Collecting on the grandest of scales

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by Christopher Proudlove©

If I had a quid for every pound of currants, sultanas, sugar, butter, lard, even dog biscuits I've weighed out for customers in my old dad's grocer's shop, I'd be an extremely wealthy man.

That was in the days when foodstuffs were delivered in bulk to the High Street (or the village store in my case) and the proprietor (or his lackey) spent back-breaking hours weighing it all up for the week's customers. No pre-packed, vacuum-sealed, atmosphere-controlled produce in his day, thanks very much.

So, it was with added interest that I learned this week of an exhibition of rare, unusual and highly collectable weighing scales. They will be on show at the spring Antiques for Everyone fair, which takes place at the NEC, Birmingham next week.

The display will be presented by the European arm of The International Society of Antique Scale Collectors (ISASC), founded in 1976, which has members across the world, many of whom have loaned pieces from their collections for the event.

The exhibition will be curated by Michael Robinson, chairman of the society and one of its leading proponents. It will present a cross-section of balances, weights and scales dating from the 18th to 20th century with examples by such well known makers such as Avery, Salters, Kenrick & Sons, R.W.Winfield and Ratcliff Bros.

Mr Robinson told me that weights and measures are one of man's greatest and most important inventions, ranking alongside the wheel in the evolution of civilisation. Without them commerce would not have progressed beyond the barter system.

Since the development of electronics and computerisation in the mid 20th century, earlier mechanical scales have become widely sought after collectors' items. Many mechanical scales are hand-crafted and today regarded as works of art.

The use of scales dates back more than 5,000 years. Early civilisations including the Egyptians developed simple balances and, later, it was the Romans who introduced scales to Britain and Europe.

Interestingly enough it was the genius Leonardo Da Vinci (1452 - 1519) who designed the first recorded self-indicating scale.

He produced two designs, one with a triangular chart, and the other semi-circular, but both worked on the same principle.

The object to be weighed is placed in a suspended pan. The chart acts as a pendulum and finds a new position of balance. The weight is shown on the chart by a plum bob crossing its face.

Like many of Leonardo's conceptions, including the autogyro, his scale was ahead of its time and was not manufactured until 300 years after his death.

By the 17th century, the so-called equal-arm balance was in competition with a variety of instant-read-out scales using springs or pendulums, which led to the development of postal scales and household scales. Beautifully engineered examples have survived and are highly treasured today.

The invention of platform scales in the early 18th century and the inclination balance of the late 19th century greatly advanced weighing methods, from postal scales to roadside weighbridges.

Universal Postal Act

My personal favourites are postal scales, which came into use at the birth of the present postal system in 1840 with the passing of the Uniform Postal Act.

The regulation of the Royal Mail, whereby weight would determine the cost of postage, provided yet a great commercial opportunity for scalemakers to exploit, and large numbers of scales were produced.

The most charming were ornately decorated in Victorian Gothic or Art Nouveau styles, with beautiful cases made from wood, alabaster, onyx, porcelain pottery, brass and silver.

Many of the machines made before 1915, when a four-ounce letter could be posted for one old penny, carried details of current postage rates. After 1915 postal rates altered much more rapidly, and so the practice was abandoned.

Among the many examples on display at the NEC there will be scales for measuring postage; coins; grain; those used by apothecaries; for weighing silver, gold and gems; the once ubiquitous grocer's scales and even those for people, including jockey scales with examples by most leading manufacturers.

Mr Robinson and representatives from the ISASC will also be presenting a series of daily seminar talks in the fair theatre about scales and their historical development.

Weighing it all up

A somewhat overlooked element in the history of weighing is the law relating to weights and measures.

In England these have been incorporated in the statutes of the country since King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215.

He decreed: "that one measure of wine shall be through our realm, and one measure of ale and one measure of corn .... and it shall be of weights, as it is of measures".

The earliest form of law on uniformity was passed in the reign of King Edgar in about 965 AD.

However, because of the lack of adequate enforcement in many parts of the country, this ideal was not fully achieved until the end of the 19th century.

