Production and Consumption of Art and Design in Victorian
Manchester
-
Design Education, the Art Treasures Exhibition and William Morris
Yasuko SUGA
Saitama University Faculty of Liberal Arts 255 Shimo-Okubo, Sakura-ku, Saitama-shi, Saitama 338-8570 JAPAN,
[email protected]
Abstract: Cotton industry was pivotal in the industrialising Britain. The central district was Lancashire with its
‘Cottonopolis’, Manchester. By the 19th century, Lancashire was producing enough to cover almost all the world’s
demand for calico-printed goods, surpassing India where the trade had started. The trade thrived till, in the 20th
century, America and Japan overtook its overseas markets. This trade, which once won for Britain the economic and
imperial victory, was also the one most heavily criticised, especially from the 1830s when the government officially
problematised the relation of art and industry. Although economically successful, it was considered a failure in terms
of taste, in another word ‘kansei’, in which Britain’s growing rivals, France and Germany, excelled. Artistic quality in
design sells: but how could it be cultivated? While the trade and Lancashire were notoriously associated with ‘bad
taste’, local industrialists endeavoured to eradicate this disgrace. This article discusses how, and more importantly
why, the discourse of art was inseparable with local industry. There were three major aspects to the cultivation of
culture in Manchester. First, the Mechanics Institution and the Manchester School of Design encouraged design
education. Secondly, influential industrialists in Manchester contributed to holding the Art Treasures Exhibition and
the Manchester Royal Jubilee Exhibition. Thirdly, these two strands, together with moral influence from Ruskin and
Morris, resulted in Manchester Art Museum and other collections. By the next century, although Lancashire had lost
its claim for the heart of the ‘workshop of the world’, its effort to enrich its cultural capital had certainly bore some
fruits. My conclusion stresses that the production of design was intertwined with the consumption of culture.
Key words: Victorian Manchester, Design Education, the Art Treasures Exhibition, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts
Movement
1. Introduction
Cotton industry was pivotal in the industrialising Britain. The central district was Lancashire with its
‘Cottonopolis’, Manchester. By the 19th century, Lancashire was producing enough to cover almost all the world’s
demand for calico-printed goods, surpassing India where the trade had started. The trade thrived till, in the 20th
century, America and Japan overtook its overseas markets. This trade, which once won for Britain the economic
and imperial victory, was also the one most heavily criticised, especially from the 1830s when the government
officially problematised the relation of art and industry. Although economically successful, it was considered a
failure in terms of taste, in another word ‘kansei’, in which Britain’s growing rivals, France and Germany,
excelled. Artistic quality in design sells: but how could it be cultivated? While the trade and Lancashire was
notoriously associated with ‘bad taste’, local industrialists endeavoured to eradicate this disgrace.
Art patronage in Lancashire has been discussed by A. Howe, D. S. Mcleod, J. Wolffe and others. As for design
education, there are Q. Bell, S. Macdonald, and D. Jeremiah’s works [1]. Drawing from both sources, this article
discusses how these two strands directly affected each other through the local manufacturers and one of their
media, the Manchester School of Design (later Manchester School of Art). It also discusses how, and more
importantly why, the discourse of art was inseparable with local industry: it is argued that the question of cultural
policy can be oriented around the perception and consumption of design.
2. Significance of Teaching ‘Design’ in Manchester
Middle-class manufacturers who had not had parliamentary seats in Lancashire were gaining as much power as
the aristocracy thanks to ‘free trade’ and the Reform Act of 1832. They could now be represented at London and
Parliament which previously symbolised aristocracy and non-commercialism. Of all MPs returned between the
elections of 1832 and 1859, thirty-one were cotton masters, or closely connected with the textile interest, while the
gentry numbered twenty-nine [2]. In parallel with expanding cotton industries, bourgeoisie in Lancashire
institutionalised themselves for the encouragements of arts and science. Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society was established in 1781, and during the first half of the 19th century, organizations such as Natural History
Society (1821), Royal Manchester Institution (1824, now the City Art Gallery), Botanical Society (1827),
Statistical Society (1833), Medical Society (1834), and Geological Society (1838) came into existence. Tendency
towards science is obvious here: as Macleod points out, it was an area which had not already been dominated by
the aristocracy [3].
Besides, Lancashire had long been a place for art consumption. Darcy describes that from 1760 to 1820
Manchester was ‘a market for, rather than a vital centre of, art’ [4]. From the 1820s, efforts to encourage arts were
more prominent. The Royal Manchester Institution began to hold art exhibitions annually from 1827 and provided
local artists space for presenting their creativity. As for supplying artworks to the local market, there was Thos.
