Edward Foster: Part 5, A good hand at spinning a yarn

Edward Foster, Derby, 8 November 1864
When I started to research the life of Edward Foster, silhouettist and book publisher of Derby, there was no shortage of material on which to draw. As described in Part 4, the accounts of this man's remarkable life continued to grow throughout the century and a half following his death, the latest article appearing in Derbyshire Life just two years ago. During the course of his reputed 102 years there appeared to be little that Mr Foster did not accomplish. Born of noble parentage, reduced by circumstance, he had a notable military career, became an accomplished miniature painter, with royal appointments, was an inventor, then became a silhouette artist, capturing the profiles of many eminent persons of the day, and finally was a compiler, publisher and distributer of educational charts and texts.


Profile of Thomas Marseille of Canterbury, by Edward Foster, 1822
His career as a prolific painter of profiles, which I covered in Part 2 of this series, was relatively straightforward to document. A series of newspaper advertisements and trade directory entries from 1809 to 1833 is supported by an impressive body of extant signed work, often with trade labels, an example of which I even managed to purchase for myself (pictured above).


Foster's Elementary French Grammar and Exercises, 1839
Then in the late 1830s and 1840s Foster and his son Edward Ward Foster (1819-1851) together compiled and published a number of educational texts and charts, discussed in part 3. After his son's death in 1851 Edward senior continued peddling scholastic charts throughout the United Kingdom, also easily verified through newspaper advertorials.


20th Regiment of Foot uniforms
His earlier life, however, proved to be far more difficult to corroborate. Although the events described in the reports of his military service did take place, details of his actual connection to them have been particularly elusive. Much has been made of his royal patronage, but I have not been able to unearth a single piece of contemporary evidence that Foster was ever a miniature painter to the Royal Family. Besides the single purported self portrait used to illustrate a 1907 article which I reproduced in Part 4, I have yet to find unequivocal evidence of a single miniature portrait, as opposed to a profile, painted by him.



from Derbyshire Gatherings by Joseph Barlow Robinson, 1866
With the first contemporary evidence of his activities only to be found in June 1809, when he was already reputedly in his mid-40s, I then began to wonder about the veracity of the stories concerning the years prior to his establishment as a silhouette artist. To this end, I carried out a comparison of the accounts which have appeared. Most, if not all, of the material in reports about Foster's early years written in the 20th century has most likely been taken from a chapter in Robinson's 1866 book Derbyshire Gatherings (PDF), with the usual slight embellishments that are expected with time. Although his sources are not stated, Robinson, in turn, appears to have based his account mostly on the text of a speech by Henry Adams at the "congratulatory dinner" to Foster in November 1862, probably supplemented by newspaper and other reports of the period.


A Veteran, The Derby Mercury, 7 May 1862
Click image to enlarge
The earliest of these reports that I've been able to find - at least in the 19th century British Library Newspapers selection presented online by Gale - is an undated article from Aris's Birmingham Gazette reprinted in The Derby Mercury on 7 May 1862. While primarily a promotion for his "admirable chronological charts," it states that Mr Foster will complete his 100th year in a few months" and refers to his military service, but strangely makes no mention whatsoever of his artistic career. One very definitely gets the impression, on reading it, that Foster provided the information to the Gazette reporter himself. Likewise, much of the biographic material used by Henry Adams in his speech is likely to have been put forward by Foster who, as I demonstrated in Part 1, was particularly adept at self promotion using a variety of media.

The stories of Edward Foster's family and pre-silhouette years can be separated into the following "events," each of which will be dealt with separately:

• 1. Noble ancestry, birth, numerous wives and children, including:
  a. birth at All Saints, Derby on 8 November 1762,
  b. descendant of Duke of Norfolk,
  c. centenarian grandparents,
  d. father was land steward to Sit Robert Burdett, Baronet of Foremark,
  e. married 5 times and had 17 children.
• 2. Entered Derby militia, aged 17, c.1780
• 3. Military service as junior officer in 20th Regiment of Foot, c.1781-1805, including:
  a. under Marquis Cornwallis in latter part of American Revolution, c.1781,
  b. under Duke of York in Holland, c.1793-4,
  c. under Sir Ralph Abercrombie in Egypt, 1801,
  d. at Deal/Walmer, Kent, c.1801-5,
  e. resigned on the day Nelson died, 21 October 1805.
• 4. Involved with "Ragged schools."
• 5. Appointed miniature painter to the Royal Family, with rooms at Round Tower, Windsor Castle.
• 6. Invented and patented machine for taking profiles.

Birth in 1762, noble ancestry, family

Much of the legend which surrounds Edward Foster derives from his longevity. His claims of a great age can be traced somewhat earlier than the 1862 article, with his stated ages in the 1851 and 1861 Census records being 90 and 99 respectively. Reports in The York Herald (27 April 1861) and The Hull Packet (3 May 1861) also gave his age as 99 years. Unfortunately, I've as yet been unable to locate him in the 1841 Census.

Baptism: Edward Foster, 13 November 1774, Egginton
Click image to enlarge

I was hoping that finding a record of his baptism would be a relatively straightforward matter, since the International Genealogical Index (IGI) has good, albeit not complete, coverage of the parish registers of Derby town, as well as the non-conformist registers. Disappointingly there was no sign of a suitable baptism in the IGI, and a trawl of microfilms of the parish registers for All Saints, St Werburgh, St Alkmund, St Michael and St Peter between 1760 and 1765, kindly carried out for me by Frank Wattleworth, also turned up empty. Spreading the net (and the fishing euphemisms) a little wider, both location- and time-wise, produced a baptism for an Edward Foster on 13 November 1774 at Egginton, a parish seven miles to the south-west of Derby, the son of Edward and Anne Foster.

Marriage: Edward Foster & Ann Haward, 7 June 1774, Egginton
Click image to enlarge

Further research reveals that Edward Foster senior's wife, whom he married at Egginton in 1774, was Ann Haward, Heyward, Hayward or Haywood (but never Howard), baptised on 25 February 1753 at Egginton, one of six children of Robert and Ann Heyward. This is almost certainly the family of our Edward Foster, given the number of coincidental facts.

