The Barnes School (Part 3) – my daily art display

The Children: George Augustus Williams and Arthur Gilbert Frederick Williams

George Augustus Williams

The third son of Edward and Ann Williams was George Augustus Williams who was born in London on May 4^th 1814.  He was one of the more prolific landscape painters of the Williams family.  Again, like his brothers, the only artistic tuition he received was from his father.   His work is distinct from that of the other family members as he preferred to paint depictions of riverscapes of the Thames, moonlit landscapes, seascapes and views of Kent, Wales and elsewhere.  His work was characterized by moonlight and twilight winter scenes of villages and stables, often with horses and a light dusting of snow.

George was still young when he married Caroline Smith on February 19^th 1834 at St. Pancras Church in Camden, London.   It was a double wedding, in which Caroline’s sister Charlotte Matilda Smith also married her fiancé Edward Joseph Brett.  By 1841 George and his wife had a family of three sons, Walter, Francis, and Frederick and a daughter, Caroline.  The 1841 census shows that George and Caroline were living with their family on London Street in St. Mary Islington in the central part of London, next door to his brother Edward Charles Williams.  The family moved around 1844 to Liverpool Street in the Bishopsgate District of London.

In 1846, the family had once again moved, this time to Barnes and lived in a house that had sight of the Thames, which was a favourite subject for Augustus Williams’ paintings.  His paintings were primarily exhibited at the Suffolk Street Gallery, the home of the Society of British Artists but he also exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1841 onwards, and at many other galleries.

In 1846 George, Caroline and their family were living with his father at No. 32 Castelnau Villas in Barnes, which at that time was a rural area near the Thames River on the outskirts of London. George continued to live there until the death of his father in 1855.  He then moved his family a short distance to another house at No. 4 Castelnau Cottages.

There is, however, somewhat of a mystery as to what happened to George’s wife Caroline as she seems to have disappeared from living at Castelnau Villas from any census records after 1851.  It is possible that she left her husband, although in Jan Reynolds 1975 book, The Williams Family of Painters, she said that she believed Caroline had died. 

George continued to give No. 32 Castelnau as his address in various documents until 1855, which is the year his father died. George then at some point soon after moved to another house on the same road, No. 4 Castelnau Cottages, which is very close to his late father’s house. We know for sure that he was in the new house by the time the U.K. Census for 1861 was taken. As I said before, nothing is known for sure about Caroline’s status or whereabouts during these years at the Castelnau houses, and she was definitely out George’s life by 1854 when he appears with a new wife and a new child.

George’s fifth child Albert Williams was born on August 26, 1854. The mother of the child was George’s second wife, Jane Newman, and they were shown on birth and baptism records as Albert’s parents. However, there is no official record of the marriage between George and Jane.  Sadly, Jane died of tuberculosis on February 3rd, 1855 at the Castelnau Villas, less than five months after the birth of Albert. She was buried at the age of 27 on February 10th, 1855 in the Barnes parish, which indicates that she almost certainly is buried in the Old Barnes Cemetery.

Albert Williams was baptized on March 15, 1855 at the Barnes, St. Mary parish church, about three weeks after his mother’s burial. He died the next day on March 16 1855 in Castelnau, Barnes, and as his name appears in the burial register of the Barnes parish church, he is almost certainly buried with his parents in the Old Barnes Cemetery

In the 1861 U.K. census, George Augustus Williams now listed as a widow, was sharing a household with his daughter Caroline, who never married. George and Caroline were then joined around 1877 by George’s eight-year-old granddaughter, Maud Marion Williams, who was the daughter of George’s late son, Frederick Williams, and stayed with them for the rest of their lives.

George died on May 26th, 1901, aged 87, at his home at Castelnau Villas, having lived in the same neighbourhood for more than fifty years. He is buried in the Old Barnes Cemetery in the grave of his father, and near his brother Henry John Boddington.

Arthur Gilbert Frederick William

Arthur Gilbert Frederick Williams was born on December 19th, 1819 at Newington Butts Road in Southeast London. He was the fourth of six sons of Edward Williams and his wife Anne Hildebrandt.  Again, like his brothers before him, he was initially tutored in art by his father but also by his older siblings.  He, like his brother Henry (Boddington) Williams, attempted to distinguish himself from the other members of his family by avoiding the use of his surname, and instead signing his works, Arthur Gilbert.  His works often focused on depictions of moonlit night scenes, and stark mountain landscapes uncluttered by trees or people.

When Arthur was twenty-three, he married his first wife Elizabeth Jane Williams on January 23rd, 1843 at St. Martin in the Fields in London. She was three years older than her husband.  Although both had the same surname, there is no indication that they were in any way related.  

Their daughter Kate was born later that year, on December 17^th and the following year, 1844, Arthur was baptized with his daughter Kate on Sept. 9th at the Old St. Pancras Church, the same church where his parents had been married. Elizabeth died after contracting tuberculosis on August 29th, 1849, and she was buried on September 5th, 1849 in Hammersmith. Arthur was now left to look after his five-year-old daughter.  Five years later, Arthur married his second wife, Sarah on June 28th, 1854 at the Barnes parish church. Sarah, whose father was a lawyer, was ten years older than Arthur.  Arthur and Sarah had a son Horace Walter Gilbert who was born on April 6^th 1855.

Arthur Gilbert lived at different homes in the London districts of Weybridge and Hammersmith, but he lived for seventeen years at Lonsdale Terrace in Barnes, close to his brothers at the Castelnau Villas.  Arthur and Sarah moved to Redhill, Surrey with their family in 1873, and the following year he was on the move again, this time to Surrey and a large house, De Tillens, in the town of Limpsfield, Surrey.  Arthur Gilbert Fredrick Williams died on April 21, 1895, aged 75, in Croydon, Surrey, near the home of his brother Alfred. It is believed that his wife, Sarah, died around the same time.  It is thought that Arthur and Sarah were buried at the Queen’s Road Cemetery in Croydon, which is located only a couple of miles from where Arthur Gilbert died.

Friends described Arthur as of a shy and retiring nature.  He was a devoted family man, but completely engaged in his work as a painter. He had an exceptional inherent flair for painting and was always fascinated with the beauty of the English countryside, which he was masterful when it came to transferring what he saw onto canvas in a crisp, colourful manner, whether it be the meadows, gently flowing rivers, verdant trees or the rustic farmsteads, and delightfully contrasted the lush greens with red-roofed barns and thatched cottages. Arthur Gilbert was equally proficient at painting farm workers, grazing sheep, horses at work and cattle idly drinking water in high Summer or in the glow of Autumn. He painted en plein air and lovingly transferred his love and kinship with the countryside into his artwork.

One example of this is his highly gifted 1844 work entitled The Bell Inn, Arthur Gilbert which depicts a rustic village inn, nestling under a canopy of trees, a wooden bridge crossing the shallow river, with sunlight illuminating the path.  We observe a man on horseback who has paused for a drink at the inn.  Another man fishes from the bridge, and a flock of sheep head for the fields, following a horse and cart. It is a tranquil depiction, the likes of which were popular with the public who wanted to remember the gentle serenity, peace and of a time long gone by.

.

Most of the information I have found for these blogs about the Barnes School came from the excellent website of Mike Clark, entitled Genealogy of the Percy, Williams and Ward families.  If you would like to read an in-depth account of the Williams family, this is a must-read.