Agnew and Sons, the first art dealer outside London, which dealt with contemporary British artists such as Etty,
Constable, and Turner, and their showroom attracted many literary figures such as Mrs Gaskell and Nathaniel
Hawthorne. Cotton masters were good patrons. For example, G. F. Watts’s patron was C. H. Richards, Manchester
merchant, son of a cotton spinner. A large sum was expended on artworks, like Samuel Ashton who spent £10,670
at Agnews during 1845-56 [5].
However, at the Select Committee on Arts and their connection with Manufactures (1835-6) these cultural
efforts were almost erased off by what they actually produced. Their manufactured goods were most criticized as
an example of ‘bad taste’. The prime industry, calico printing, involved much drawing, engraving and patterning
skills, and these were considered necessary to be improved at once. On the one hand, consumption of art on a
large scale was certainly the quickest way of connecting Manchester and art. But on the other, despite the effort of
the local middle classes, it simply fuelled up the stereotypical view of the Cottonopolis as nothing else but
commercial and snobbish.
This explains why the bourgeoisie in Manchester were keen to enter into the productive side of culture. There
were some design classes at the Manchester Mechanics Institution (1824), but it was not enough according to the
painter B. R. Haydon who visited Manchester and stressed the need for a design school. Benjamin Heywood, a
Manchester banker and the first commercial member at the Parliament, was most sympathetic and founded the
Manchester School of Design (1838). Design education in Manchester therefore started, at least from the
viewpoint of the manufacturers concerned, out of consciousness for the necessity of artistic flavour to be added to
the factory workshop instruction, rather than practical
design instruction itself. Heywood organised leading
local manufacturers and politicians to consist the
Council members of the Manchester School. This was
the biggest difference from the School of Design in
London (1837) whose policy was based on William
Dyce’s rigid theorization of design which, later, Henry
Cole and Richard Redgrave were to adopt and
develop.
The majority of the Council members were
interested in teaching artistic skills to their workers,
Fig.1
Calico print which was chosen by Cole and
Redgrave as an example of bad taste and
shown in the Museum of Ornamental Art
(Victoria & Albert Museum)
and influential calico printers such as James Thomson
and Edmund Potter were known to have strongly
opposed to the design-based instruction. Their opinion
about the need for ‘art’ rather than ‘design’ education
remained unchanged, even after the School was nationalised (1842) and became one of the Provincial Schools of
Design which were obliged to follow the central (London) School policy. Because of this discordance, serious
problems arose, including troubles with drawing masters. At the Select Committee on School of Design (1849),
Manchester School was singled out for its inability to produce good and original pattern designs for calico
printing. The Committee concluded: ‘So far as Manchester, the seat of calico printing, is concerned, the influence
of the School upon the instruction of artisans employed in producing designs is shown to have been nearly
inoperative.’[6] At the Great Exhibition of 1851, calico printing was again heavily criticised (Fig.1) and the
significance of the School was questioned.
Around this time Henry Cole and Richard Redgrave entered into the arena of design education, and held real
power to establish what was called the ‘South Kensington system’. Design schools were made to operate on two
levels, one for design-related workers giving practical lessons, and the other for amateur art lovers from the
middle classes giving drawing lessons. The schools willing to take part in this reformed system were to alter their
names into ‘School of Art’. The metropolitan superiority in design over other local was also systematically
pronounced.
This caused a dilemma for Manchester. They agreed to alter the name to ‘Manchester School of Art’ in 1854,
because the direct word ‘art’ meant more local support and subscription. However, while Cole wanted the School
in South Kensington to be the sole place for producing original, artistic design and accordingly allotted a good
sum of subsidy, Manchester and other provincial schools received much less because Cole considered that
provincial schools should be made more self-supportive. Manchester, knowing the importance of their own district
in the national economy, would not accept this discrimination and the resulting reduction of subsidies. The First
Annual Report of the Manchester School of Art prominently stated:
We have done our best, and better than the most sanguine could have hoped, by the association of the School
of Art with the Royal Institution, in a manner calculated to produce the most effective and promising School of
Design ever established in this country, provided only that Government shall continue the same amount of
contribution from the grant latterly enjoyed, and equally unfettered in its application as formerly….we are not
prepared to be reduced to the rank of an infants' school, or nursery for the metropolitan establishment at
Marlborough House. [7]
Manchester remained being treated as peripheral in matters of design education. Those who were associated
with the School were frustrated with the London authority. It is no wonder that the antipathy was weaved into the
motive for an occasion of artistic cultivation, the first national fine art spectacle in Manchester.
3. Art Treasures Exhibition (1857) and Manchester School of Art
Temporal exhibitions were typical ways of supporting arts and industry in the Victorian Britain. In Manchester
there were exhibitions both local such as Royal Manchester Institution’s exhibitions, and international, such as
Paris Exposition where ‘Manchester & Salford’ was independently represented [8]. But the Art Treasures
Exhibition in Manchester was perhaps the most significant occasion in the district (Fig.2).