Ann Haywood senior was buried at Egginton on 12 September 1798. Her children were born between 1750 and 1763 so, given the oldest likely age of child bearing in the 18th century was about 45. Her earliest possible date of birth was therefore c.1718, and she is unlikely to have been more than 81 years old when she died, a far cry from the 103 years claimed by Robinson.

Henry Howard (1628-1684), 6th Duke of Norfolk

If her husband Robert was of a similar age, even give or take a couple of decades, the only Duke of Norfolk of that era to have been producing children was the 6th Duke, who died in 1683/84. The 7th, 8th and 9th Dukes died without issue, and the 10th was only born in 1720. The chances of his being a Howard of that family are, in my view, very slim indeed!

Foremarke Hall, 1805, seat of Sir Robert Burdett, 5th Baronet

Was Edward Foster senior ever land steward to Sir Robert Burdett, 4th Baronet, of Foremark Hall, Derbyshire? After all, the dates seem to fit, and Foremarke Hall is only four miles to the east of Egginton. I believe he was probably born in nearby Doveridge in 1748, so would have been in his mid-20s by the time Edward junior was born. In 1791, Burdett's land steward in Foremark was Robert C. Greaves, Esq. (Universal British Directory, 1791), and by 1821-22 William Crabtree was performing that duty (Pigot's Derbyshire Directory, 1821-1822). However, Foster's father may well have been the incumbent at some other time between those dates. This awaits further research, perhaps in the extensive collection of Burdett papers at the Derbyshire Record Office. A quick look at the catalogue contents, for example, reveals the names of further agents John Brand (1783), Benjamin Redfern (1783-1789) and Robert Banton (1808-1816), but no sign of Foster.

In the celebratory speech given by Adams in 1862, which I think we can now assume was based largely on information supplied by Foster himself, he boasted of having been married five times, and to have fathered 17 children, with the oldest daughter born c.1784. The last of these claims is obviously unrealistic, if we now accept that he was born in 1774, and would have been a mere 10 years old at the time. While I have only found evidence for two children, I accept there may well have been several others.

Marriage: Edward Ward Foster & Isabella Magdalene Graham, 22 December 1841, Islington

• Edward Ward Foster was probably born at Scarborough, Yorkshire around 1819, son of Edward and Elizabeth Foster. He married Isabella Magdalene Graham at Islington in 1841, died in Peckham and was buried at Nunhead Cemetery, Linden Grove, Southwark on 3 May 1851.
• Phillis Howard Foster was born at Barony, a suburb of Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland on 2 November 1852 and baptised on 13 June 1855 at the High St Presbyterian or Unitarian Chapel in Portsmouth, Hampshire, daughter of Edward Foster and Margaret Mothersill (IGI). After Foster's death she moved to Southport, Lancashire but was back in Derby visiting in April 1881 and married Matthew Brunskill soon after. They had five children, and lived in Barrow-in-Furness, Waterloo and then Liverpool, where he was a grocer's assistant and coal merchant's agent. Phillis Howard Brunskill died in 1927, aged 74.

Death: Eliza Foster, The Derby Mercury, 4 August 1847

Edward Foster had married Margaret Mothersill, the mother of his youngest child, at Manchester in late 1851, the 1851 Census having described him as a widower. Four years earlier, a report in The Derby Mercury stated, "DEATHS. On Tuesday, July 27, in London, Eliza, the beloved wife of Edward Foster, Esq., formerly of St. John's Terrace, Derby, aged 67." It seems likely, given her age, that she was the Elizabeth Ward that Edward Foster married at St Margaret's, Leicester on 10 October 1818, and was presumably the mother of Edward Ward Foster.

Death of General Abercrombie at Alexandria, 28 March 1801

Military Service

While Edward Foster may have served in a Derby militia of some kind, if he was born in 1774 then his stated military service as a lieutenant with the 20th Regiment of Foot in America and Holland was impossible. I confirmed that the 20th Regiment were in Minorca in early 1801, travelled to Egypt in June that year, and went to Malta in September. I also found a note that 80 men suffering from ophthalmia were sent back to England. He would have been 25 for the expedition to Egypt, but it is physically impossible that he witnessed General Abercrombie's death in the moment of triumph at Alexandria, since that event occurred on 28 March, prior to the regiment's arrival in Alexandria. Nor have I have been able to find any record of his service with that regiment. It seems to me to have been a complete fabrication.

Rev Guthrie at Ragged School, Princes Street, Edinburgh, 1851

Ragged Schools

The Ragged Schools movement has been fairly well documented in a number of texts, but I've been unable to find any mention of either Edward Foster or his son, who described himself as an "Author Lecturer & Professor of Elocution &c." in the 1851 Census, having a prominent role in their promotion or growth.

Advertisement in The Hull Packet, 26 December 1809

Miniature Painter and Royal Patronage

Mention is made of two "water-colour miniatures" and a miniature of a lady signed in ink on the reverse "Edward Foster / York" and dated 1803 by Daphne Foskett in Miniatures: Dictionary and Guide (1987). He is also mentioned in Harry Blättel's International Dictionary of Miniature Painters, Porcelain Painters, Silhouettists (1992). Once again, I've been unable to find any contemporary evidence supporting this claim of patronage. He did, however, include a royal coat of arms in some of his advertisements, such as the 1809 example above, which also claims "By His Majesty's Royal Letters Patent."

Advertisement in The Leeds Mercury, 17 June 1809

Invention and Patent of Profile-Taking Machine

The first indisputable contemporary evidence found during this study of Foster's commercial artistic activity is an advertisement that he placed in The Leeds Mercury of 17 June 1809. The words "By His Majesty's Royal Letters Patent" suggest that a Royal patent had been granted for the newly invented machine for sketching profiles in a short space of time, accurately and in great detail, although Foster in this particular case neither implicitly states that he was the inventor of the machine nor the grantee of the patent.

