Ford Madox Brown and Manchester
Was he a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society? A minor Victorian mystery.
Ford Madox Brown is usually considered a Pre-Raphaelite artist although he was not a member of the original founding Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He knew a number of the Pre-Raphaelite artists and adopted their style.
The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of 19th century artists who focused on vibrant colour and close attention to detail. A number of their paintings and works had religious themes or elements of social commentary.
Madox Brown spent much of his working life in London but he has also come to be closely associated with Manchester. In the early part of his life he had not been commercially successful but by the time he reached his mid 50’s he secured what was probably his most lucrative and successful commission which saw him through most of the final part of his artistic career, the Manchester murals.
The Manchester Murals
In the 1870’s Alfred Waterhouse was designing Manchester‘s new town hall. He and the city Council were keen to have murals illustrating Manchester’s history as a major part of the interior decor. A Manchester artist, Frederick Shields, was a key advocate for Madox Brown, and himself, to be the artists creating the murals.
There was a considerable risk in using the medium of mural. The damp Manchester weather did not lend itself to traditional mural painting in fresco, i.e. applying the paint direct to wet plaster. Also, recent murals such as in the Palace of Westminster had been considered to be unsuccessful due to the technical challenges. These challenges, which Madox Brown would have to overcome, included painting to the right scale and perspective on large surfaces and colours which would change or fade as the pigments dried.
Notwithstanding these risks the City Council and Waterhouse decided to go ahead with using mural and in 1878-79 Madox Brown and Shields were commissioned to create the mural scheme. The original plan was to create twelve, six each.
Although Madox Brown had previously had contact with the Manchester art world, the Manchester murals commission marked the beginning of a fairly long and close association with the city.
From the start there was controversy because Madox Brown believed that he was not being paid enough. The original price was £275 per mural with the City Council dictating the subject matter and wanting to see and approve drawings for each one. However, the drawings and preparatory cartoons did have some additional benefit to Madox Brown because he kept ownership of those and was able to sell them on.
There was some dispute about the subject matter from the outset. The City Council had intended that the murals would reflect aspects of Manchester history to give the local population knowledge and pride in it. However, as one of the influential commentators of the day, William Axon, pointed out, at least two subjects of the murals, the Baptism of Edwin and the trial of Wycliff took place in York and London respectively .The decision to include those events in a cycle of pictures depicting the history of Manchester was based on the fact that they still represented the coming of Christianity and the beginnings of non-conformity which were key parts of Manchester’s history.
Madox Brown wanted to finish the cycle with the Peterloo massacre which was probably indicative of his social liberalism and desire to paint a scene with action. But to his annoyance that was refused by the City Council as being too controversial. Therefore, the cycle ended with John Dalton, one of the city’s great scientists and a founding member of the Literary and Philosophical Society.
When Madox Brown started the murals, because of the problems with traditional fresco methods he used what was known as the Gambier Parry method, which involved mixing gum and varnish with the paints then applying to a dry prepared surface. That was felt to be more resistant to damp and indeed during the recent restoration of the town hall it has been found that the murals have survived the Manchester climate reasonably well (link here to Manchester library video on town hall restoration)
Initially Madox Brown continued to live in London and stay temporarily in Manchester. However, he soon found that he was working long hours, from 10 am until 10 pm, seven days a week, so in 1881 he decided to move himself and his family to Manchester where he resided until 1887. Initially the Madox Browns lived in Crumpsall before moving in 1883 to the then more fashionable area of Victoria Park. The house they rented in Victoria Park had previously been occupied by Sir Charles Halle of the Halle Orchestra fame.
While working on the murals Madox Brown would sit inside a canvas tent in the town hall on a moveable wooden platform. To his annoyance life in the town hall continued around him and he protested to the City council about the distractions of flower shows, public meetings and organ recitals occurring in the room while he was working. However, this last did prove something of a benefit because he got to know the Town hall organist, James Pyne, very well and appreciated listening to Pyne practice while he painted.
Madox Brown was not known for his speed and indeed one of his most famous paintings, Work, which is now in the Manchester City Art gallery, took him 13 years to finish. As the work on the murals progressed it became apparent that the project was going to take longer than anyone anticipated. Frederick Shields also dropped out, leaving Madox Brown to complete all 12 of the murals. That did create an opportunity for him to renegotiate the contract and the price for the final six murals increased to £375 each, with £100 retrospectively being paid for each of the previous six murals. Despite this Madox Brown was not happy and felt undervalued, making a number of complaints to the City Council about what he was being paid.
It also became apparent that it was too difficult to paint the murals in situ given the distractions so Madox Brown switched from painting them direct onto the walls to painting them onto canvas, which would then be attached to the walls. That meant that by 1887 he could move back to London and finish the last three murals on canvas in his London studio thereby ending his residence in Manchester.
Manchester Society in the late nineteenth century and Madox Browns part in it.