Officials in Britain began marking weights to attest their accuracy and prevent dishonest dealings as early as 1579.

The Worshipful Company of Founders stamped and tested bronze and brass weights, and in 1611 the Worshipful Company of Plumbers were granted rights under a Charter to stamp and test iron and lead weights.

Provincial authorities in towns and cities across the country placed verification marks on their weights, often based on the local coat of arms.

In medieval times wool carried a tax of one penny on every 28 pounds weight and the tax assessor, or tronator as he was called, travelled his district carrying weights slung across his horse's back.

The weights bore the Royal coat of arms, and were to test the wool merchants' scales and ensure that they were not cheating the sovereign.

Antiques for Everyone is the largest vetted and datelined event of its kind in Britain. With 600 dealers showing more than 100,000 items and price tags from less than £10 to more than £100,000, the value of exhibits on sale exceeds £30 million. The fair takes over Hall 5, at the NEC National Exhibition Centre, and runs from next Thursday (March 31) to Sunday April 3. Opening hours are 11am-6pm with a late night on the Thursday until 8pm. Admission is £10 and includes free car parking.

Pictures show: Top: Balancing act: a group of highly collectable antique scales from the exhibition

Below, left to right: A larger and more elaborate set of postal scales by Mordan, these used for weighing parcels up to 10 lbs

Mordan postal scales, the pan engraved with the current letter rates. A full complement of brass weights always adds value

Beautiful and elaborate scales with pans inset with Wedgwood plaques and a base decorated with inlaid brass and mother of pearl

Join the space race - but batteries not included!

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by Christopher Proudlove©

It's almost time … but not yet. According to the countdown clock on the BBC website, the invasion begins in . . . well, click on the link and see for yourself. Doctor Who is back - almost … and with Billie Piper as his sidekick. Coo!

The news was enough to send a nanostream of nostalgia coursing through my neurones.

I felt suddenly compelled to vector in to the loft and teleport my collection of tinplate space toys from the bottom of the tea chest.

They've been lurking up there for as long as the Doctor has been off our screens and experience tells me they have suddenly surged as hot property on the collectors' circuit.

I just wish I owned a Dalek like the one pictured here, at the same time one of the most popular - and most feared - robot villains in the history of British television.

It was made in the 1960s by the British toy firm Cowan-de-Groot and marketed under their trademark "Codeg".

Today the clockwork contraption, in unplayed condition and with original box, would be worth £200-300.

Fact is, I was a teenage sci-fi junkie. It started with Saturday matinees at the local picture house ... Buck Rogers and Captain Marvel and all that.

Come secondary school and a constant diet of Dan Dare's Eagle comics exploits and rainy lunchtimes spent devouring science fiction books in the school library sealed my fate.

Sadly today it's all become too much like a Hollywood blockbuster as special effects departments and make-up specialists try to outdo each other.

Give me Blake's Seven, Lost in Space and Star Trek in the days of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy any day. I'm just horrified when I realise that's 35 years ago!

Which probably goes some way to explaining why I started to collect the tinplate toys connected to the programmes.

So did a legion of others, and the toy manufacturers responded accordingly. Among the diehards, interest never waned.

Already, top people's auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's have staged specialist sales devoted to nothing but tinplate space toys and Saturday collectors' fairs usually have something to tempt cash from wallets.

The strike force chez nous currently stands at four tinplate and plastic robots (easily my favourite space toy).

Each is battery-operated and cost very little from car booters clearing out their unwanted toys.

Manic messages of goodwill

Two are particularly clever little fellows who recite manic messages of goodwill to mankind each time buttons on their heads are pressed.

A third does very little, basically because the battery compartment is missing one set of connection terminals, so he remains inert.

My favourite, though, is the one whose torso lights up with a clever moving panorama of space ships, shooting stars and planets as he trundles towards you in menacing fashion.

Sadly, none is worth much more than what I paid for it. All bear the ubiquitous Made in Hong Kong mark and are not really in the frame when it comes to the Investments For My Retirement stakes.

But as the ardent robotiana freak I've become, they're great fun and very much part of the family.