Patent application for physiognotrace by Schmalcalder, 1806

Later descriptions of the machine render it likely to have been a pantograph, which had been invented at least some two centuries earlier, or at the least an adaptation of one like the physiognotrace, but was perhaps not in common everyday use. Cynthia McKinley described a similar process in use by profile miniature artist James H. Gillespie, who also claimed to have invented a "new optical contrivance" which enabled him to draw likenesses in one minute. Although I have not carried out a search at the British Patent Office, I think it rather unlikely that such a patent in Foster's name exists.

Conclusion & Foster's Legacy

I believe the clue to all of these stories lies in the series of four educational charts which Foster was hawking for the last decade of his life. He stated in 1862 that these had been compiled by him at the British Museum, covering histories of the scriptures, England, France, Rome and the British Empire. It is my view that he developed his own "early history" during this voyage of discovery, and used it to good advantage in the years following. As his friend John Haslem stated in 1882, "He was a good hand at spinning a yarn, and in doing so appeared at times to draw somewhat on his imagination."

So, after that hatchet job, what remains of Edward Foster's legacy? He is unlikely to have had noble ancestry, he does not appear to have served in the miltary, probably never had royal patronage, let alone a royal appointment, and did not live to be a hundred (he was ninety years old when he died). For me it is his fine body of work that stands out, dozens - perhaps hundreds - of gilt-tinged black and reddish brown silhouettes in public and private collections, most signed simply below the bust with "Foster Pinxit" (Foster painted it) and a date, and a good proportion with the trademark "Foster & Crown" brass hanger. If you have a Foster silhouette in your collection, I'd very much appreciate seeing a scan or photograph of it, and if you would be happy for it to be shared via this blog, so much the better.

Sepia Saturday 100: Edward Foster, Part 4 - Growth of a Legend

Turning one hundred is an event to be celebrated with much fanfare, whether one receives a traditional letter from the Queen - in the case of the United States, it's the president - or prefers a more muted affair. Alan Burnett's Sepia Saturday series marks its hundredth weekly post this week, with many thousands of historical images and supporting words submitted as part of the weekly themes over the last two years.

Although I've only participated in slightly under a third of those, I've been following the series for a good deal longer. The contributions from all over the world, by participants from a variety of backgrounds, have given me a great deal of enjoyment, as well as providing a very useful regular flow of ideas for my own blog. Congratulations to the originators, Alan and Kat, and to all contributors. By the way Alan, what happened to the first ten in the series?


Edward Foster, Derby, 8 November 1864
Carte de visite by John Burton & Sons, Derby
Image © & courtesy of Virginia Silvester
In three previous Photo-Sleuth articles (Parts 1, 2 and 3) I have talked about the lengthy and intriguing life of Derby celebrity Edward Foster, silhouettist and publisher of educational charts. From c.1808 until at least the mid-1830s he established something of a reputation as a silhouette artist, leaving an impressive residue of work with portraits still valued in collections all over the world. In the 1840s and 1850s, he turned to the compilation and publishing of various educational aids, including scholastic charts. He spent much of his time travelling throughout the British Isles selling these - even in his old age, he was a sprightly fellow.

For much of his life he had made Derby his home town, and on 8 November 1862 a congratulatory dinner was held in honour of "a gentleman who has attained to the ripe old age of one hundred." Thomas Clarke, the town's new mayor, various town councillors and other town worthies were among the 38 guests, while the editor of The Derbyshire and Chesterfield Advertiser, the local Liberal newspaper, Henry Adams proposed the toast of the evening:

Our juvenile friend who sits on my right, looking more like a young Archbishop than a centenarian, betrays no signs of rapidly failing health, notwithstanding a life of great activity and vicissitude. Born on the 8th of November, 1762 - in the first American war, many years ago, he joined the militia [as an ensign], and when the French revolution broke out he went to Egypt with Gen. Abercrombie, and at his death Mr. Foster returned home with 104 men all more or less afflicted with ophthalmia. His friends persuaded him to leave the army, which he did on the day Nelson died.
Being of an active turn of mind, and having also a taste for the fine arts, he in the first instance invented and patented a machine ; and, in the second instance, he turned his attention to the fine arts.
At the death of his son he took to the publishing trade, having compiled some charts, many thousands of which have been sold to clergymen and other ministers, and have found ready acceptance in public and private schools ... our guest has been the husband of five wives, that he has seventeen children, that the first born, if now living, would have attained her 78th year, and that the last and only one which has been left, we hope, to solace and comfort him in his declining days, only a few days ago celebrated her 10th birthday.

Thomas Rose, timber merchant and future mayor, continued:

... many persons had expressed their surprise that their guest was so old a man, but for himself he was not at all surprised, for, judging from the conversations he had had with Mr. Foster, he had found him to be a history within himself - a sort of walking encyclodpaedia.

The Derby Mercury, 15 March 1865
Although he continued to actively tour, Foster appears to have experienced a downturn in sales of his educational aids, and by late 1863 was in such "straitened circumstances" that the Mayor of Derby applied for and was granted £60 from the Royal Bounty Fund for his benefit. The visit to John Burton & Sons' photographic studio in Derby took place in November 1864. His financial situation did not improve, and a further subscription for his benefit was called for by the proprietors of The Derby Mercury and The Derby Advertiser in January 1865. By then, he was ailing rapidly, and he died on Sunday 12th March 1865.


The Derby Mercury, 22 March 1865
Ten days later The Derby Mercury carried a report of his funeral at the New Cemetery in Nottingham Road, Derby on Thursday 16 March.

On Thursday last the remains of Mr. Edward Foster, 'the Derby centenarian' were interred at the new cemetery. The ceremony was conducted by the Rev. W. Oates, and was witnessed by many friends.

from Derbyshire Gatherings by Joseph Barlow Robinson, 1866
It did not take long for the legend of Edward Foster to take hold. Just a year later, in April 1866, Bemrose and Sons of Derby published a handsome volume entitled Derbyshire Gatherings; a Fund of Delight for the Antiquary, the Historian, the Topographer, the Biographer, and the General Reader, by sculptor and author Joseph Barlow Robinson. This included a section on several "remarkable and eccentric characters," the first of whom was "Mr. Edward Foster, the Derby Centenarian." As can be seen from the full text of this article (transcribed PDF), the biographical notes elaborated considerably on those presented by Henry Adams in Foster's birthday speech, and included several plaudits in prose and verse written during Foster's lifetime.


