passing in 1961, she bequeathed it and its contents to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in which care it remains to the present day.
The sylvan waterfront setting is part of the landscape that inspired the Hudson River School, the group of mid-19th century American romantic artists, of which the young Louis Comfort Tiffany became a second generation exponent. Tiffany studied landscape painting under the tutelage of adherents George Inness and Samuel Colman and practiced a style of painting known as luminism, in which the rendering of light was paramount. Thanks to his affluent background, Tiffany was able to travel extensively throughout his teens and early twenties, and often portrayed scenes of social significance in these early paintings, illustrating a sensitivity to his own good fortune.
These youthful experiences were the jumping off point for an exhibition of Tiffany’s career that Lyndhurst mounted this summer. BecomingTiffany: From Hudson Valley Painter to Gilded Age Tastemaker,charted Tiffany’s trajectory from his early days as a young painter, to being a society decorator and wildly successful entrepreneur.
While Lyndhurst is home to many Tiffany artefacts of its own, this exhibition brought together some 50 examples of paintings and decorative works from public and private collections in the US and the UK, including two pieces from the Haworth’s own collection: its stunning iridescent mosaic of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and its rare Aquamarine vase (both shown here).
Tiffany’s painting style owed much to the Hudson School and the luminist approach; his mentor, Colman, would become a collaborator in Associated Artists, Tiffany’s first business venture, along with Lockwood de Forest and Candace Wheeler; all highly skilled proponents of their respective crafts, testing the boundaries of art and design.
Tiffany and his cohort became a new breed of society decorator, creating works of intense beauty and intricate craft in the new, fluidly organic style that would come to typify Art Nouveau. Members of the group designed, created and installed entire rooms, sometimes entire houses, from the furniture to the lamps and vases that adorned it; from the curtains to the window panes; they were the celebrity designers of their day. During this time, Tiffany’s artistic leanings were increasingly developing toward glassmaking and he experimented with techniques to create eye-catching effects, such as his trademark iridescence.
The era of the so-called robber barons had for Tiffany the fortunate corollary of generating a demand for works of glittering beauty at almost any price and as an astute businessman, he made clients of many of his wealthy neighbours in the Hudson Valley and Manhattan.
During this time, Tiffany also secured two career-defining commissions: to decorate the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, and to redecorate several key rooms at the White House. His strengths as a decorator and as an entrepreneur were firmly established and he would soon set up Tiffany Glassmaking, later to become Tiffany Studios, peeling off from the rest of the group. Although the associates went their separate ways, they remained on good terms throughout their careers.
Gould patronage
Questions remain as to how much Jay Gould and Tiffany in fact collaborated at Lyndhurst. The Tiffany and Gould families attended the same church in nearby Irvington and, although any direct working relationship between the two is not documented (Gould’s papers were destroyed on his own instruction and many of Tiffany’s were lost in the fire at his Long Island home, Laurelton Hall), there is some evidence to suggest that they may have worked together from an early point in Tiffany’s career.
While some of Lyndhurst’s many stained glass windows attributed to Tiffany remain in question – and indeed Jay Gould at one point installed windows attributed to Tiffany’s main rival John La Farge – nonetheless, numerous windows, many lamps and a slew of decorative items in the house are incontrovertibly Tiffany.
What is also certain, is that Helen Gould engaged Tiffany on numerous public and private commissions. Among her own personal commissions is a 10-foot stained glass panel of a doe drinking from a stream, a biblical allegory, and a smaller replica of which was displayed in the exhibit. Only now is Helen’s collaboration with Tiffany increasingly understood to have been his key connection to Lyndhurst and it is now thought to be she who should receive credit for many of the perspicacious choices that until very recently had been attributed to her father.
Lamps both owned and loaned punctuate the house throughout with spots of colour. A particularly splendid peony lamp on loan from a private collector and almost identical to one photographed with Helen Gould sat on display in the elegant dining room; a suitably Halloween-themed spider lamp graced a hall table. A sweet green banker’s lamp of the house’s own collection gleams cheerfully in a small bedroom, as do many others, casually dotted around. Standard lamps are poised at reading height alongside elaborately carved sofas. The interiors of the house are replete with Tiffany style.
It is Tiffany’s capture of light, often through a prism of saturated colour, filtered through or reflected in glass (and occasionally enamel), that would become characteristic of his lifetime’s work and which traveled through the myriad jewel-like artworks he created; from the luminism of the early paintings to the irridescence of his tiles and vases, the translucence of his lamps and windows.
