THE NORTHERN ART WORKERS’ GUILD AND THE ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT IN MANCHESTER

By Barry Clark, Stephanie Boydell, Richard Fletcher

Manchester Books. 168 pages. £22. ISBN 978-0-9927590-9-4

Reviewed by Jim Burns

People throng to art galleries to gaze in awe at paintings and sometimes sculptures, but often seem to overlook, if there is an adjacent museum, the record of the arts and crafts movement. I suspect there is a tendency to view  paintings as “art” and therefore imbued with some sort of message that we can all benefit from if we look hard enough. But a carefully hand-made vase might be seen as a result of “craft” and therefore with little to recommend it as a possible influence on our lives. It simply holds the flowers that can cause us to pause and reflect for a moment or two. Is a painting of those flowers any more “art” than the “craft” of the designer of the vase?  I’m not denying the skills of either, simply wondering why we consistently set up divisions between various forms of creativity. And use labels which perpetuate those divisions.

It ought to be obvious to anyone who visits galleries that much of what is hung on the walls is less than inspired. It’s competent and best thought of in terms of “craft” rather than “art”. Am I being provocative when I say that you might get more from looking at the pottery in the museum than from another bland abstract or dull landscape in the gallery? And something attractive and interesting ought to be in the home or on the streets as much as in a gallery.

The Northern Art Workers’ Guild was established in 1896, and brought together around one hundred practitioners of what, if my reasoning above has any validity, would probably have been referred to as “crafts”. There were architects, painters and decorators, needlework experts, wallpaper designers,  metalworkers and a photographer. Interestingly, few full-time practising artists appear to have been present when members of the Guild got together. There were a couple, and I’ll refer to them later, but on the whole you would have more likely met a stained glass artist than a person attempting to liven up the Manchester scene by introducing, say, the lessons of impressionism into the local art schools. They may have been around at the time but were not lured into joining the Manchester Arts and Crafts Guild. Some Guild members are described as artists along with their other occupations, but I doubt that they were ever well-known as painters. And it’s unlikely that they were stylistically all that adventurous.

Writing about the formation of the London Art Workers Guild, the authors say that it “began partly as a protest against the inequality of the Royal Academy of Art’s failing to recognise the ‘minor’, “lesser’, ‘applied’ or ‘decorative’ arts’. With William Morris at its head, it fought to adjust the balance in what was perceived to be “art”.  Morris, as the records show, was to become a regular visitor to Manchester, installing a branch of his “modern design and decorative company” in Albert Square, and, although it was short lived, “he continued to be a visitor and a powerful presence”.  Another important figure was Walter Crane, who has sometimes been wrongly credited as one of those responsible for setting up the Northern Art Workers’ Guild. Crane was not local to Manchester and was in the city as Director of Design at the Manchester School of Art.

When the Guild was formed in 1896 one of its leading protagonists was the architect Edgar Wood. He had been born in Middleton in 1860, and as an architect “designed over 150 buildings ranging from workmen’s cottages to country houses”. I have the impression of Wood as energetic, not only in his profession, but also in the operations of the Guild.

There were others involved, and out of the biographies of as many of the members of the Guild that the authors have been able to trace, the name of Charles Rowley attracted my attention. He was born in Manchester in 1839 and trained as a picture framer in his father’s business. He was a “city councillor for a ward in Ancoats, one of the poorest areas in Manchester”. In 1889 he formed the  Ancoats Brotherhood, and “organised exhibitions, concerts and lectures for the education of the working classes, and he persuaded many eminent figures to take part, including Ford Madox Brown, William Morris, Holman Hunt, Canon Rawnsley, Walter Crane and Bernard Shaw”. The authors say that “The flamboyant, outspoken, municipal socialist Charles Rowley was a key link between the London based leaders of the Arts and Craft movement and Manchester, and this would be even more evident at the newly municipalised Manchester School of Art”.

It seems to me that the biographies of the various members of the Guild are especially valuable in terms of pointing to the kind of people who were keen to contribute to the activities of the organisation.  Establishing exactly who the members were can’t have been easy : “Despite extensive searching over the years, the official records of the Art Workers’ Guild – such as membership records, minutes of meetings, accounts – have not been found”. What emerges from the information that has been assembled is that several women were members of the Guild. The number wasn’t large – nine out of the total membership of around one hundred (with just over eighty accounted for, so there could be more than nine women involved)—but it is significant, bearing in mind that, in the period concerned, many groups didn’t allow women to be members. Helen Calvert was an artist who sadly died young. Susan Isabel Dacre, artist and designer, was also “active in women’s suffrage”.  Jeanette Eldon Davis was an embroiderer and “taught dressmaking at Manchester Technical School”. Eliza Hutchins was a textile designer and sculptor.

I was especially intrigued by the life of the illustrator, May Chatteris Fisher. She studied at the Manchester School of Art under Walter Crane, and became “an accomplished book illustrator and designer of bookplates with a particular talent for portraying children and animals (including Ignoramus and Pixie, both published by Sherratt & Hughes)”. She married the artist William Smallwood Winder, and the couple moved to the Lake District. But “She died young from post-operative medical complications following an illness while on a painting holiday in Cornwall”. She was just thirty-six.  A novel could be written around her story.

The Guild held several exhibitions (1898, 1903, 1907, 1911) of members’ work, and lists of the items on display are included in the book. They provide a good guide to what members were doing, with references to ceramics, posters, illuminated manuscripts, bookplates, furniture, stained glass, pen and ink designs, calligraphy, and much more. Some members were adept at several occupations. Edgar Wood, for example, showed items relating to architectural design, interior decorating, furniture and metalwork.  F.W. Jackson listed interior decoration and ceramic tiles as among his activities. He was, in fact, also a well-known painter and a member of the Staithes colony of artists on the North East coast. He was born in Middleton and was a friend of Edgar Wood. Another artist with a link to the Guild, though only as a speaker at one of its meetings, was William Stott. He was born in Oldham and studied in Paris, as well as spending time in the artists’ colony at Grez-sur-Loing.

The Guild appears to have wound up its activities in !911, though it may have limped into 1912. But the reasons for its demise seem unclear. The start of the Great War in 1914 would most likely have brought about its end, anyway, as people volunteered for military service or, from 1916, were conscripted. And energies would have turned to production for the war effort. The authors say that there is little evidence of the Guild’s existence after the 1911 exhibition : “The timing of the Guild’s demise is perhaps not surprising. Other Arts and Crafts organisations around the country were struggling, many well before 1911-12. Even the national Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society was in disarray”. There may have been other reasons, with people moving out of the area, losing interest in the organisation, being too busy with other things. Anyone who has belonged to a local society or group will know how easily the initial enthusiasm slackens after a few months or years. Perhaps the Northern Art Workers’ Guild hadn’t done too badly, having survived for around fifteen years.

The Northern Art Workers’ Guild and the Arts and Crafts Movement in Manchester is a publication that will surely become a reference book for anyone wanting to know more, not just about the Guild but also its individual members and their involvements. It has value as local history and takes us back to a period when so much depended on activists who were prepared to give their time and energies to organising groups and societies aiming to make changes in the arts, and how they were presented to the public. There were, also, in some cases, ambitions to make changes in the wider society. Richard Collingham Wallhead, described as a “decorator and politician”, was involved with the Clarion movement and the Independent Labour Party, and edited its journal, Labour Leader. He became a councillor for Ardwick, and in 1922 was elected MP for Merthyr Tydfil. 

There are numerous relevant illustrations, a list of the speakers and their topics at Guild meetings, a bibliography, source notes, and an index. The authors and the publisher deserve credit for the work they have put into bringing out this book.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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