Reputed self portrait by Edward Foster (Bailey, 1907)
In 1882 a brief mention was made by contemporary John Haslem of Derby of Foster's silhouettes, his longevity and, curiously, his being a "good hand at spinning a yarn, and in doing so appeared at times to draw somewhat on his imagination." An article in a 1907 edition of The Connoisseur, An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors outlined Foster's background, made specific reference to his career as a miniature painter, and included a reputed self portrait by him, in the form of a miniature in a cameo frame - reproduced above - although the source was not given. The author claimed to have "gathered and authenticated" information from Foster's sole surviving daughter, then "living in a suburb of Liverpool, in poor circumstances."

By the time knowledgeable silhouette collector Emily Nevill Jackson published the first significant text on that art form in 1911, Foster's body of work had become sufficiently well known to warrant a siginificant mention. Desmond Coke's The Art of Silhouette, published two years later, espoused the view that Foster was not sufficiently appreciated for his innovative techniques. More recently McKechnie (1978) has written what is possibly the most complete account of Foster's career as a profilist, with a detailed study of extant works, advertisements and trade labels. The biographical material included appears to be a conglomeration of those from the earlier works mentioned above.

Writers of Derbyshire history have also paid periodic attention to Foster over the last century and a half since his death. John Woodiwiss' 1962 article, timed to coincide with the bi-centenary of Edward Foster's birth date, consisted of a re-hash of Robinson's Derbyshire Gatherings biography, a description of some of his extant red and black profiles, and illustrations of three examples from his personal collection. Most recently Peter Seddon has reprised the subject in 2009, with a number of fine illustrations of Foster's work and a well written article, but no new biographical information.


Edward Foster's grave site, Nottingham Road Cemetery, Derby, 2011
Image © & courtesy of Nigel Aspdin
Even to this day, visitors on a tour of Derby's Nottingham Road Cemetery are shown the site Edward Foster's unmarked "pauper's grave," and regaled with the legend of Derby's much lauded centenarian.

So much for the legend. In the concluding article (Part 5) of this rather drawn-out series, which I intend to also publish this week, I will investigate the nature of this legend, and address some of the uncomfortable discrepancies in the various accounts of his life.

References

Anon (1862) Congratulatory Dinner to a Centenarian, The Derby Mercury, 12 November 1862.

Anon (1863) Mr. Edward Foster, the Centenarian, The Derby Mercury, 2 December 1863.

Anon (1863) Death of Mr. Edward Foster, The Derby Mercury, 15 March 1865.

Anon (1882) Silhouettes, or Black Profile Portraits, Notes and Queries, April 1882, s6-V (121) : 301 - 320

Bailey, J.T.H. (1907) Edward Foster, the Centenarian Miniature Painter, in The Connoisseur, An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors, Vol. XIX (September-December 1907), p.120, Archive.org

Coke, Desmond (1913) The Art of Silhouette, M. Secker, 230p.

Haslem, John (1882) Silhouettes, or Black Profile Portraits, in Notes & Queries, Oxford University Press, 6th S. VI. July 15, 1882, from Google Books.

Jackson, Emily Nevill (1911) The History of Silhouettes, The Connoisseur, London.

Jackson, Emily Nevill (1938) Silhouettes - Notes and Dictionary, Methuen Ltd., Republished 1981 as Silhouettes - History and Dictionary of Artists, New York: Dover Publications, 154 p., 103 pl.

McKechnie, Sue (1978) British Silhouette Artists and their Work, 1760-1860, London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 799p.

Robinson, Joseph Barlow (1866) Derbyshire Gatherings: A fund of delight for the antiquary, the historian, the topographer, the biographer, and the general reader, London: J.R. Smith, 106p, (Mr. Edward Foster, The Derby Centenarian, p. 81-84), Internet Archive (Transcript by Brett Payne, PDF).

Seddon, Peter (2009) Edward Foster: A Master in Profile, Derbyshire Life, July 2009, p.170-173.

White, Francis (1857) History, Gazetteer and Directory of the County of Derby, courtesy of Neil Wilson

Woodiwiss, John (1962) Edward Foster: Derby Silhouettist and Centenarian, Derbyshire Countryside, 8 Nov 1962.

Striking Likenesses: George White (1810-1880), from Silhouettist to Photographer

Auguste Edouart, self portrait, 1843
Silhouette, Lithograph on paper
Image © National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Options available for preserving a likeness of yourself for posterity in the pre-photographic era of Georgian England were limited, unless you were wealthy enough to commission a portrait, life size or miniature. A cheaper alternative was to have a silhouette portrait either cut from black paper or painted. In fact the name itself implied a low price. French finance minister Etienne de Silhouette imposed severe economic austerity measures during the Seven Years War, and his surname came to signify anything that was done on the cheap. Auguste Edouart (1789-1861) was probably the most widely celebrated silhouettist of his time, establishing his reputation first in London and then touring England, Scotland, the United States and France.


Advertisement by William Seville, Lancaster, 1824
from Jackson (1911)
I have written previously of Mancunian William Seville (1797-1866), who made the transition from an active career cutting silhouette portraits, spanning three decades, to an arguably less successful spell taking collodion portraits (ambrotypes) at Derby in the mid- to late 1850s. Edward Foster of Derby was also a prolific artist of this genre. After travelling widely throughout England and painting silhouettes from 1809 until at least 1838, he turned to the compilation and publication of educational books and charts in the 1840s. Although Foster apparently never made the move to photographer, there is evidence that he appreciated the value of the carte de visite as a means of self promotion.


Handbill by Mr. G. White of Rose Hill, c.1850-1855
Image © Derby Local Studies Library and courtesy of Michael Spencer
Another Derbyshire-born profilist - a term commonly in use before Edouart popularised the eponymous "silhouette" - was George White. Although silhouettes cut by one or more artists named White, together with various trade labels, have been been documented by Jackson (1982) and McKechnie (1978), his true identity has not previously been established. I have known of George White's photographic exploits (Payne 2008a) for a couple of years, but had not appreciated his connection with silhouette portraiture, until I spotted the following in his advertising handbill:

G. WHITE will also take his BRONZED AND SHADED LIKENESSES, from the plain bust to the highly finished whole length figure. LIKENESSES COPIED. Keeps constantly a variety of suitable Frames for the Daguerreotype Portraits and Paper Cuttings.