My ambition is to find a robot made by either of the two best Japanese toy manufacturers in the business, Taiyo and Horikawa.

When new in the 1950s, such a gem cost about £8-£10. Today they can fetch four-figure sums, and they show no sign of going down in value.

Shortly after the end of the second war, and after years of imitating others, Japanese manufacturers gave full rein to the creative talents of their designers and that, combined with the rapid advance of technology, saw the country attain dominance in the production, among many other things, of tin toys.

The appearance of the robot coincides with the advent of Space travel which began in earnest in 1958 with the first Sputnik orbiting the earth.

With typical oriental panache, innumerable Japanese toy makers flooded the market with brash but brilliant robots, as well as space rockets, ray guns, spacecraft and moon landing vehicles, spurred on by the American and Russian exploration race.

The result was a rapidly changing array of toys that were obsolescent almost as soon as they hit the toy shop shelves.

Fortunately, some farsighted adults had the sense to rescue examples and prevent their offspring from ruining what today are worth anything up to £1,500 apiece for the more rare examples that remain in mint condition and complete with their original boxes.

The joy of collecting robots is the naivety of some of the once futuristic designs and the wonderfully inventive names they were given.

Robbie the Mechanical Robot is probably the most famous of all. He starred in the film Forbidden Planet, and his pals include Sparky; Mr Machine; Laughing Robot; the tongue-twisting Silver Ray Secret Weapon Space Scout; Television Spaceman; Mego Man, Mr Mercury and many more.

There's still time for collectors to join the Space race. With some careful shopping around, you'd be surprised at what turns up.

The key is having the knowledge to spot the earlier, more rare examples from the stuff being turned out today.

Research styles and makers and, as always with toys, buy the best you can afford and preferably those with original boxes.

Watch out for rust and metal fatigue, always the twin problems with tinplate, and don't forget to take along a selection of different batteries to try out potential purchases ... they're never included you know!

Names to watch out for

Names and their respective trademarks to watch for in addition to the two aforementioned include: Nomura (TN in a diamond); Yonezawa (Y on a leafshaped reserve); Yoshiya (KO on a diamond); Ichida (bunch of grapes design on roundel); Bull Mark (running bull with the name); Sconosciuto (N in triangle with diamond at apex); Yoshiya (SY in diamaond); Shudo (name); Ohta (K in circle); Masudaya (TM monogram in diamond); Aoshin (ASC in diamond); Toplay (three fingers in salute Girl Guide style and TPS on 'bangle'); Bandai (old English 'B' in box); Daiya (name in diamond); Alps (name in mountain line drawing); Daishin (DSK in diamond); Linemar (Line Mar Toys in circle); Mastutoku (MT); Asahi (Father Christmas with ATC on sack); Mansei ('HAJI' in oval); Usagiya (rabbit head).

Pictures show

Top: The Dalek made under licence from the BBC in the 1960s by Cowan-de-Groot. Condition and the original box boost values considerably

Above, left to right: One of the earliest Japanese wind-up walking robots. His eyes flash with sparks as he walks

A 1960s Space Tank by the Japanese company Nomura. Power is from batteries carried in the compartment between the spring-loaded rear bumpers

This tinplate wind-up Walking Space Man robot was made in China. As he walks, the doors in his chest open to reveal his electronic works

The best seats in the house

Lancashire spindle back carver
Originally uploaded by Christopher Proudlove.

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by Christopher Proudlove©

The Business Manager (Mrs P) and I visited one of the Cheshire's poshest antiques fairs last Saturday - at Tatton Park, Knutsford - and were cheered to see there were actually some things we could afford. However, she soon put me right … we don't have the space!

Specifically, we were struck by the affordability of some of the furniture on show, notably some lovely oak, which is our favourite.

At £5,000, the gorgeous dresser base on dealer Mike Melody's stand was about half the price it might have been in the heady days of the 1990s.

And then there were chairs. As we arrived, a smiling couple were just about to carry out to the waiting Volvo a super set of 10 Lancashire spindle-back dining chairs they had secured. The ticket price was £3,500 and I dare bet they haggled that even lower.

