Club History
1833 onwards
Image courtesy of Chris Robinson
The History of Plymouth Arts Club
Researched and compiled by Robert Jeive
1833
The South Devon Monthly Museums Magazine reported that the thirteenth annual exhibition of the Plymouth Art Club was held. There is no evidence to support this, but if true, the inference is that a club was formed in 1820.
1865
The first recorded meeting of the Plymouth Sketching Society was held on Saturday 18th November 1865. It was held at Plymouth Free School (Jago’s School) in Cobourg Street.
There were 13 original members all of whom had to be members of the Plymouth Institution, they were well known artists who were elected to membership. New members were elected by ballot.
Rules were strict. No smoking in meetings, no females and a friend could be invited only if they were interested in painting and drawing.
The subscription was £2 per annum paid in quarterly instalments of 10 shillings, 5 shillings having to be paid in advance. Fines were to be imposed on members in arrears.
The founding members were I L Colley (first President), Philip Mitchell RI (Royal Institute of Painters), James Elliott, F Lane, A Cole, William Cook, C E Croft, James Penson, T H Mitchell, H A Luscombe (first Hon Sec and Treasurer). William Eastlake and G Allen were elected as members at the first meeting.
Members had to be professional artists, or amateurs who had been an associate member for a minimum of two years, and then had to be elected as a member.
Amateurs could only be associate members.
Honorary members and associates could be elected to full membership in recognition of services to the club.
Junior associates under 20 could only be elected for one month but could be re-elected.
Strangers could attend for up to 3 months in a year.
Candidates had to make written application two weeks before selection and had to submit two original works, one in form and one in colour. They had to have been nominated for membership and that nomination had to be seconded.
Juniors members paid 3/- (there is no definition of a junior member).
To use the privileges of the club members and associated had to be members or associates of the Plymouth Institution and the Devon and Cornwall Natural History Society.
Committee members were fined 2/6 if they failed to attend meetings unless they were sick. They were also fined for leaving the meeting early without consent.
The Keeper was the committee member responsible for dealing the model two evenings per week. The keeper posed the model 15 minutes before the start of the session. No one was to enter the session without the permission of the Keeper. At 7 o’clock the order to take the places was given, members first, associates and then juniors. A ballot to take place if required.
The Keeper arranged for the model to attend and was fined 1/- if the model failed to show up or was late. If you didn’t clear up your equipment at the end of the meeting, you could be fined 1/-.
1866
13th January 1866 name changed to Plymouth Fine Art Society.
The Society approached the Atheneum to rent a room for their sole use. They were willing to pay £10 per annum including gas for the lighting and coal. They were also willing to pay a gratuity to the attendants. The Athenaeum reserved the right of to use the space when they required and the deal was not progressed.
1874
11thJune 1874 renamed the Plymouth Arts Club. The Society did settle an agreement with the Atheneum in 1874.
1889
The Committee meetings were held at 4 Bedford Terrace.
Annual fees introduced for non-resident (in Plymouth) members which gave them the right to exhibit. The fee was 10/6 (ten shillings and sixpence)
The previous nine years exhibitions had sold paintings and drawings to the value of £2,000.
The Autumn Exhibition consisted of 137 paintings, 86 watercolours and 51 oil paintings. 13 watercolours and 5 oils were sold for a total of £114-7-0 (One hundred and fourteen pounds seven shillings). Well known artist such as Guido Bach and Edwin Hayes exhibited.
On 30th November the first Club sketching meeting held; the subject was “Reflections”.
The second Club sketching meeting followed the subject was “Abandoned” and the third in January 1890 when the subject was “Virtue”.
1891
Club demise
The club had been looking to stave off governance by the Plymouth Institution/Athenaeum for a variety of reasons. All members of PAC had to be members of the Plymouth Institution if they wanted to exhibit.
Part resolution of this grievance was a concession that only 5 exhibiting members had to be members of the institution for a fee of One Guinea (twenty-one shillings) each. The Institution also took 20% of the exhibition takings.
The Athenaeum also restricted membership numbers and Plymouth Art Club wanted to expand.
The Plymouth Arts Club wanted to extricate themselves from the relationship, so on the 15th July the membership voted to wind the club up and that the funds should be handed over the Society of Western Artists. (It is interesting to note that minutes for SWA meetings are included in the same book as those of the Plymouth Art Club and mentions the same individuals.)
Two exhibitions were held in that year (as in most years). The Spring exhibition raised
£153-2-0 as Plymouth Arts Club and only £58-14-0 in the Autumn exhibition, presumably as the Society of Western Artists, although the exhibition took place at almost the same time as the club’s demise so it is difficult to entirely sure.