The enduring joy of Tiffany’s works shines out at Lyndhurst, as it does at the Haworth; friendly and welcoming places both, rejoicing in the bequest of wealthy industrial (and female!) benefactors.
The Sulphur-crested Cockatoos will soon be winging their way back to their home territory (as will the Aquamarine vase), where they will form part of the Haworth’s redisplayed Tiffany exhibit, highlighting the significance of Tiffany foreman Joseph Briggs’ mosaic work and his critical role in Tiffany Studios’ success.Make sure not to miss these jewel box collections, whichever side of the pond you happen to be.
A fun, friendly and informative time was had by visitors to the Haworth at the Friends’ latest history and heritage event Sunday. Below Stairs and Beyond the Park served up a fresh look at the lives of the people who worked for the Haworth family and the world they inhabited at the turn of the last century in Hollins Hill, as it then was. Keen local historians and Friends founder members Jean Emmett and Roger Cunliffe engaged the audience in a fascinating social history of the Haworths’ era, and the industrial heritage of the local area – with a few props to boot!
Firstly, Jean uncovered the lives of staff who worked at Hollins Hill in its days as a private house. Key among these were coachman, William Beech, chauffeur, Joseph Taylor and valet, Abraham Naboth Imlah Whiston, who later became the gallery’s first curator. Jean also offered a glimpse into the life of Anne Haworth’s elegant companion, Ellen Priestley. Perhaps surprisingly, none of these family retainers was born in the immediate area: William hailed from Shropshire, Joseph from Manchester and Abraham from Cheshire, while Ellen was born in Russia. Jean helped to bring their personalities to life with colourful details of each one. An appeal to the many local people at the event elicited information about a previously unidentified gardener, which will help the Friends trace further details of his life.
Roger then shared his history of Baxenden, where the Haworth is located, detailing its numerous quirky name changes since first being recorded as Bastanedenecloch in the 1100’s and now often abbreviated, quite punchily (ahem), to Bash – so much simpler. Roger shared his fascinating insights into the various types of transport systems that have passed below the park on which Hollins Hill was built: from the construction of the road by Blind Jack o’ Knaresborough in the 1700s, to the old coaching routes established in the 1800’s (see earlier posts for more on these); from the steam trams which would have climbed the hill in the Haworths’ day, to the corporation buses that became the norm in the 1930s (more to come on these). Roger illustrated these changes with models of the trams in use from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s and a model of an old Accrington Corporation bus in its proud livery of navy and scarlet, the historic colours of the Accrington Pals.
The audience also heard about the old industrial buildings along the route of the former railway line from Accrington through Baxenden towards Manchester: the now demolished mills and the long-defunct Baxenden brickworks, in operation for just a few short years and outshone, of course, by its more famous neighbour. Such is Roger’s enthusiasm for his subject, however, he proudly professes to building a small collection of rare Bash bricks!
After the presentations, audience members browsed through the fascinating documents, books, photographs, maps and charts that illustrated their subjects. Thank you to our wonderful speakers and to our lovely visitors for both their participation and for their kind donations to the Friends’ funds. Our next public event will be the children’s Fun Palace project held at Accrington Library on October 6th. Stay posted for more details.
Better shape yourself if you want to get a seat at our next heritage event, Below Stairs and Beyond the Park. . .
If you’ve ever watched Mrs Patmore berating her young charge and wondered about real life below stairs in the early days of the 20th century, come along to our informal heritage event at Haworth Art Gallery this Sunday, September 23rd, at 2pm.
By popular demand, speakers from the Friends’ founding members will give us another peek into the lives of those who made Hollins Hill run like a well oiled machine for their employers, the Haworths. We’ll also be looking at the history and heritage of the local area and at the industry that helped shape the lives, both above and below stairs, of the occupants of Hollins Hill, as Haworth Art Gallery was then known.
So, come and take tea, if you please, ma’am, or simply make yourself comfortable, sir, and allow yourself to be transported to another era. While donations are appreciated, admission is free (which is more than can be said for Daisy), so please arrive early to be sure of a seat.
What a summer it’s been! A summer full of surprises. The wacky weather, the sporting highs and lows and even your secret favourite reality show (it’s ok, we won’t tell); it’s been one big turnaround after another. Expecting the unexpected became the new normal. And things at the Haworth were turned on their heads a bit too.