That's positively cheap. A harlequin set - long runs like that were rarely if ever made, so expect to find slight variations - the 10 included two grand carvers, and they were in pristine condition.

Ten years ago the same set of elm and ash chairs, they dated from 1780-1800, would have cost at least £6,000.

But word on the grapevine is that such bargains will not be around for ever. Minimalism and chucking out the chintz is so last year.

Collectors with an eye for a deal are realising that the furniture market - depressed for some time now - is turning a corner. Bargains are still to be had, but they're being snapped up fast.

The couple who snapped up the Tatton chairs were looking for something to sit on around their newly-acquired elm refectory table. With their original glorious golden brown colour and original patination, they couldn't have made a better choice.

At home in any surroundings, the chairs were comfortable, usable and so much more characterful than the stuff on the High Street.

Less comfortable, but no less charming was a single chair we spotted, which I've always known as a stick chair. "Ah," says Mike, "that's a fool's chair … because you'd be a fool to sit on it!"
Judging by its naïve construction, spindly legs and uncomfortable looking bucket seat, he was probably right. But apparently that's the generic name for such a chair.

Made from elm, it dated from 1700 and at £595, it would make a fascinating conversation piece.

Fact is, there side by side were pieces tracing the development of country chair-making over two centuries.

Country woodworkers, used to making spokes for the wheels of carriages and farm vehicles, quickly turned their hand to making chairs and stools with turned legs.

Indeed, 17th century wheelwrights were adept at wood turning and in many cases, trade labels in use at the time often described craftsmen as "wheelwright and chair-maker".

Before long, a range of joint-less furniture was available from the workshops of wood turners, limited only by the need to avoid any manufacturing technique that might upset joiners whose livelihoods would otherwise have been undermined.

While the extent of the range of chairs available was necessarily limited, the ingenuity of their design was not.

Shapely balustrade

Seats are supported by turned spindles rather than frames formed with mortice and tenon joints, just like the shelves of cupboards, while the legs of a well made chair are as shapely as any stair balustrade.

The work is even more remarkable when the primitive nature of the machinery is considered.

Woodturning as a skill dates back to prehistoric times, while the nature of lathes had changed little by the 17th century.

Many attempts were made to use mechanical power to drive lathes, including, water power.

They were mostly failures, leaving turners to rely on their own stamina and foot-power on the treadle of a pole-lathe or bow-lathe or that of their apprentice, turning the handle of a geared flywheel.

With the pole-lathe, the first downward kick of the treadle revolved the piece of wood being turned in one direction only.

This caused a rope to twist, pulling down on a springy wooden pole or bow. When the operator released his weight from the treadle, the supple pole was allowed to spring back, causing the piece of wood to spin in the opposite direction.

The downside of this was that the shaping chisel could be applied only on the down stroke, but a skilled operator treadling at high speed could shape a chair leg in a matter of moments.

Itinerant wood turners often operated out in the open air, usually in the middle of the stand of trees or forest clearing that was supplying the raw materials for their work.

The more well to do turners might buy a batch of trees, fell and season them where they dropped and then turn them into chair legs or whatever, all in a season of work.

At the end of the day, hauliers were engaged to carry away the finished products, while charcoal burners moved in to scavenge and tidy the site before the whole operation moved on to the next section of forest to be tackled.

The most famous and best loved of all such chairs is the Windsor, so-called because the largest area for their manufacture was in the forest areas of Buckinghamshire and finished chairs were sent to market at Windsor, en route for London.

Another term connected with these early Windsors is the "peg-leg chair", the expression relating to the manner in which the legs and other components are fastened to the seat board.

The method of construction is both simple and primitive, but highly effective. Holes are bored through the plank seat and legs and uprights rammed home.

Prior to this, the end of each of the various sticks were cut into a V-shape, so that once in place, a wedge could be driven into the V, securing it for all time.

The North of England also had a thriving chair-making industry and today's collectors are keen to seek out and secure identifiable examples.

Most common are the spindle back chairs which were turned out in their thousand. However, recent research has identified a spindle back chair popular in Liverpool and the North West in the mid 19th century, identifiable by fan shape carved into its top rail.