Although it doesn't refer to them as profiles or silhouettes, that is what these "bronzed and shaded likenesses" were. I have previously demonstrated (Payne 2008b) that this Mr. G. White, who spent a brief period cutting profiles and taking daguerreotype portraits in Chesterfield during the early to mid-1850s, is the same person as the George White (1810-1880) who operated a photographic studio at 1 Queen's Terrace, Adelaide Street, Blackpool from 1849 to 1869 (Jones, 2004).


Trade label: "Cut with scissors at White's," undated
Image © and courtesy of Peggy McClard
McKechnie lists several trade labels on photographs and profiles, of which this one from 1855 is typical:

Photographic Portraits, Paper Cuttings, &c. Taken by Mr. White at his Gallery (daily), Queen's Terrace, opposite the Royal Hotel, Blackpool. Likenesses faithfully copied. Open from 7 am until 7 in the evening.

It is clear that the examples described by McKechnie and Jackson (1982), all apparently dating from the early 1850s, are likely to have been by the same George White.

George was born in 1810 in the Derbyshire village of Winster, near Matlock, the second of eight children of James White (1775-1854) and Elizabeth Hodgkinson. He was baptised on 28 December 1810 at the parish church of St John the Baptist. His family moved to Chesterfield between 1814 and 1817, where James worked as a gardener. Little further is known about George White's teenage years, his education or early adulthood, until his marriage at Duffield in 1834 to Ann Melbourne (1808-1895), daughter of a Belper nail manufacturer.


The Manchester Times and Gazette, 26 September 1835
A year later he opened a shop at number 20, Piccadilly, Manchester in September 1835, offering to "cut likenesses of ladies, gentlemen, and children; dogs, horse, &c." for prices ranging from 2/6 to 10 shillings.


The Preston Chronicle, 23 April 1836
He remained there for seven months, and then moved to Preston where he occupied a shop at number 128 Fishergate. His prices were similar, ranging from one to five shillings, depending on whether the likenesses were full length, half length or busts, plain, shaded or elegantly bronzed. He no longer offered sittings for horses or dogs - perhaps it was too tricky to keep them still, even for three minutes. By mid-June he had built up a collection of "likenesses of many well-known individuals of [the] town", which were for sale and on display in his shop window. He announced that he would shortly be taking up engagements in Southport and Blackpool, where he would cater to visitors during the bathing season.


Silhouette of young girl by White, undated
Image © and courtesy of Peggy McClard
A series of newspaper advertisements suggest by their wording that White made regular visits to Preston and Lancaster from 1836 to 1839. He probably also worked in other Lancashire towns, although evidence for these has been elusive. There is also a curious dearth of information about White's activities during the 1840s. By June 1841, he and his wife were in Bispham, north of Blackpool. Living them was George's younger brother James, aged 15 and described in the census as an artist's apprentice. Perhaps they were preparing themselves for the forthcoming summer season, although the great tourism boom was still to arrive, with the railroad, after 1846.

The next sighting of George White is an 1849 entry in Gillian Jones' compilation, Lancashire Professional Photographers, which shows him with premises at number 1, Queen's Terrace, Blackpool in that year. However, it is not clear if he was already working as a photographer by that time, since Mannex & Co's History, Topography, and Directory of Westmorland for 1851 shows him merely as an artist and lodging house keeper. He was obviously still travelling to find business, because the 1851 Census shows him in the village of Church, near Accrington, while his wife and nine month-old son remained at the house in Blackpool.


Chesterfield Town Hall, Rose Hill, Chesterfield
Image © Alford and courtesy of Panoramio
The handbill which advertised his services in Chesterfield was probably ordered from Chesterfield printer John Roberts in the early 1850s. Rose Hill - now occupied by the grand Chesterfield Town Hall building, shown above - was where his parents lived, at least until his father's death in 1854.


Portrait of unidentified elderly man, c. mid-1860s
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
By April 1861 he had returned to his family in Blackpool, where he described himself as an artist. The carte de visite portrait shown above was probably taken in the early to mid-1860s in his studio at 1 Queen's Terrace, Adelaide Street. The last directory entry noted by Jones was in 1869, and on census night April 1871 he described himself as a retired artist. Since late 1869 their address had been 23 Adelaide Street, although it is not clear whether they had moved or the street had simply been renumbered.


"G WHITE PHOTO BLACKPOOL"
Blind stamp from front of carte de visite
George White died at Blackpool on 23 March 1880, aged 69, leaving his widow Ann and son Frederick George White, a banker's clerk.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Peggy McClard for providing information about White's career as a silhouettist, and for kindly giving me permission to reproduce the wonderful image of her White silhouette. If you're interested in silhouettes and other folk art, I strongly recommend visiting Peggy's web site, Peggy McClard Antiques. I'm grateful also to Michael Pritchard and Ian Leith for their lookups, to Ann Halford for information about the Melbourne family of Belper, and to Dawn Scotting for her work on Winster families. I'd also like to thank Mike Spencer, who spotted the handbill amongst the archives at the Derbyshire County Record Office, and sent me a photocopy, thus sparking off the whole quest in the first place.

References

1841-1911 UK Census Collection, England & Wales National Probate Calendar and England & Wales BMD Index from Ancestry.

Anon (1835) Likenesses cut with scissors, in three minutes (Advertisement, dated 25 Sep 1835), The Manchester Times and Gazette, 26 September 1835.

Anon (1836a) Striking likenesses cut with scissors, in three minutes (Advertisement), The Preston Chronicle, 23 April 1836.

Anon (1836b) Likenesses, The Preston Chronicle, 18 June 1836.

Anon (1838a) Likenesses cut with scissors (Advertisement), The Preston Chronicle, 13 October 1838.