Throughout the summer, the Haworth staff have been working hard to manage the redisplay of the world-famous Tiffany glass exhibition. The display is being reimagined to illustrate more closely how the town came to own such a major collection of works by New York’s famed Tiffany Studios; itself an unexpected turn of events.
In fact, you could say the Haworth embodies the unexpected: an elegant Arts & Crafts mansion in a hard graft northern town; a venerable museum and art gallery where you can enjoy a Sunday rock concert; an oasis of art and culture where kids can come and get messy – and everyone can fill their boots with a lush lunch. But perhaps the biggest contradiction of all: an internationally important collection of American art glass . . . in Accrington!
How did a stunning collection of American Art Nouveau come to be in a small industrial town in Lancashire? Accrington’s many exports to New York, the products of its textile and manufacturing industries, famously include the ‘Nori’ brick core of the Empire State Building. But how did the Big Apple give up so many treasures to Accrington?
Its history follows that of a migrant Accrington lad and is a touching tribute to his hometown. The story of Joseph Briggs and his journey to New York is a significant piece of the exhibit’s provenance, and one which curator Gillian Berry felt merited closer attention.
Briggs, an engraver by training and a creative soul, was uninspired by the prospect of industrial working life in Lancashire and left for New York at the tender age of 17. His early experience in his adoptive home was far from humdrum. Through chance encounters, he spent his first couple of years in the US performing in a Wild West show; a far cry from Accrington factory life!
But Briggs’ ambitions lay elsewhere and he sought out work that would utilise his artistic skills. As luck would have it, Tiffany Studios was looking to hire new talent. Tiffany Studios was a dazzling nexus of artistic creation that captured the era’s zeitgeist and energy; exactly where Briggs wanted to be. Sadly, after a couple of applications, he didn’t make the cut. However, his artful perseverance (and perhaps a bit of northern nous) ultimately succeeded in winning him a place as Louis Comfort Tiffany’s right hand man – quite literally.
Briggs earned his 1893 entree to the company by a chance encounter in the rain, when the Englishman deftly accompanied Tiffany from his car to his office under his trusty umbrella, and forged an instant connection. After an initial trial, for which he depicted a religious scene in order to demonstrate the range of his skills, Briggs was hired. In time, he would be promoted to run the company’s mosaics department, ultimately becoming Managing Director of the studios and remaining for some 40 years. Briggs’ association with Tiffany was unique; both had maverick and creative streaks that they understood in each other. and the two worked very closely to the great benefit of the company.
After decades of glittering successes for Tiffany Studios and its highly decorative and decadent works, styles began to shift to more simplified forms. The cleaner, more restrained lines of Art Deco and Art Moderne were coming into vogue. The death knell came with the onset of the Great Depression, which killed the market for Tiffany’s sumptuous works and the company finally closed its doors in 1932.
Briggs had the overseer’s task of winding up the studios and their contents. In so doing, his mind returned to his hometown. He arranged for a large trove of some 140 Tiffany treasures to be sent back to Lancashire, where they were gifted to the town of Accrington Sadly, Briggs’ own demise not long afterwards, meant that his gift became his personal legacy to his native town.
The collection was placed in safe storage during the Second World War and languished unappreciated in boxes and crates for many years. But in the 1970s, the glass found its way to the Haworth and, happily for the viewing public, has been on display there ever since; an awe-inspiring representation of artistic and human endeavour. The collection is perfectly at home in the sympathetic surroundings of Walter Brierley’s Arts & Crafts architecture; the house and the collection each being wonderful examples of their respective turn-of-the-Century design schools.
The new reconfiguration of the Tiffany exhibit at the Haworth will illustrate the journey of these astonishing artefacts and highlight their connection – the great gift of Joseph Briggs and his part in Tiffany Studios’ success – to the town they now call home. Briggs’ own interest and prowess in mosaic-making will be brought to the fore and the flow of the exhibit will emphasise this creative process and its significance within the collection. It’s sure to be a fresh and fascinating approach to this stunning exhibit.
Stay posted for news of the display’s reveal and whatever you do, don’t delay – come see for yourself!
In August, the Friends marked a bustling inaugural year with our first AGM, kindly hosted at the Haworth by Gallery Manager Yvonne Robbins. Friends’ Chair Alison Phelan was able to report a very strong first year, in particular the excellent research projects that have helped bring to life the stories of the Haworth family and their retainers, as well as the history and heritage of the surrounding area of Baxenden.