Pictures show:
Top
From the harlequin set of 10 spindle back chairs sold for £3,500. Notice that the carver has three rows of spindles, while the others have two, which is ususal.

Below, left to right
The wavy ladderback chair popular in Lancashire from 1750-1840.
The naïve elm fool’s chair, so-called because you’d be a fool to sit in it!
Provincial chair makers copied the designs coming out of London, notably the Chippendale style, but without the elegance of mahogany.

Lancashire spindle back carver

Lancashire spindle back carver
Originally uploaded by Christopher Proudlove.

by Christopher Proudlove©

The Business Manager (Mrs P) and I visited one of the Cheshire's poshest antiques fairs last Saturday - at Tatton Park, Knutsford - and were cheered to see there were actually some things we could afford. However, she soon put me right … we don't have the space!

Specifically, we were struck by the affordability of some of the furniture on show, notably some lovely oak, which is our favourite.

At £5,000, the gorgeous dresser base on dealer Mike Melody's stand was about half the price it might have been in the heady days of the 1990s.

And then there were chairs. As we arrived, a smiling couple were just about to carry out to the waiting Volvo a super set of 10 Lancashire spindle-back dining chairs they had secured. The ticket price was £3,500 and I dare bet they haggled that even lower.

That's positively cheap. A harlequin set - long runs like that were rarely if ever made, so expect to find slight variations - the 10 included two grand carvers, and they were in pristine condition.

Ten years ago the same set of elm and ash chairs, they dated from 1780-1800, would have cost at least £6,000.

But word on the grapevine is that such bargains will not be around for ever. Minimalism and chucking out the chintz is so last year.

Collectors with an eye for a deal are realising that the furniture market - depressed for some time now - is turning a corner. Bargains are still to be had, but they're being snapped up fast.

The couple who snapped up the Tatton chairs were looking for something to sit on around their newly-acquired elm refectory table. With their original glorious golden brown colour and original patination, they couldn't have made a better choice.

At home in any surroundings, the chairs were comfortable, usable and so much more characterful than the stuff on the High Street.

Less comfortable, but no less charming was a single chair we spotted, which I've always known as a stick chair. "Ah," says Mike, "that's a fool's chair … because you'd be a fool to sit on it!"
Judging by its naïve construction, spindly legs and uncomfortable looking bucket seat, he was probably right. But apparently that's the generic name for such a chair.

Made from elm, it dated from 1700 and at £595, it would make a fascinating conversation piece.

Fact is, there side by side were pieces tracing the development of country chair-making over two centuries.

Country woodworkers, used to making spokes for the wheels of carriages and farm vehicles, quickly turned their hand to making chairs and stools with turned legs.

Indeed, 17th century wheelwrights were adept at wood turning and in many cases, trade labels in use at the time often described craftsmen as "wheelwright and chair-maker".

Before long, a range of joint-less furniture was available from the workshops of wood turners, limited only by the need to avoid any manufacturing technique that might upset joiners whose livelihoods would otherwise have been undermined.

While the extent of the range of chairs available was necessarily limited, the ingenuity of their design was not.

Seats are supported by turned spindles rather than frames formed with mortice and tenon joints, just like the shelves of cupboards, while the legs of a well made chair are as shapely as any stair balustrade.

The work is even more remarkable when the primitive nature of the machinery is considered.

Woodturning as a skill dates back to prehistoric times, while the nature of lathes had changed little by the 17th century.

Many attempts were made to use mechanical power to drive lathes, including, water power.

They were mostly failures, leaving turners to rely on their own stamina and foot-power on the treadle of a pole-lathe or bow-lathe or that of their apprentice, turning the handle of a geared flywheel.

With the pole-lathe, the first downward kick of the treadle revolved the piece of wood being turned in one direction only.

This caused a rope to twist, pulling down on a springy wooden pole or bow. When the operator released his weight from the treadle, the supple pole was allowed to spring back, causing the piece of wood to spin in the opposite direction.

The downside of this was that the shaping chisel could be applied only on the down stroke, but a skilled operator treadling at high speed could shape a chair leg in a matter of moments.