1892/94
There were 35 members during this period. 15 were resident in Plymouth, a further 15 were resident in other Devon and Cornish locations and five were resident in London. By 1894 there were 2 female members.
1893
The 35 members paid 10/- annual subscription.
Three female candidates were balloted for membership. Miss Evalin(d)a Adshead of Brighton was voted in by a majority of six votes. Miss Irreton of Plympton was unsuccessful as was Miss Brack of Guernsey. Both Miss Irreton and Miss Brack were invited to exhibit at that year’s exhibition.
Minutes and Reports 1888 – 96. 2912/5
Local newspapers, The Western Morning News and the Western Daily Mercury, reported on the club throughout its early life, mainly advertising exhibitions etc.
The first exhibition as Plymouth Art Club was in September 1880.
The 1883 exhibition cost 6d (sixpence) to view at the Athenaeum.
The Cornishman 27/09/1883 published a short article informing its readers that ‘J C Uren of Penzance found a purchaser for his painting of St Michael’s Mount.
On 02/09/1889 the WDM ran an article on the exhibition of 87 drawings
‘the most striking of which was A Disciple of Pan by Guido Back which is full of charm. A swarthy young native playing the pipes to a fair skinned boy and girl partially clad in oriental costume….’
Philip Mitchell RI was also a contributor to the exhibition as was Edwin Hayes who had recently won a gold medal for his exhibits at the Crystal Palace.
There is no remaining record of the Society of Western Artists or what happened to it. The Plymouth Art Club minute book records the meetings of the Society of Western Artists until the book was completed in 1896.
On 17/06/1908 the WMN ran an obituary on John Barratt (1842-1908) who was a well-known Devonshire artist and Plymouth Art Club member. This is the last reference to the Club in the early period.
In 1925 the club was revived as The Plymouth Arts Club. Mrs Ann Pollard formed the club for ‘the purchase and exchange of magazines dealing with art and kindred subjects’ .
The Club’s premises were formally opened on the 31st January 1926 by Lady Nancy Astor. The club owned its own premises at Alfred Place on the Hoe, moving to larger premises in Bank Street then still larger premises at 1 Ford Park Road. These premises were paid for in part by successful crafts exhibitions in the Guildhall.
There were 46 members. Spring and Autumn exhibitions were held. Entries for the Spring exhibition are selected by a committee. Artists could exhibit one picture of their own choosing during the Autumn exhibition. A wide range of crafts were also accepted in both exhibitions.
On 18th October 1929 the WMN reported that the Torquay and Devon Arts Society, The Plymouth Arts Society and the Exeter Art Society formed the Devon Art Society and held an inaugural exhibition. 120 pictures from the Torquay Society, 110 from Plymouth and 70 from Exeter were displayed. Plymouth Arts Club were affiliated to the new Society.
On 1st July 1930 A sketching day was held a Trematon Castle which was hosted by General T Porter where High tea was served.
On 9th May 1931 the spring exhibition was subject to an article in the WMN. For the first time in the new era exhibitors had to be full members of the club. The highlight of the exhibition was a portrait of the Mayor of Saltash, Lieutenant Colonel W P Drury painted by General Porter.
24th June 1932 Plymouth Art Club contributed 25 pictures to a joint Art Societies Exhibition in Torquay. The exhibition was entitled the ‘Desire for Beauty’. Torquay and Devon Advertiser.
On the 18th February 1938 3 plays were entered in the Community Theatre Festival by the club. They were given a trial production at the Abbey Hall.
On 22nd September 1937 the WMN announced the new exhibition, with contributions by Dorothy Ward ARCA, Francis Hodge ROI (club President), Ann Pollard ARMS, Edwin Morgan RMS and Charles Spencelayh RMS BBSA.
On 12th March 1938 Mrs Ann Pollard (Hon Sec and founding member of the revived club) of Marsh House, Crabtree, Plymouth was elected a member of the Women’s International Art Club. She had 5 works on view at the exhibition at the Suffolk St Galleries in Pall Mall, London. She was a member of the Royal Miniature Society and had exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute and in the Paris Salon as well as the Walker Gallery and in the USA. Queen Mary was one of her patrons.
On 30th May 1940 the Spring Exhibition was held at 1 Ford Park Road, the club HQ. The reporter from the WMN tells that ‘Memories of gay holidays in happier times than these are contained in several of the 100 odd paintings on view’.
17th October 1940 1 Ford Park Road was destroyed in the blitz. Most documents pertaining to the club were destroyed.
13th August 1948 the WMN announced that an exhibition to be held at Swarthmore House as the Ford Park Road premises were damaged in an air raid in 1941
The Club met on the first and third Saturday of each month at the Swarthmore Settlement on Mutley Plain).
