Volunteer blog – ‘Medal’ & ‘Receipt of bills of sale’

Joanna has been spending some of her lockdown time delving into the history of the business. She has written two blogs: 

Medal – Winter’s Fine Art Exhibitions 

W.W. Winter was descended from a family of East Anglian artists. As a young man he worked alongside his artist father (also a photographer) as a painter of animals (1861 Census). It is evident from many newspaper reports that after he came to Derby and set up the Midland Road studio that the buying and selling of fine art was a major part of his business alongside photography. He also sold artists materials. Also, he had begun to exhibit his photographs and to style himself as an ‘artist in photography’. 

The first exhibition aimed at encouraging art work in all of its various forms was held in 1984 and was open to amateur and professional artists. There were six exhibitions in total the last being in 1890. We have copies of the catalogues for the 1st, 2nd and 6th exhibitions and have a photocopy of the prospectus for the 3rd exhibition. The catalogues list entries in the various classes, names of judges and patrons, and names of those who donated prizes and medals. Entries could be deposited at various places around the UK for despatch to Derby. The exhibitions ran for approximately 4 weeks. Medals were silver or bronze. 

The medal presented to Mrs Harold Nadin in 1886 was given at the 3rd exhibition November 2 – December 13 1886. This was opened by Lord Denman and his wife presented the prizes. The design is based on the ‘buck in the park’ which is part of the Derby coat of arms. The Danes named the town Derby which translated means ‘field of deer’. From the catalogue for the 2nd exhibition held December 2 1885 – January 26 1886 we see Mrs Nadin won a prize for painting on china. In the catalogue for the 6th exhibition May 8 – 31 1890, Mr and Mrs Harold Nadin are listed as patrons and Mr Nadin donated a silver medal.  

In 1891 surplus works of art, art materials and bric-a-brac were sold off. Following building work/alterations  Mr Walter Winter announced the opening of new showrooms displaying examples of Art Photographic Portraiture. 

 

W.W. Winter – receipts and bills of sale. 

The 2x bills of sale dated 1883 and 1884 were issued at the time when the sale of art materials and fine art were a major part of the Winter’s business and at the time when Winter was planning his first fine art exhibition at the studio. Interestingly they are both signed by Henry Mosley, Winter’s chief cashier at the time, who was dismissed in 1886 for irregularities in the accounts. Mosley brought a case against Mr Winter for wrongful dismissal which was reported in the Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal 13 August 1886. Mosley lost the case. 

The Henry Wilmot portrait was bought by George Sutherland, a local schoolteacher and later headmaster of St Andrew’s School near the studio. The availability of these cabinet photographs was advertised in the Derby Daily Telegraph 4 June 1884 as a ‘reduced sized copy of the portrait of Sir Henry Wilmot being prepared by Mr Winter from a large one in the Derby Conservative Club’. Sir Henry Wilmot was awarded a Victoria Cross for bravery at an action in Lucknow during the Indian Mutiny. He was a local politician, alderman and honorary colonel of the local Volunteers of which Walter Winter was also a member. He also opened the 2nd Fine Art exhibition at the studio in December 1885 and donated prize medals at that and subsequent exhibitions. 

Volunteer blog – ‘A Puzzle’

Blog from Joanna –  A  Puzzle 

  I have been occupying myself with an interesting puzzle this last month. Whilst researching some other matter I reached for the Winter’s copy of Kelly’s Directory for Derbyshire for 1891 which I knew to be in the collection at the studio. Directories are a mine of information of the who, where, how and what of an area at the time.  Whilst checking the names I wanted for my research I noticed that on the flyleaf at the back was a list of place names and dates all written in Mr Winter’s hand, a style I recognise from many hours of looking at glass plate negatives!  

  The dates are in chronological order between April and August of 1893. The seven dates in April and May are weekly, 4x Tuesday, 2x Monday and 1x Wednesday. There are no dates in June and July. The August dates are a Tuesday and a Saturday of the same week. Against the dates are a list of towns and villages – Clay Cross April 11,      Winster, South and North Wingfield  April 18.  The places range from Hathersage in the north to Willesley near Ashby De La Zouch in the south. 

 What was this all about! I surmise that the list could refer to journeys undertaken by Mr Winter to photograph something. Could these places be reached in a single day and what was the subject.  I checked the place names in the directory and found that they were all within a short distance of a railway station and they all with one exception (Pilsley) had a church. Inspection of the convenient map in the Directory showed that with planning and changing trains, the journeys could be made by train to include the places named in the group on the given date. The network of main and branch lines belonging to the Midland Railway and Great Northern Railway that criss-crossed Derbyshire at that time was amazing, enabling easy access to  North/South and East/West travel.   However, it was possible that journeys were made by horse and carriage.  

  So, what may have been the reason for going to all these places. There are a large number of prints and glass negatives of the exterior and interior of many churches in the collection and chance remark in some family correspondence revealed that Mr Winter was interested in photographing fonts. I will need to check in the archive and see if there are any prints and negatives of these particular churches and see if the negative numbers relate to the time. 

  Practicalities are that Mr Winter would have to carry a camera, tripod and a leather bag of prepared plates in their wooden holders, all very heavy. Did he take an assistant with him? This and other questions remain to be answered and there is more research to be done by looking at the negatives.  It has been an interesting exercise and I will of course let you know if I find out more!   

Volunteer Blog

We are lucky to have a number of volunteers working with the Heritage Trust – an invaluable resource to any charity. Here is a snapshot from one of our current volunteers, Nick, to give you an idea of what goes on in the background:

I’ve been interested in photography for as long as I can remember so when I was given the opportunity to volunteer at W.W.Winter at Midland Road in Derby I jumped at the chance. Having just retired I wanted something to keep my mind active but also to be involved in something useful. I persuaded my wife, Sue, to join me in this little challenge and together we attended an enrolment evening at Winters where we were led through a portal into the past, a history of photography in Derby. Well, my appetite was well and truly whetted and I couldn’t wait to get started. Sue and I attended a further brief session at Midland Road along with several other like-minded friends of the W.W.Winter Heritage Trust where we were shown how to clean, sort, scan and log glass plate negatives; it’s a mammoth task.

Archive image of vehicles from W W Winter
One of the old images from W W Winter of old tractors, scanned and archived by Nick and Sue

There are thousands of glass negatives dating back to the early years of W. W. Winter. So far Sue and I have helped to catalogue hundreds of glass plates, mainly from the 40’s/50’s. There are a lot of weddings and domestic events to catalogue but every now and again a commercial gem appears. Sue and I have just scanned several glass slides of machinery and vehicles involved in a land drainage scheme near Ashbourne in 1956; a little mundane you may think but the vehicles and machinery of are of interest to me, so the research of a particular area or event, or even the company involved, sit side by side with the photographs as some documentation still exists.

From the same image, a Land Rover, a van, and a truck

At the moment my wife and I spend one morning per week at Midland Road and I can honestly say it’s an enjoyable and interesting experience cleaning, scanning and logging glass negatives which were last looked at over 60 years ago. My wife enjoys seeing the clothes worn during the period, my interest is the vehicles so we both derive pleasure from the experience whilst offering our time.

As a retired fireman I’m hoping that one day I’ll come across old firefighting equipment or fire stations lost and forgotten both Borough, City and hopefully private brigades.