During his time in Manchester Madox Brown integrated into the artistic and intellectual life of the city. Victorian Manchester has become known as the “shock city” of the industrial revolution, typifying many of its good and bad characteristics.
It was a city where many people lived in appalling poverty as outlined by Engels in his Condition of the Working Class in England.
But alongside that was a thriving intellectual life, with much activity in the sciences, arts and literature. The Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society was of course a key part of that, but then there were many other active clubs and societies as well, some of which Madox Brown played an active part in. For example he lectured at the Manchester Literary Club and the Royal Manchester Institution, whose building is now part of the Manchester City Art gallery. He was an honorary member of the Brasenose club and regularly attended the Halle.
Especially after he moved to Victoria Park, he hosted gatherings at his home which included such movers and shakers in the Manchester scene as CP Scott, the editor of the Manchester Guardian and Charles Rowley.
Rowley was a keen promoter of the arts but also a social reformer who encouraged Madox Brown to assist in some of his welfare activities in Ancoats, by for example giving free lectures on art. Brown, Rowley and other friends set up a labour bureau in Manchester to assist the unemployed to find work. In 1886 Brown was one of the speakers at a meeting for the unemployed in Pomona Gardens within an attendance of around 6000.
Browns interest in social issues is also highlighted by one of his most famous paintings, Work. To his pride this picture was acquired by Manchester City Art Gallery and still forms a prominent part of its Pre-Raphaelite collection. The picture is well worth seeing if visiting the art gallery (link to gallery and article on Work ) Much has been written about this complex painting, including by Madox Brown himself, but essentially it is a hymn to the dignity of work ,by hand and brain. Although it is set in the street in Hampstead, it is interesting to see that there are some connections with Madox Brown’s time in Manchester. When addressing the unemployed in Pomona Gardens, Brown condemned charitable middle class ladies who blamed drink for the condition of the working classes, which is also illustrated in one of the scenes in Work, where a middle class woman’s pamphlets against drink are discarded by the hard-working road navvies.
Brown had an interesting and sometimes challenging personal life. One of the reasons why he moved his family to Manchester was that he had concerns about his second wife, Emma, who was unfortunately an alcoholic. He decided to move the family to Manchester so that he could care for her while he was engaged on the mural work. It was also an opportunity for her to commit to giving up drink which sadly did not work long-term. Emma was also one of the reasons why he eventually left Manchester, believing that the damp climate was affecting her health. Madox Brown also had a relationship with Mathilde Blind, a German writer with radical views who also moved to Manchester with the Madox Brown family, causing some tensions for the artist at home.
Additionally, Brown’s own health was not great. He suffered from gout and during the course of the Manchester murals commission suffered a minor stroke which meant that one of the murals, Bradshaw, had to be painted with his left hand .The fact that the murals turned out as good as they did and have survived the test of time, notwithstanding the technical and health challenges that Madox Brown experienced, is a testament to his artistic skills.
Madox Brown and the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society – was he a member?
When researching this article it had been thought that Madox Brown was a member of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, probably based on his activities during his fairly long period in Manchester and the circles within which he moved. However, confusion may have arisen between the Society and similarly named Manchester Literary Club. These were two different organisations, both existing at the same time in Manchester. Madox Brown certainly played a part in the Literary Club but there is no evidence from the Literary and philosophical Society membership list that he was a member of the Society. However, he would have mixed in circles and had contact with people who were. William Axon for example, who expressed strident views on the subject matter of the murals, was supported and employed by CP Scott as a journalist for the for the Manchester Guardian. Madox Brown was friendly with Scott, painting his daughter and showing his children round the town hall. Axon was an active member of the Literary and Philosophical Society, presenting several lectures to it. Brown and Axon would have known of each other, and it can be seen from these connections that there was a network of intellectuals in nineteenth century Manchester from which the modern day Society has developed.
One of the final pictures in the Manchester murals cycle is of John Dalton collecting Marsh gas. Dalton was of course a key early member of the Literary and Philosophical Society and many of his records were kept by the Society. When seeking increased pay for the murals commission, Madox Brown complained to the Council that it was taking a lot longer than anticipated in part because of the time taken to research the subject matter. That raises the possibility that Madox Brown could have consulted the records of the Literary and Philosophical Society to do some of his research for the mural.
Although reference to literature is in the name, in the late nineteenth century, judging by the membership list, the Society tended to have a more scientific emphasis which could account for why Madox Brown would have been more active in the now defunct Literary Club. Nowadays the Literary and Philosophical Society has a wide membership and promotes a number of events which are dedicated to the arts as well as the sciences.
For those interested in Madox Brown’s association with Manchester and indeed artistic life in the city in his time, it’s well worth visiting his murals in the Town Hall when restoration has finished and his major picture, Work , in the City art Gallery which also has an excellent collection of other Pre- Raphaelite art. To finish up your tour of Madox Brown in Manchester, you could even go to the Ford Madox Brown pub on Oxford Road near to his Manchester home in Victoria Park.
Andrew Welch, member of Manchester Lit & Phil