Itinerant wood turners often operated out in the open air, usually in the middle of the stand of trees or forest clearing that was supplying the raw materials for their work.

The more well to do turners might buy a batch of trees, fell and season them where they dropped and then turn them into chair legs or whatever, all in a season of work.

At the end of the day, hauliers were engaged to carry away the finished products, while charcoal burners moved in to scavenge and tidy the site before the whole operation moved on to the next section of forest to be tackled.

The most famous and best loved of all such chairs is the Windsor, so-called because the largest area for their manufacture was in the forest areas of Buckinghamshire and finished chairs were sent to market at Windsor, en route for London.

Another term connected with these early Windsors is the "peg-leg chair", the expression relating to the manner in which the legs and other components are fastened to the seat board.

The method of construction is both simple and primitive, but highly effective. Holes are bored through the plank seat and legs and uprights rammed home.

Prior to this, the end of each of the various sticks were cut into a V-shape, so that once in place, a wedge could be driven into the V, securing it for all time.

The North of England also had a thriving chair-making industry and today's collectors are keen to seek out and secure identifiable examples.

Most common are the spindle back chairs which were turned out in their thousand. However, recent research has identified a spindle back chair popular in Liverpool and the North West in the mid 19th century, identifiable by fan shape carved into its top rail.

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The Search for Forgotten Artists - Chapter 3

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by Christopher Proudlove©

Regular readers of this column - and they are spread far wider than I ever imagined - will know how keen I am to learn more about the work of forgotten artists and craftsmen.

Sometimes, like Liverpool's Herdman family of watercolourists, (the subject of Chapter One of these missives) they are well known and feature prominently in the art history of the region.

Even so, an airing does no harm to any of them. Otherwise people like Jeanette might feel they were on their own.

She emailed me from New Orleans to say that she owns a watercolor/pen drawing by Stanley Herdman dated 1883 or 85 which she purchased when she lived in Dunoon, Scotland.

Her message went on: "I have been unable to find a reference to Mr. Herdman until I read your column [on the internet] tonight. I am thrilled that someone at least knows about him!

"How may I learn more about Stanley Herdman, and in particular, the charming pastoral scene I own? Any information you may share will be immensely appreciated."

I've suggested Jeanette email me an image of the picture and I've offered to help in any way I can.

Then there was Chapter Two of The Search: all about eccentric Edwardian artist Harry B. Neilson, the man who painted those charming watercolours of foxes dressed as huntsmen riding foxhounds and chasing men as their quarry.

As far as I was concerned, the artist was something of an unknown, but I was soon proved wrong.

Several readers responded, including one from Harry's home town of Birkenhead who put me in touch with a member of Harry's family now living in New Zealand.

It turns out that the New Zealander had written a book about the family's history and I was sent the copy now sitting on my bookshelf.

That's the great thing about collecting and appreciating antiques. By doing so, you become part of an international community, the members of which are only too keen to help others.

I learned a good deal of what I know from other collectors who were only too happy to pass on their knowledge, even though it might have taken them personally a lifetime of study and research. Sadly, that selflessness is all too lacking elsewhere.

Which brings me to Chapter Three of The Search.

An email arrived the other day from a Mr Hugh Dodgson, a member of the Crown Service now retired, who tells me he had also "tripped over" my Herdman and Neilson columns whilst doing research on the internet "to keep the grey matter from total atrophy".

He wrote: "I am pursuing an equally elusive Liverpudlian artist, George Haydock Dodgson (1811 - 1880). He is a relative of mine and research through the family papers and the Liverpool Museums - particularly the Walker and Williamson Galleries - is beginning to put a bit of flesh on the few bones of which I know.

"There is much yet to be discovered about his life which remains the objective of my current research. If you come across anything about GHD, I would be very grateful to hear - all help gratefully received!".

So, in an appeal to readers of this column - wherever in the world they might be - in the quest for knowledge and in the spirit of the collecting community, anyone with any information about the artist is asked to make contact with me and I will be happy to put them in touch with Hugh Dodgson.

So who was George Haydock Dogdson?