Anon (1838b) Likenesses cut with scissors (Advertisement), The Lancaster Gazette and General Advertiser, 1 December 1838.

Anon (1839) Likenesses cut with scissors (Advertisement), The Preston Chronicle, 12 October 1839.

Anon (1855) Slater's Directory of Lancashire, from Ancestry.

Halford, Ann (n.d.) Melbourne Tree, Ann & John's Family Histories.

Heathcote, Bernard & Pauline (2002) A Faithful Likeness - The First Photographic Portrait Studios in the British Isles, 1841 to 1855, publ. by the authors (courtesy of Ian Leith)

Jackson, Emily Nevill (1911) The History of Silhouettes, London: The Connoisseur, 121p, 72pl, at Archive.org

Jackson, Emily Nevill (1982) Silhouettes: A History and Dictionary of Artists, New York: Dover Publications, 154p, 103pl.

Jones, Gillian (2004) Lancashire Professional Photographers 1840-1940, PhotoResearch (courtesy of Michael Pritchard)

Knipe, Penley (1999) Shades and Shadow-Pictures: The Materials and Techniques of American Portrait Silhouettes, The Book and Paper Group Annual, Vol. 18 (1999), Paper delivered at the Book and Paper specialty group session, AIC 27th Annual Meeting, June 8-13, 1999, St. Louis, Missouri.

Mannex & Co. (1851) History, Topography & Directory of Westmorland, from the University of Leicester's Historical Directories.

McClard, Peggy (2007) Cut & paste silhouette of a young girl carrying a basket, by White, Peggy McClard Antiques.

McKechnie, Sue (1978) British Silhouette Artists and their Work, 1760-1860, London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 799p. Extracts by kind courtesy of Peggy McClard (Peggy McClard Antiques)

Payne, Brett (2008a) Advertising by Photographers (1) Daguerreotypist, G. White of Rose Hill Chesterfield, Photo-Sleuth, 17 February 2008.

Payne, Brett (2008b) George White of Chesterfield & Blackpool, Photo-Sleuth, 8 May 2008.

Payne, Brett (2009) William Seville (1797-1866), silhouette and photographic artist, Photo-Sleuth, 17 Sep 2009.

Scotting, Dawn (2010) The Ancestral Trees of the Families of Winster Derbyshire, Rootsweb/Ancestry.com

Edward Foster, silhouettist - Part 2

In Part 1 of this article, I discussed the circumstances surrounding Derby centenarian Edward Foster's visit to John Burton & Sons' portrait studio in Victoria Street, Derby on 8 November 1864. The sitting was beneficial to both parties, the relatively new Burton branch studio achieving a kind of celebrity endorsement, and Mr Foster a handy set of cartes de visite to hand out to friends, business acquaintances and prospective purchasers of his products. Whether money actually changed hands or not - Foster was a canny businessman, even in his advanced years - is probably a moot point. The fact that two copies of the portrait have already surfaced probably means that many more were produced.

I wrote previously that I would continue in the second of the series with a discussion of Edward Foster's early life in the military and his career as a silhouettist. I'm going to amend that slightly, leaving the early part of Foster's life to deal with in due course, and talk here about the latter part of his career which has left a lasting and verifiable record. As alluded to earlier, Foster himself had spent a good portion of his life producing likenesses of people, in the pre-photographic era, and it was probably the advent of popular photographic portraiture that forced him to seek an alternative means of making a living, much as happened to William Seville some years later.


Miniature portrait, reputedly of Edward Foster as a young man
Source unknown [2]
It is not clear exactly when Edward Foster, in the words of Mr. Henry Adams, editor of the Derby Reporter, giving a speech at a party held in honour of Foster's 100th birthday on Saturday 8th November 1862, "turned his attention to the fine arts." In a potted biography, presumably supplied by Foster himself, Adams stated that after retiring from the army in October 1805, "being of an active turn of mind, and having also a taste for the fine arts, he in the first instance invented and patented a machine; and in the second instance," became an artist [3]. McKechnie (1978) surmises that he had already tried his hand at painting profiles during his service in the army, and notes the existence of "profiles of soldiers (with the sitter's face in black, and his uniform in colour) which have the appearance of Foster's work." [4]

In an account supplied to a reporter from The Leicester Chronicle soon after his birthday celebration, he stated that:

... he soon after [leaving the army] obtained the office of portrait painter to the Royal Family, and had apartments allotted to him in the round tower at Windsor Castle ... Afterwards, he exercised his profession in various towns in the kingdom, and took the portraits of Lord Byron, Sir Walter Scott, and many other distinguished characters of the day.

In the same article, the writer reports being shown the entries in Foster's ledgers for visits made to Leicester in 1808 and 1818 [5].


Advertisment in The Leeds Mercury, 17 June 1809

The first indisputable contemporary evidence found during this study, however, of Foster's commercial artistic activity is an advertisement that he placed in The Leeds Mercury of 17 June 1809 [6]. The words "By His Majesty's Royal Letters Patent" suggest that a Royal patent had been granted for the newly invented machine for sketching profiles in a short space of time, accurately and in great detail, although Foster in this particular case neither implicitly states that he was the inventor of the machine nor the grantee of the patent. Later descriptions of the machine render it likely to have been a pantograph, or at the least an adaptation of one, which had been invented at least some two centuries earlier [7], but was perhaps not in common everyday use.

Edward Foster, stating that he was "from London," was clearly producing black profiles at Harrogate in Leeds (Yorkshire) for a price of five shillings each at this time, but there is no mention here of any appointment as painter to the Royal family. His trade labels, affixed to the reverse of the framed silhouettes, also stated "from London" and McKechnie presumes this to mean that it was in London where he started his artistic career [4].


Advertisment in The Hull Packet, 26 December 1809

Six months later he was in Hull, also in Yorkshire, and had added the Royal coat of arms to his advertisement [8], as well as offering "profiles in black, at 5s. and upwards," suggesting an expansion of his repertoire. His marketing skills were also improving, with specimens of his work left displayed prominently at several shops dotted around town in order to drum up more commissions.