The Friends have enjoyed a successful year of fundraising events and member drives in addition to our tremendous heritage events. Trustees, Roger Cunliffe, Jean Emmett and Harry Emmett, have been especially active, bringing their brilliant insights and research to bear in the Haworth’s archives and presenting their findings so entertainingly in these events. A number of our members have also donated generously of their time, effort and electrical appliances in supporting our efforts : ) Amazing art works too! And our hardworking Chair has kept all the group’s activities on track with grace and good humour.
Other local community projects have included the wonderfully inspiring collaboration, Haworth Through the Lens, with The Hollins’ CTC initiative, an association we hope to pursue with future projects. Similarly, we look forward to working further with the extensive photographic archive so painstakingly created by talented Blackburn College photography degree student Peter Graham.
Forthcoming Friends events at the Haworth will include a heritage afternoon, Below Stairs and Beyond the Park, on September 23rd and a Tombola and Member Drive on December 16th. The Friends will also offer Tiffany-related crafting at Accrington Library as part of a national FunPalace event for children on October 6th. More details of all these events to follow. Get those diaries out!
The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed a slight name change to Friends of Haworth Art Gallery. The shift from Friends of Haworth Art Gallery defers to the widespread use of the ‘gallery’ epithet and we hope will help us to be more identifiable.
The Friends were founded to help promote the cultural heritage of the house and park, the Art Gallery and the Tiffany collection in particular and to emphasise the significance of these in the broader cultural landscape. We are also delighted to help promote the activities of other aspects of the Haworth complex, including the Stable Block and Motor House and the Haworth Artists’ Network, which have all leapt out of the starting block since their own recent launches.
Thanks to management at Haworth Art Gallery for their encouragement and support throughout the year and to the staff and volunteers, as well as the management and staff of the Gallery Kitchen, who often generously lend their support.
If you’re interested in arts and culture or have a passion for local history and heritage and are curious about what we do, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Be it a casual interest in attending one of our events or a desire to get involved as a member, we’d love to hear from you. We’re a friendly and dedicated group and can offer opportunities for involvement in any number of ways. However great or small your interest, you can reach us at HaworthAccrington@gmail.com. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @HaworthAcc.
Yes, yes, we’re mixing our national sports metaphors. Sorry, ref. But in response to an enthusiastic Independence Day turnout, the Friends would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who attended our first community social event on the 4th of July for making it such an enjoyable and successful event. And no footie in sight!
In the warm summer weather, the kettle was underemployed for once, as cool drinks flowed, like the conversation, freely. It was especially refreshing to find so many local people with an interest in the history of Baxenden and its residents.
The evening was kicked off by local historian, Harry Emmett. Harry set out the formation for the featured speakers and was on hand to answer questions relating to his own research, including the history of the motor cars owned by the Haworth family and driven by their chauffeur, Joseph Taylor. The featured speaker for the first half was keen researcher, Jean Emmett, who shared her many fascinating findings on the lives and connections of the staff who worked for the Haworths at Hollins Hill, as it was then known. William and Anne were, by all accounts, excellent employers, treating their staff much like friends and ensuring their welfare. Jean shared photographs of the staff, including Ellen Priestly, Anne’s companion, whose portrait was only recently brought to light, and of Joseph Taylor, whose descendants are still active in the local community (see earlier blogs for more on their stories).
Changing ends, Roger Cunliffe ran with the theme on local history, starting with a look at the origins of the name Baxenden in earlier centuries, Once known as Bastanedenecloch (yep!), it mercifully became shorter over time, ultimately contracting to its present-day nickname, Bash (phew). Roger shared a wealth of information and images relating to the early days of Baxenden and its surroundings. During his talk, he described the former tramway, the history of local buses and railway travel; the retired mills and brick-works, and even the old smallpox hospital, the remains of which can still be seen today behind the grounds of Hollins School (future blogs will examine these too).
The crowd had plenty of questions for our speakers and shared their own memories of area history. A closing shot by Harry (Emmett, of course) still left plenty of extra time to mingle, chat and view the impressive displays that Jean and Roger had assembled, with photographs, maps, family trees and old census documents among the yards of material they have researched. There were no penalties for supporters looking forward to the next heritage evening (though there may be a bit of a season break till we can unearth more research) . . . One possible option for our next event is a history walk around Baxenden and Accrington, so watch this space and dust off your boots!