J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

With the page turned vertically with the gutter at the top, Turner made the following notes, the first two lines being in ink and the last in pencil:

The note refers to biannual interest payments on Turner’s long-term annuity investments. For similar financial notes on adjacent pages, see under folio 1 recto (D22323).

With the page turned vertically the opposite way, Turner made two sketches. The top one shows trees in an apparently rural setting with no sign of buildings; it is annotated ‘Pond’ and ‘Birmingham’, and separated from the drawing below by a horizontal pencil line. The drawing across the middle of the page is again inscribed ‘Pond’, and shows Birmingham in the distance, flanked by trees and small buildings. As part of unpublished Turner research informed by local knowledge, Dr Bernard Richards has noted that the landmarks on the skyline appear to be the spire of Christ Church, New Street (demolished in 1899)1 and the dome of St Philip’s Church (later Birmingham Cathedral), with the spire of St Martin’s-in-the Bullring to the right in the middle distance, seen from the south-east.2 The prospect is similar to that shown in View of Birmingham, from Bordesley Fields, near the Coventry Road, engraved by T. Radclyffe after T. Creswick, and published in William Hawkes Smith’s Birmingham and Its Vicinity as a Manufacturing and Commercial District (London and Birmingham 1836). Bordesley lies south-east of the centre of modern Birmingham; see folio 38 recto (D22393). The 1836 print shows St Martin’s, Christ Church and St Philip’s among others, as identified by local historian William Dargue,3 beyond a rural setting of trees, water and grazing sheep.

Turner had produced a watercolour of Birmingham from the east in about 1794 (untraced),4 engraved in 1795 for the Copper-Plate Magazine (Tate impressions: T05890, T05891); although there is no evidence in his sketches that he visited the town at that time, Birmingham is mentioned among other Midlands subjects in notes at the beginning of the Matlock sketchbook, used in the summer of 1794 (Tate D00208; Turner Bequest XIX 2). James Hamilton has suggested that Turner’s 1830 visit might be connected with his works being exhibited there the previous year (see the Introduction to the tour). Maps of the time show the urban centre as covering about a square mile. Hamilton notes that Birmingham had a population of 144,000 at this time, but in comparison with Manchester with its factories and Leeds with its mills, ‘Birmingham has always been perceived as a city of workshops rather than factories’, and ‘Turner characterized his views of Birmingham by sketching the towers of St Philip’s, St Martin’s-in-the-Bullring, and St Paul’s, Hockley’.5

Turner did not develop a watercolour view of Birmingham for his Picturesque Views in England and Wales, the main impetus of the 1830 Midlands tour (see the Introductions to the sketchbook and tour). Tate D25250 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 128), a hazy ‘colour beginning’ of an industrial town at sunset, may show Birmingham or perhaps nearby Dudley, which Turner did represent in a finished watercolour on a predominantly industrial theme, Dudley, Worcestershire of about 1832 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),6 engraved in 1835 for England and Wales (Tate impressions: T05097, T06113, T06114). For Dudley, see under folio 39 recto (D22395).

There are further views around Birmingham on the verso, folio 4 recto and verso, 35 recto, 38 recto (at Bordesley, as mentioned above) and verso, 45 recto, 47 recto and 49 recto (D22328–D22330, D22387, D22393, D22394, D22407, D22411, D22415). Others are in the contemporary Kenilworth sketchbook (see under Tate D21980; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 3a).