A similar advertisement in The Derby Mercury on 20 December 1810 stated that he had taken apartments for a short time, at Mr. Abbot's, trimmer, Friar Gate" in Derby [9] and he was still at the same premises at the beginning of January, with samples on display at Mr. Drewry's and Mr. Pritchards's, booksellers [10]. There was competition, however; a William Everitt advertised in the Mercury on 10 January that he had "taken 253 likenesses within the last 7 weeks." [11]


Reverse of framed silhouette showing Foster's trade label
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
Foster may not have remained in Derby for long, existing trade labels suggesting that he was as far afield as Macclesfield [12] and Dover during the next three years [4], and further newspaper advertisements suggest a brief visit to Exeter in March-April 1812 [13].


Black profile of unidentified boy, c.1811-1814
Image © and courtesy of Peggy McClard Antiques
McKechnie describes the "black profile" of a young teenage boy with "his hair in the à la Brutus style" and a narrow shirt frill turned down at the neck as being typical of Foster's black profiles, and dates it as from c.1811-1814 [14]. Peggy McClard who, at the time of writing, owns this silhouette and kindly gave me permission to use the image, states:

This painted silhouette well represents Foster's "black profiles" in which he applied the black paint thinly then added detail with pigment added to gum arabic, and, sometimes, Chinese white. The frills of shirts were left without pigment (as in this silhouette). This 5 3/8" x 6 3/8" papier mâché frame is topped with one of Foster's trademark brass hangers bearing his name about the Royal crown.

Unlike many other silhouettists such as William Seville who cut them out of paper, Foster always painted his profiles.


Portrait of an unidentified lady, c.1814
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green
Cynthia McKinley describes another early black profile of a young woman by Foster [15] (shown above) as follows:

This is a silhouette portrait of an unknown lady wearing a day dress with a columnar neck culminating in a single ruff under her chin. She also has a fashionable turban which conceals all but a few curls of her hair. This is one of Foster's early 'black profiles' where the costume details have been carefully outlined using gum arabic. It dates to around 1814 and is set in a papier-mâché frame with a decorative surround and a bunch of grapes hanger.

Several newspaper adverts from 1815 and 1816 indicate that Foster was still touring the counties: he was in Oxford in January 1815, Bury in August, and Ipswich in January the following year [16,17,18]. McKechnie describes a trade label dating from c.1817 which indicate that Foster had been working "for the last Three Years, in the Counties of Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire," and was currently "removed from the Promenade, to Mr. Batchelor's, adjoining Hargrove's Library, High Harrogate," presumably in Leeds.

Foster recorded in his ledger a visit to Leicester in 1818, and the Chronicle reporter wrote:

... While here ... he married Miss Elizabeth Ward, niece of Mr. John Ireland, who for many years carried on the business of a bookseller on the premises where the Chronicle is now published." [5]

This is supported by an entry in the Leicester St Margaret parish registers, showing that they were married on 10 October 1818 [19]. Their son Edward Ward Foster is supposed to have been born at London on 3 August 1819 [19].


Profile of Thomas Marseille of Canterbury, by Edward Foster, 1822
Image © and collection of Brett Payne [20]
This profile of Canterbury gentleman Thomas Marseille, dated 1822, is in the "red" style that Foster painted later in his career [20]. Desmond Coke, in his book The Art of Silhouette, praises Foster's originality, experimentation and innovation, refers to him rather extravagantly as "the very Post-Impressionist of Silhouette," and suggests that his choice in frames showed that he considered himself an artist rather than mere showman [21].


Profile of Captain Samuel Hadlock, by Edward Foster, dated 1824
Image © and courtesy of Islesford Historical Society Museum [22]
McKechnie shows Foster to have been working at 125, The Strand in that year, at Needham Market, Suffolk in 1820 and in Preston and Liverpool in 1823 [4], so it is obvious that he was still travelling widely. The silhouette portrait of American entrepreneur showman Captain Samuel Hadlock, Jr. was almost certainly done in London in 1824 [22].


Profile of Mr Paley, Iron Works, Bradford, by Edward Foster, 1825
Image © and courtesy of Richard Mole, Antique Dealers & Restorers [24]
The red profile of Mr Paley could that of John Green Paley (1774-1860), partner in the Bowling Iron Works near Bradford for about 40 years from c. 1798, or his son, another John Green Paley (1807-1852), although the latter would have been only 17 or 18 years old at the time [25].


Profiles of Miss and Mr Musgrave, by Edward Foster, undated
Images © and courtesy of Peggy McClard Antiques & Cynthia McKinley of Wigs on the Green
The portraits of the bald-headed Mr. Musgrave [26], in his double-breasted coat and frilled chemise, and his fashionably attired daughter Miss Musgrave [27] are also typical of Foster's red profiles. Peggy McClard describes the latter as follows:

Foster painted her in Venetian red with gilt embellishment for her lovely hair pulled into a low knot with braids to either temple. Gold embellishment also details her gold hoop earrings and beaded necklace. The gauzy fabric of her low cut dress is depicted by Foster's "three-dot technique" of using three small, closely spaced dots to indicate transparency. Her dress is belted just below her bosom.

The portraits are sadly undated, but I think it a possibility that they were from the mid-to late 1820s rather than c.1811, as suggested by McKechnie [4].


Profiles of two unidentified children, by Edward Foster,
dated 1823 (left) and 1827 (right)
Images © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley of Wigs on the Green [28]
These two charming profiles of children, and that of a magnificently bonneted woman (below) - kindly sent to me by Cynthia McKinley of Wigs on the Green - on the other hand, are all signed and dated by Foster.