In October 1952 the first sketching meeting of the season held. The model was Wm Braddick, an 80 year old from the Gunnerside Home. Later in the season the model was David Parnell, ‘a very attractive young man in Boys Brigade uniform’. Other models were a retired naval man from the Salvation Army, a 15-year-old schoolgirl in uniform, and Garrick Stevens, a half caste with strong Malaysian or Siamese features from the Astor Orphanage. He was used as a model again this time described in the minutes as Burmese. (How the language and social attitudes have changed).
By 1953 subs were 5/- for Associate members and 7/6 for Artist members. Later Associate membership was abolished because the benefits were identical to those of the Artist. As a result the membership dropped from 150 to 76.
In December 1953 a youth was recommended to the club by a Dr Wood. The committee decided that he was too young and immature so his fee was returned to him with the recommendation that he should go to art school or to Swarthmore.
In the 50’s en plein air sessions were held in Kingsbridge/Hope Cove, Cawsand, Tamerton Foliot and the transport was frequently by coach.
In the 1950’s and early 1960’s the Club Christmas celebration was held at Café Milican on Mutley Plain. The price was 3/6d per ticket which included food and a magician as entertainment.
In 1960 subscriptions were 10/- for full members, 5/- Juniors and 2/6 for associates (reintroduced with much reduced benefits).
In the mid 1960s Plymouth Arts Club along with the Carnegie Trust, the East Cornwall Society of Artists and the Tavistock Arts Club supported the Carnegie Weekend
School for groups of artists. Jack Marriott (PAC President and Vice-President of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour) was one of the tutors at events Barbican Atelier in Woolster Street and at Tamerton Lake.
Exhibitions were held twice a year at the City Museum and Art Gallery until the late 1980’s and then at other venues on the Barbican.
In the early 1980’s Charles Close, an art teacher and Club Chairman from 1981 to 1983 designed the Club logo.
The club finally moved from the Swarthmore on Mutley Plain to The Church of the Ascension on The Lawns in 2021.
The Nineteenth Century History of Plymouth Arts Club
Taken from the Minutes Nov 1865 - Dec 1877Feb 1889 – Oct 1896
(Please note all quotations are from the Minutes)
Researched and compiled by Mrs Jane Honeywill.
The first meeting of Plymouth Art Club was held on the 18th November 1865 at the Plymouth Free School, Coburg Street. Initially known as the Plymouth Sketching Society and then renamed the Plymouth Fine Art Society, it became in 1875 the Plymouth Art Club and finally in 1891 the Society of Western Artists.
The inaugural president Mr J Colley was succeeded in 1868 by Mr P Mitchell who remained in office for 26 years. The meetings of the club were to be held twice weekly at the Free School “for the purpose of drawing from the model” – 8pm on Fridays and 7pm on Saturdays and the subscription was 10 shillings a quarter, club ‘rules’ were agreed and printed; from a copy (circa 1874) we learn that “members & associates not clearing away their own drawing materials at the close of meeting shall be fined one shilling”!
Full members were “Artists by profession”; however, amateurs, who hold the status of “associates” were able to apply for full membership two years after entry to the club.
The available Minutes (1865 – 77 & 1889 – 96) show that Committee & Annual General Meetings were held regularly, the language used to describe the business has a distinctive Victorian flavour and the imaginative reader is easily transported back to the late 19th Century.
Early membership was exclusively male, reference to females is confined to their provision of hospitality (as wives of members) or as models. The final reference to female membership came in 1891 when “Mr J B Clarke and Miss Lizzie Clarke…….were declared non-elected” ; however some eighteen months later Louisa Uren & Miss Wilcocks “were unanimously elected”.
Early in the club’s history the “desirability of holding the meetings at the Athenaeum” was discussed. The club’s suggestion that “the fact that 8 or 9 members…..are also members of the Plymouth Institute will no doubt make a considerable difference in the terms which your committee would expect for the room” did not meet with a favourable response from the Athenaeum’s “secretaries” and terms could not be agreed. Eight years later in 1874 successful negotiations resulted in the club being allocated a room at the Athenaeum and all members having dual membership with the Institute.
Much satisfaction with this outcome is recorded and there are some interesting references to the arrangements which were made to prepare and furnish the new accommodation. A “4 foot gaslight with a paper reflector” was purchased at a cost of 44 shillings and members were particularly concerned that the lighting and work environment should be satisfactory with “simple arrangements” being required “for resting the paper and candle for each member when at work”.
The additional Institute membership entitled club members to attend lectures, use the library and purchase “ladies tickets” for guests. The ambitions of the club were expressed in the Minute “Thus by removing to the Athenaeum we shall have another development of our society and its objects, taking up our position as the Art Society of this great and growing metropolis of the West”.