The Exhibition, which was inspired by Dr. Gustav Waagen’s book, Art Treasures in the Great Britain (1854),
was considered as an artistic complementation to the Great Exhibition of 1851. Aristocratic collectors all over the
nation as well as local bourgeoisie were widely asked to contribute their treasures for the national occasion with a
moral aim to enlighten and improve the commercial district with the aesthetic and elevating power of art. Major
manufacturers in Lancashire joined the Executive Committee, backed the Guarantee Fund and lent their paintings.
So many fine art works were shown there. The Catalogue of the Art Treasures of United Kingdom observed as
follows:
…it is not as models to be copied, but as a store from which to study, that these works of Art are placed before
the public, that the artist, seeing what has been done of old, may with the aid of such helps strike out a new
path leading to a point, it is to be hoped, beyond anything that has yet been accomplished; and achieve a
success which will give to the second half of the 19th century a renown charm and value only to be derived
from the artistic treatment bestowed on it by the human mind and hand. [9]
Apart from a number of paintings and photographs, Murano glass, enamels, oriental porcelain, oriental china,
majorica ware, sculpture in
bronze, terra cotta, armour and
arms, and others were shown.
Works of metalwork, ivory
work, majorica and such were
borrowed
from
the
British
Museum
and
the
South
Kensington
shown
Museum
as
contribution’.
salon
for
Company,
and
‘Government
There was
the
too,
East
a
India
showing
a
collection of Indian textiles of
meticulous decoration, which
were considered ‘art’ unlike
Fig.2 Art Treasures Exhibition
(Illustrated London News, 1857)
Manchester manufactures.
The significance of the Exhibition, attracting around 1,337,000 visitors, can be summarized, from the
bourgeois manufacturers’ view, in three points. First of all, it showed the power of art patronage in Lancashire. As
the Art Treasure Examiner commented: ‘The principal support of British art proceeds from wealthy
Lancashire.’[10] And secondly, it showed that Lancashire could encourage and produce artistic occasions. In the
Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, ‘a Manchester Man’ described the general doubt turning into
confidence for the coexistence of art and industry:
In one particular this Exhibition is unique: it excludes the wares of tradesmen, and is limited to the exposition
of those art treasures which are ordinarily locked up in private, and rarely come under the gaze of the
profanum vulgus…Many were doubting how far it would be prudent to entrust their ancestral treasures into
the keeping of Manchester; some perhaps, were reflecting whether they powed any great debt of gratitude to
the metropolis of cotton. 'What has Manchester to do with art?’ a noble duke is said to have asked, when his
co-operation was requested, ‘let it stick to its cotton-spinning.’ But to the credit of a vast majority of our
aristocracy be it spoken, they soon entered into the understanding in a generous English spirit, and gracefully
contributed the best specimens of their matchless stores. [11]
He concluded that, ‘Manchester is not quite so black as it is represented’.
Thirdly, the Exhibition played an educational role, perhaps even more specifically than the 1851 exhibition.
Several local textile masters such as Horrocks and Potter & co., and other manufacturers such as Titus Salt of
Saltaire, paid for excursions to the Exhibition for their workers. Besides, the Manchester School of Art was deeply
involved with the event. Many of the Council members of the School, like Thomas Bazley, Edmund Potter and
Thomas Agnew, acted as executive members of the Exhibition as well as contributing their treasures. Students
were encouraged to visit there. Also, the occasion was considered as a turning point for the School. E. Potter, then
the president of the School, saw it as ‘the last chance to save the School’ by encouraging local manufacturers’
subscriptions through this artistic spirit [12]. Although it was not directly helpful to the School in terms of finance,
the raison d’étre of ‘art’ education in Manchester was well justified by the Exhibition’s success. As a result, the
annual national presentation of medals for the School of Art students, an important occasion to make a show of the
working of South Kensington system, was for the first time held outside the metropolis. Cole and Redgrave came
up to Manchester to acknowledge its artistic and educational achievements. This must have satisfied Potter
especially, who was then principal of the Manchester School and vigorously publicized the injustice of Cole’s
system [13]. The city was no longer to be criticized openly for its lack of taste and art as in the 1830s and 40s, and
instead it gained reputation for hosting national art.
Some novel movements observed after the exhibition also connected the Manchester School of Art with the art
scene even more firmly. James A. Hammersley, the headmaster of the School who entertained Prince Albert while
he visited the Exhibition, was commissioned a painting of the castle of Rosenau, the prince's birthplace. Also,
Hammersley became president when the Manchester Academy of Fine Art was reorganized in 1859.
