Edward John Gregory

(British, 1850-1909)

Portrait of Leslie Newall reclining on a sofa

Footnotes

Exhibited
London, Franco-British Exhibition, 1908, no. 595 (lent by Wm. Newall, Esq.).

Literature
Sir Isidore Spielmann (compiled by), Souvenir of the Fine Art Section, Franco-British Exhibition, 1908, London, 1908, illustrated.


This group of works from the estate of William Newall, depicts the five children of Newall and his wife Lilian, née Holloway. The three sons were Leslie (born 22 October 1892), Keith (born 25 August 1894), and Nigel (born 18 July 1896). They were at school at Eton, while the eldest – Leslie – went up to Merton College, Oxford. Both Leslie and Nigel were killed in the First World War, the former as a Second Lieutenant in the First Battalion of the London Regiment (the Royal Fusiliers), on 2 September 1915, and Nigel, also with the rank of Second Lieutenant, in the Welsh Guards, on 12 October 1917. Keith, who was the grandfather of the present owner and who served in the Royal Navy, died in 1938. The two daughters of William and Lilian Newall were Doreen Mary, who was born on 31 May 1899, and Gwyneth Lilian, born on 10 June 1904.

William Newall was the second son of Robert Stirling Newall, FRS, and his wife Mary, daughter of Hugh Lee Pattinson, FRS. Newall senior was an engineer and industrialist who, although Scottish by birth, lived in Gateshead (where in his garden he had built an astronomical observatory, including a 25-inch refracting telescope which was at the time the largest such instrument in the world). He was a pioneer in the manufacture of steel cable and was responsible for the laying of telegraphic cables across the English Channel and Black Sea, while his company produced half of the first telegraphic cable laid across the Atlantic.

Robert Stirling Newall was a keen collector of contemporary art, especially of landscape paintings and drawings, with a group of Turner watercolours among his prized possessions at his house in Gateshead. He was on friendly terms with fellow Tynesider and Pre-Raphaelite patron James Leathart, and on occasions works of art were swapped between the two men. Leathart's house in Gateshead was called Brackendene and stood a short distance from Newall's house, Ferndene (sadly now demolished).

Robert Stirling Newall's son William was born in Gateshead on 24 April 1851. Nothing is known about William's education or early ambitions, but it would seem that he was disinclined to follow the industrial and scientific paths that his father and two younger brothers had taken or were to take. Instead, he became a stockbroker and financier in London, living at various addresses in Surrey and Sussex, and later at a house called Redheath at Croxley Green in Hertfordshire.

Clearly, William Newall was successful in his professional life, as may be deduced from the scale of the house in which he lived (although he occupied it as a tenant rather than owner). A passionate collector, he maintained the family tradition of favouring landscape artists including members of the Liverpool School of artists such as William Davis and Alfred William Hunt (see lots 63 and 64), and artist illustrators, including both George John Pinwell and John William North. Portraits of Lilian were commissioned from Sir Luke Fildes (see lot 62) and John Singer Sargent. Even more remarkable than William Newall's accumulation of contemporary and near-contemporary painters was his extraordinary collection of Renaissance bronzes and marble sculptures, majolica, furniture including fine Italian sixteenth-century cassones and cabinets, woodwork and English silver.

William Newall had a particular taste for historic frames and seems always to have preferred watercolours and drawings in his collection to be close framed and often in carved and gilded frames which might seem disproportionately heavy but which to his eye were in keeping with the richness of effect lent by the centuries-old furnishings and decorative arts on display at Redheath. In addition, William Newall was himself an artist, working as a sculptor in bronze (see lot 61).

William Newall died on 22 April 1921, aged seventy. The larger part of his collections was sold at auction in London – his collection of objects of art on 27 June 1922 and the following two days (his bronze of the figure of Eros attributed to Donatello being purchased by the Victoria & Albert Museum). The pictures and drawings followed on 30 June on which occasion were sold 28 drawings by Alfred William Hunt and two splendid Turners. Newall's library, also sold at auction after his death, contained a copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer and other works printed on vellum by William Morris as well as precious older volumes. More works from the collection were sold at auction in London on 8 June 1934 after the death of William's widow Lilian.

A special affection seems to have linked William Newall with the Edward John Gregory. Perhaps best known for his large oil painting Boulter's Lock, Sunday Afternoon (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), which was first shown at the Royal Academy in 1897, Gregory was an illustrator associated with the Graphic magazine, and later a prolific exhibitor at the Institute of Painters in Water-Colour. Three works by Gregory were included in the Newall sale in 1922, whereas the present group of eight watercolour portraits of the children of William and Lilian Newall were retained by the family (see also lots 59 and 60). Those of their sons Leslie and Nigel must have offered an especially poignant record of their childhood years to their parents after the time of their deaths in action in 1915 and 1917 respectively.

Christopher Newall.