The club seemed well pleased with its new premises and at the AGM of Feb 1875 it was stated that “In place of a bald school room, improperly lit, and without comfort or convenience we have a building in every way adapted for studying night and day” and it was further agreed to hold a “conversazione” and exhibition; members were exhorted “to let Art & Art only be in our thoughts....”. The first exhibition appears to have been held on 15th November 1875 .
The AGM of 1876 was told that “we have increased in numbers and influence since 1865…..amidst the rapid advance of Art & Science throughout England our Plymouth Club lifts it’s head and demands to be led to more advanced study”. A more regular attendance of members was reported together with “more earnest work done” in spite of the difficulty with models when “great inconvenience” had been sustained “by their not keeping engagements”. Any discussion of “politics, ideology, teetotalism and any other subject likely to lead to argument” was to be excluded from any future meetings and the high aspirations of the club were expressed in the wish that it would eventually be known as “The Western School of Painting”.
Confirmation of the completion of a new drawing room at the Athenaeum was given at the 1877 AGM and members could now “come by day” for private study from models. There had been a successful Christmas “conversazione” which had been “visited by upwards of 150 people in one winters day”.
After 1877 no minutes are available until Feb 1889 when a new minute book was started, this book is written in a different hand, the writing is at times illegible and the language more businesslike. By this date the club has been in existence for almost a quarter of a century and the committee was considering extending the membership. It was reported that the previous nine years had seen annual exhibitions with sales amounting to £2,000.
Later in 1889 there are records of a “Sketching Day” but “Unfortunately the weather proved disastrous and not much work was done”; Mr Fouracre (a member since 1873) had however offered refreshments at his home at Clearbrook and “a sumptuous tea” was provided by his wife “of which all partook” before the members returned to Plymouth “pleased with their trip notwithstanding the serious drawback of the weather”. Proposals for the club to continue with such outings followed with each member contributing “at the earliest opportunity” a 7” x 5” sketch to pay for the expenses. Members also agreed that monthly sketching meetings would be held at each others houses but “if refreshments be at all provided they should be of the simplest kind” – clearly they were not to be expected to follow Mrs Fouracre’s high standard! The president’s house was to be the first venue.
There is no list available of members for 1889 but by 1892 a pencilled list in the minute book indicates membership of 34 persons – 20 more than in 1865.
The weather was not the only prohibiting factor in the club’s business; A copy of a letter to Guido Black, artist, thanked him for the submission of 3 oil and one watercolour paintings for the Autumn exhibition 1889 but it was regretted that the club “was unable to effect sales” one of the chief causes being “the fever epidemic in the town which kept both strangers and residents out of the place”. It seems that as a result of the epidemic the club was “considerably out of pocket” over the exhibition which had been open over 4 weeks.
The January 1891 AGM saw the arrangements with the Athenaeum under question when it was hoped that club membership would be increased if it was “at liberty to invite any artist to join…..regardless of their connection with the Plymouth Institution”. Successful negotiations resulted in new Rules being drawn up with the effect of enabling much wider membership. The affairs of Plymouth Art Club were wound up and all monies transferred to the new “Society of Western Artists” – a membership list (circa 1894) shows a membership drawn from North and East Devon , Cornwall and London as well as Plymouth . A proposal that “Messrs Tuke, Langly and (one other not legible) be invited to send pictures to the forthcoming exhibition” was carried unanimously and although there is no record that the invitation was accepted for 1892, in 1893 Walter Langly sold a picture for 5 guineas with 10 shillings and sixpence paid to the club as commission; in that year F J Widgery is also listed as a member.
The venues for exhibitions in the early 1890’s included the Plymouth Art Gallery and the Athenaeum but there were also communications with galleries in Torquay and Exeter . In May 1894 an 8 week exhibition was held in Mr Parkhouse’s gallery in Old Town Street at a cost of £20 and 5% commission on all sales – the club had been required to provide a minimum of 100 pictures.
On August 1st 1894 , Mr P Mitchell, president since 1868 resigned - there is no explanation but it was “regretted” and the club had “no alternative but to accept it”. The position was not filled until 1896 when the vice president Mr Barrett was elected.
The last records of the 19th Century show that in July 1895 the club was owing a balance of £8.11s and in 1896 no exhibition was held because of the lack of funds – in Oct 1896 the club was free of all liabilities and was able to present a Mr Nash (resigning as secretary) with sketches “from the artists as a measure of goodwill” to mark his forthcoming wedding.
Post Script: The 20th Century minutes are available 1952 – 1989. In 1952 Mrs Ann Pollard R.M.S. is President to the Plymouth Art Club which by now has a craft section and exhibition. Models were still being used and in Oct 1952 an 80 year old resident from “Gunnerside Home” was recruited. The modern minutes are detailed and reveal an active club with the membership including a number of respected and well known artists.