Hugh Dodgson has a good deal of background information about his relative and was happy to share what he already knows with WriteAntiques readers.

He writes: George Haydock Dodgson was born at 38 Castle Street, Liverpool. on August 16, 1811. He was the eighth child of Pearson Dodgson and Hannah Haydock who had been married in 1796.

Pearson was born in 1774 and from at least 1800, ran a linen drapery and haberdashers at 38 Castle Street, Liverpool.

This business was maintained until at least 1910 by later members of the family with shops at various dates at St George's Crescent; 192 Grove Street; 28 Duke Street; 2 Lord Street; Cork Street and 40 and 48 Castle Street, Liverpool.

The shop at 192 Grove Street was run by my grandfather, Fred Pearson Dodgson, grand nephew of George Haydock. Although Grandfather met Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and regarded him as a dead bore no connection has yet been uncovered between the Bridekirk Dodgsons (my family) and the Daresbury Dodgsons (Lewis Carroll'™s family). The name, in any case, is not uncommon in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and there may some connection but it is at best distant.

George was educated locally (I don't know where) and on July 1 1826, was apprenticed to the well-respected Liverpool surveyor, Jonathan Bennison. He completed his indenture on July 1 1831 and left with a glowing report from Bennison. (I have the original indenture).

Many supposedly authoritative sources claim that he was then apprenticed to George and Robert Stephenson, the railway engineers. I have found no evidence that this is so, although there is plenty of evidence that he was employed by them.

His training under Bennison and his obvious artistic abilities led to a number of tasks under the Stephensons involving the surveying and layout of projected rail lines and the production of drawings of the scenery along the routes. He also produced sketches of the various stations, bridges etc associated with the completed lines.

George may have done work on the Liverpool and Manchester after its opening in 1830, but the first line upon which he worked (as far as I can find) was the Whitby and Pickering Railway, which received Royal Assent in 1833 and which was opened in 1836.

He produced several drawings of the beautiful countryside through which the line passed and these appeared as engravings in a book published in 1836 to celebrate the opening of the line.

He appears to have suffered some ill-health during this period and by 1835, he had moved to North London and was living in Mornington Place, Camden.

His main work continued to be for the Stephensons and largely associated with Robert's construction of the London to Birmingham railway. These were published as engravings in a book on the line by Roscoe in 1839.

Like most artists, he seems to have had financial trouble and wrote a neurotic letter to his parents in 1839 asking for money. However, he was increasingly drawn to freelance work and by 1840, he was producing extremely detailed architectural drawings and water colours of buildings in London.

One of these, a very fine painting of St Paul's Cathedral from Blackfriars Bridge, was presented to the Mayor of Liverpool by George's brother Thomas in 1877. It is now in the Walker Art Gallery.

George continued to live in London but travelled quite widely in England producing romantic water colours of scenery in places as far apart as Norfolk, Lancashire and the Gower Peninsula.

Some of his most atmospheric paintings date from the period after 1850, and he appears to have been particularly prolific between about 1860 and 1880.

He was a member of the Royal Water Colour Society from 1848. Several of his works were reproduced in the Illustrated London News, the Graphic and the Cambridge Almanac.

He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy, The British Institution, The Royal Institute, The Society of British Artists, The Liverpool Academy, The Liverpool Society of Fine Arts, and The Liverpool Autumn Exhibition.

In 1877, he was living in at 28 Clifton Hill, St John's Wood, and died there on June 4 1880.

Pictures show:
Top
The Brook. A good water colour by Dodgson painted in 1862. This picture has always been owned by Dodgson's successors, having been given to Dodgson's brother, Thomas

Above
Denbigh Bridge - on the London and Birmingham railway near Bletchley. An engraving by Radclyffe after a painting by George Haydock Dodgson 1839.

Newton Dale near Pickering, Yorkshire - a typically romanticised view along the Whitby and Pickering Railway. An engraving from a Dodgson drawing dated 1835

Cattle in a farmyard. An early pencil sketch by Dodgson found being used as packing behind another Dodgson painting when it was reframed. The drawing dates from about 1830.