C.H. Matthews and Nostalgia
As part of our ongoing upgrades to the London Picture Archive, we've created several new galleries of artists and topics which have perhaps been neglected in the past. In this gallery, we celebrate the work of Victorian Watercolourist C.H Matthews.
A Market for Nostalgia
During the period of Matthews work, London was a rapidly developing city. Earlier, mapmakers such as Richard Horwood in the 1790s were reflecting a new city back to the people to help them find their place in it.
The watercolours within this gallery show an artist looking at a semi-rural London representing idyllic versions of the Cityscape, bringing to life the geography and its social history captured in a scene. But how accurate was it as a representation and how does this translate into the popular imagination about an historical era? Was this a sentimental longing and nostalgia for a past that was fast disappearing and leaning towards fantasy? This could be said to be inevitable following industrialisation: a need to preserve something of this lost world. But we must heed caution when imposing categories as these would not necessarily have existed in the mind of the artist.
Conjuring up such images as a ‘Merry Islington’, as once quoted in Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens, this hilltop village was known for its provision of milk and spring water and was a rival to nearby Clerkenwell for recreation and its tea gardens.
Waterfront at Night, Islington
The viewpoint of the artist is likely to have been by the New River, Canonbury Grove looking towards St Mary, Islington. [London Picture Archive 303575]
Laycock’s Dairy, Islington
Laycock’s Lairs (or layers as seen in this image) were just off Liverpool Road and Park Street, behind where Highbury Station Road is today. The lairs were open fields where livestock could rest and be fed after being transported by drovers from other parts of the country. Laycock Street and Laycock Green are nearby.
Richard Laycock was a major player in livestock and by 1810 most small dairy farms had been superseded by him as well as Samuel Rhodes in Islington. Laycock’s dairy provided milk for London up until the 1860s.
Laycock had several hundred acres of lairs by 1820 on the New River Company’s land and he was the last agricultural tenant, his land was later turned over to brickmaking. Sometimes salesmen would purchase cattle from the lairs before they got to Smithfield (see also LPA 318299).
[London Picture Archive 9013]
Paradise House, Islington
This view is at Liverpool Road by Paradise House (a mansion demolished in 1830s) not far along the road from Laycock’s lairs. The cart is inscribed with, ‘C H Matthews, artist, Hackney Road 1858’. This was originally known as ‘The Back Road to Upper Street’ until it was renamed in 1822. Paradise Passage sits nearby and was once Paradise Row raised on a high pavement.
[London Picture Archive 303448]
Duval’s Lane, a house at night with horses on the road, Holloway
Duval’s Lane stretched out of Holloway and became Hornsey Road. This area was notorious for highwayman. The lane was named after Claude Duval (1643-1670) who was known to have robbed travelers between Highgate and Islington and was hanged at Tyburn. Duval is said to have lived on Hornsey Road and you can see an image of his abode by T.H. Shepherd (London Picture Archive 9055). Could this also be his house in the background here? Is this him on horseback acknowledging us with an animated look as the coach advances? If we compare with another artists impression of Duval as played in a theatre production by the melodramatic actor Newton Treen Hicks (292042) we can see the similarities in clothing. The production: ‘Whitefriars, or the Days of Charles the Second’ was performed at the Surrey Theatre in 1844 and is likely to have been a character that Matthews was aware of. [London Picture Archive 303862]
