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The Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition Building 1879: Designing for an historic setting in York

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 April 2016

Jeremy Taylor
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Extract

From 24july to 31 October 1866 a first ‘Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition’ was held at a site in the grounds of the Bootham Asylum, York. The exhibition proved a considerable success with the attendance by 400,000 people yielding a net profit to the sponsoring committee of £1,866. At a meeting on 10 April 1867 the committee was continued in office in order to ‘apply this surplus in providing some permanent building to be devoted to the encouragement of Art and Industry’.1 The result was to be the opening of a second exhibition on 7 May 1879, with a permanent building by the local architect Edward Taylor (1831-1908) that now forms the York City Art Gallery.

Type
Section 4: Architecture and its Organization in the Provinces
Information
Architectural History , Volume 27: Design and Practice in British Architecture , 1984 , pp. 356 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 1984

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References

Notes

1 Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition Reports etc. 1867-1890, York Reference Library Y 708.2, Pam. 773, P-3-

2 Illustrations and details of the 1866 exhibition are given inj. W. Knowles, Exhibition Buildings in York, 1, 187687, a scrapbook of original letters, cuttings, photographs, etc. held in York Reference Library at Y 708.2. Hereafter referred to as ‘Knowles’.

3 See Official Catalogue of the Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition (York, 1879). An Open University student essay ‘The Evolution of York City Art Gallery and its Social Context 1879-1978’ by M. I. Jackson (unpublished, 1978) is shelved at the Art Gallery.

4 Reports etc., p. 3.

5 York Herald, 23 April 1878.

6 The bundles in the Architects’ Department are numbered PH 347 to PH353. They cover drawing filing numbers 6664 to 6790 inclusive. The drawings have not been stamped with their numbers in any particular order, although certain groupings (e.g. 6664-6670 contract drawings of August 1876) are maintained.

7 PH398 no. 7681; PH397 no. 7668; PH397 no. 7669 and 7670 (two halves of a single elevation).

8 John Ward Knowles includes in his scrapbook (p. 95) his own application for display space in the 1879 Exhibition. His address was the Studio, 23 Stonegate, York, and he gives his occupation as ‘Glass Stainer and ecclesiastical decorator’.

9 The exhibition structure (200ft X 90ft) lasted until the 1940s; the machinery annexe (190ft X 130ft) had apparently been dismantled by 1880. See Ingamells, J. ‘The Elevation of the Masses ’Preview (York), xxx (January 1977), 1021.Google Scholar

10 York Herald, supplement 18 March 1876.

11 For King’s Manor and surrounding buildings see RCHM City of York (iv ‘Outside the City Walls East of the Ouse’) (HMSO 1975), particularly pp. 30-46, pis 24 and 54, fig. 12.

12 See G. Curr, ‘The Making of Historic York: motivations behind local building preservation 1800-1982’. D. Phil Dissertation, University of York, 1983.

13 York Herald, 20 March 1876.

14 Ibid.

15 Knowles, pp. 31 and 35.

16 From a Statement of a meeting of the Subscribers held in the Council Chamber, Guildhall, York on Friday 6th July 1877 (PrintedYork I2july 1877). In Knowles, p. 15.

17 York Herald, 27]uly 1877.

18 A copy of the four-sided foolscap handout is included in Knowles p. 9. The introduction notes that already upwards of £14,000 was promised by subscribers.

19 The date of approval is countersigned on drawings in this set e.g. no. 6666.

20 Letter from Bellerby, j. in York Herald, 3 August 1877.Google Scholar

21 Statement of a meeting of the Subscribers, Knowles, p. 15.

22 Knowles, pp. 35 and 36.

23 Knowles, p. 24.

24 Knowles, p. 27.

25 Drawing 6677 only varies from the watercolour 7681 (January 1877) in minor details of the statuary and in the slight emphasis of end bays by a stepping forward of the brick façade.

26 In Knowles, p. 54.

27 Contractors listed in Builder, 10 May 1879, p. 511.

28 Builder, ibid.

29 The tile pictures represented (on the left) Painting: ‘The death of Leonardo da Vinci in the arms of Francis the 1st’, and (on the right) Sculpture: ‘Michaelangelo showing his statue of Moses’.

30 The City had agreed to the removal of the ‘Bird in Hand’ public house shown in PL 1.

31 Builder, ioMay 1879; lithograph by H. Brown published byj.Stead, York. A copy ofthe medal is in York City Art Gallery.

32 See Taylor, Jeremy The Architectural Medal: England in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1978).Google Scholar

33 Also by Thomas Ottley.

34 Letters from Wilkins to the Revd Vernon, W. B. President ofthe YPS. Quoted in YPS Annual Report, 1827, p. 32 Google Scholar and see also Liscombe, R. W. William Wilkins 1778-1839 (Cambridge, 1980).Google Scholar

35 The exhibition ran from 7 May to 8 November 1879. The buildings were ultimately purchased by York Corporation in 1892.