Profile of unidentified woman, by Edward Foster, 1827
Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley of Wigs on the Green [29]
Foster was in Huddersfield in 1825, and there is possibility that he settled there for a while, although McKechnie shows him at Windsor in 1832 [4]. In December 1863, after the celebration of his 101st birthday, The Derby Mercury reported that Foster had "been invited to a public dinner at Huddersfield, where he resided for many years, and held an official position in the Court Leet. [23]


Profile of Marguerite Gardiner (1789-1849), Countess of Blessington
by Edward Foster, dated 1829
from The History of Silhouettes by E.N. Jackson [33]
Whether or not this was true, it appears that by late 1832, Foster was experiencing some financial difficulties. A notice for proceedings of bankruptcy against "Edward Foster, Huddersfield, carver" appeared in The Derby Mercury of 14 November 1832, followed by a notice of the sale of original paintings belonging to Foster at his "premises ... in New Street, Huddersfield ... on Thursday, the 27th June 1833." [30,31]


Advertisement from The Derby Mercury, 25 Dec 1833
Image © 19th Century British Library Newspapers & courtesy of Gale CENGAGE Learning
To recover from this setback, he appears to have moved to Derby very soon afterward, setting up in premises - probably shared - at 43 Corn Market, and announcing his presence to potential customers on Christmas Day with some panache [32]:

A CARD.
---FOSTER, Carver, Gilder, Looking Glass, and Picture Frame Manufacturer, Printseller, Miniature Painter, Profilist and General Artist,
No. 43, CORN MARKET, DERBY
Paintings Cleaned, Lined, Repaired and Varnished

Profile of unidentified man, by Edward Foster, 1833
Image © and courtesy of Richard Mole, Antique Dealers & Restorers [34]
That Foster was still actively painting profiles is demonstrated by this portrait of an unidentified man, signed and dated, 1833 [34]. Both editions of Pigot & Co.'s trade directories published in 1835 and 1842 show Edward Foster as a carver and gilder in the Market place, Derby, suggesting a period of relative stability for the family [35,36], but Foster himself apparently continued to travel widely. McKechnie provides details of two advertisements appearing in the Windsor & Eton Express in July 1838 announcing his intention to be available in Windsor, presumably to take profiles [4].

Just when he ceased painting profiles is not yet clear, but the mid-1830s saw a shift in focus for his career which I will discuss in the next article of this series.

I would like to thank, in particular, Cynthia McKinley and Peggy McClard, who have been of great help in researching this period of Edward Foster's life, and have been most generous with sharing images of Foster profiles. If any reader has profiles by Foster, particularly if dated and where the subject may be identified, I would be very keen to hear from you, as it may well add usefully to what we know of his movements.

References

[1] Carte de visite portrait of Edward Foster, dated 8 November 1864, by John Burton & Sons of Leicester, Derby, Birmingham, Nottingham & Burton-upon-Trent, Collection of Virginia Silvester, Reproduced by permission.

[2] Image of Miniature portrait, reputedly of Edward Foster, unknown origin.

[3] Congratulatory Dinner to a Centenarian, The Derby Mercury, 12 November 1862. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[4] McKechnie, Sue (1978) British Silhouette Artists and their Work, 1760-1860, London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 799p. Extracts by kind courtesy of Peggy McClard (Peggy McClard Antiques)

[5] Mr. Edward Foster, the Centenarian, The Leicester Chronicle, 22 November 1862. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[6] Advertisment, The Leeds Mercury, 17 June 1809. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[7] Pantograph, from Wikipedia.

[8] Advertisment, The Hull Packet, 26 December 1809. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[9] Advertisment, The Derby Mercury, 20 December 1810. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[10] Advertisment, The Derby Mercury, 3 January 1811. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[11] Advertisment, The Derby Mercury, 10 January 1811. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[12] Image of Foster's trade label, undated. Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green.

[13] Articles & Advertisments, Trewman's Exeter Flying Post, 19 March & 16 April 1811. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[14] Antique Silhouette of Young Boy by Edward Foster, Image © and courtesy of Peggy McClard Antiques.

[15] Portrait of an unidentified lady, Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley & Wigs on the Green

[16] Advertisement, Jackson's Oxford Journal, 28 Jan 1815. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[17] Advertisement, The Bury & Norwich Post, 2 & 9 Aug 1815. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[18] Article, The Ipswich Journal, 27 Jan 1816. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[19] International Genealogical Index (IGI), from the LDS Church's FamilySearch web site.

[20] Profile of Thomas Marseille (1759-1831) of Canterbury, by Edward Foster, 1822, Image © and collection of Brett Payne.

[21] Coke, Desmond (1913) The Art of Silhouette, M. Secker, 230p. Google Books.

[22] Feest, Christian F. (1999) Indians and Europe: an interdisciplinary collection of essays. University of Nebraska Press, 643pp. (p. 219) ISBN 0803268971. Courtesy of Google Books.

[23] Article, The Derby Mercury, 9 December 1863. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[24] Profile of Mr Paley, Iron Works, Bradford, by Edward Foster, 1825, Image © and courtesy of Richard Mole, Antique Dealers & Restorers.

[25] Paley Family Tree, by John Attfield

[26] Profile of Miss Musgrave, by Edward Foster, Image © and courtesy of Peggy McClard Antiques

[27] Profile of Mr Musgrave, by Edward Foster, Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley of Wigs on the Green

[28] Profiles of two unidentified children, by Edward Foster, dated 1823 & 1827, Images © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley of Wigs on the Green

[29] Profile of unidentified woman, by Edward Foster, dated 1827, Image © and courtesy of Cynthia McKinley of Wigs on the Green

[30] Bankruptcy notice for Edward Foster, Huddersfield, carver, 23 Nov, 31 Dec., The Derby Mercury, 14 Nov 1832. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[31] Sale of original paintings under Foster's Bankruptcy, The Leeds Mercury, 22 Jun 1833. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[32] Bankruptcy notice for Edward Foster, Huddersfield, carver, 23 Nov, 31 Dec., The Derby Mercury, 25 Dec 1833. 19th Century British Library Newspapers, Gale CENGAGE Learning.

[33] Jackson, Emily Nevill (1911) The History of Silhouettes, The Connoisseur, London, 121p. Archive.org

[34] Profile of unidentified man, by Edward Foster, 1833, Image © and courtesy of Richard Mole, Antique Dealers & Restorers.

[35] Anon (1835) Pigot & Co.'s National Commercial Directory, London: J. Pigot & Co. University of Leicester's Historical Directories.

[36] Anon (1842) Pigot & Co.'s Royal National and Commercial Directory and Topography, London: J. Pigot & Co., July 1842. University of Leicester's Historical Directories.