4. Morris, the Arts and Crafts, and Manchester
4.1. Morris and Manchester Art Museum
In the latter half of the 19th century, moral aspect of art and design was much emphasized due to John Ruskin
and William Morris. Bourgeoisie in Manchester were keen to absorb their thoughts in order to elevate themselves
and the locality. Ruskin visited the Art Treasures Exhibition among other notable writers like Dickens, and gave
two lectures there. Two years later, he visited the
School of Art and spoke on the ‘Unity of Art’. Morris
first visited Manchester in 1882 on business, and
opened a branch of Morris and Co. the following year
(at the Manchester Royal Jubilee Exhibition in 1887,
Morris and Co. showed wall papers, furniture, printed
cotton curtain material, silk damasks, embroidery and
so on), which suggests the existence of a fair market
for his goods in the district. He visited the city nearly
every year because there was a branch of the Socialist
League, another body of his creation, where he
delivered lectures.
Their influence was materialised in the form of
institutionalising art. Establishing an art museum in
Manchester had been proposed since the beginning of
Fig.3 Room in the Art Museum furnished by
Morris (Cabinet Maker and Art Furnisher, 1885)
the ‘bad taste’ dispute. In 1840s a master of the School of Design had proposed it and right after the Art Treasures
Exhibition, Thomas Fairbairn (commissioner of The Awakening of Conscience by Holman Hunt, son of William,
the founder of the Manchester Mechanics Institution), the executive leader of the Exhibition, made effort to raise
funding for this aim. In the 1870s, the Manchester School of Art tried to attach to it a gallery of fine and industrial
art, providing a cultural centre for the city, again in vain. But in the 1880s, when the active propagation of Ruskin,
and especially, Morris, was widely felt, some schemes were realised.
First, Royal Manchester Institution’s building (designed by Charles Barry) became the City Art Gallery in
1882 and it was associated with the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. Also, the Manchester Art Museum (known
also as Horsfall Art Museum) embracing both fine and applied arts was opened in the middle of 1880s by J. C.
Horsfall, a wealthy cardboard manufacturer deeply moved by Ruskin and Morris’s idea of art for everyone. He
proposed the scheme in 1877, to which Ruskin enthusiastically responded. He wrote to Morris and asked him to
furnish a workmen’s model cottage in order to enlighten the working class. Morris, who was ‘glad to help in any
way’, also recognised a problem of the plan. Morris opposed to the idea of visualising art qualified for any one
particular class, and made clear that he would ‘have nothing to do with anything, however good the intention,
which to my mind tends to keep up the division of men into classes’ [14]. In the end he did supply the furnishing
(Fig.3).
Horsfall recalled:
It was not only for pure art but also for applied art. The Museum Committee stated that its aims were to
exhibit the finest examples of the industrial arts. To that end the rooms were arranged with teaching purposes
in mind and copious amounts of interpretive materials indicated the principles behind 'good' designs. Here
William Morris provided instructive notes on the principles of flat pattern design. Each object had an
accompanying label, with a name and comments on its merits; the cheap catalogues contained full descriptions
and criticisms. [15]
Later the museum was transferred to a Manchester’s slum area, in order to enlighten the region of poorest
housing conditions. Although this strong philanthropic turn was probably not what Potter or Thomson had
envisaged (they would have emphasized middle-class amenity more clearly), the Museum was an important
achievement in the district.
Manchester now had an art school and some art museums to be proud of. It hosted the Royal Jubilee
Exhibition (1887), to which the Manchester School of Art contributed a stand of student works. Unlike the time of
the Art Treasures Exhibition, there was not much criticism on Manchester as a hosting city of this important
national event.
4.2. Manchester School of Art and the Arts and Crafts Movement
By 1888 the Journal of Decorative Art was able to describe the Manchester School of Art ‘pre-eminently as
the one which has made the most rapid strides, and achieved the greatest success’ [16]. This was thanks to the
close relations it began to enjoy with Morris and Arts and Crafts movement. In 1891, students were encouraged to
exhibit work in the first Arts and Craft Exhibition to be held in the Manchester City Art Gallery. In 1892, the
School was taken over by the municipal authority and became independent of South Kensington. From then on,
thanks to its headmaster R. H. A. Willis who had a close link with
Walter Crane, and the Council member Charles Rowley, a local
businessman, friend of Morris and patron of the Pre-Raphaelites, the
influence of the Arts and Crafts movement directly flowed into the
school. Rowley offered Crane the post of Director of Design at
Manchester (Fig.4).
The appointment of Crane, not a graduate from the London School,
was seen as a direct challenge to the power which the central London
exercised over the design education system and curriculum. The Arts
and Crafts influence was emphasised by a series of public lecturers
given there by eminent figures including C. R. Ashbee, L. F. Day, W. R.
Lethaby, and W. R. Anning Bell. Manchester began to develop an
important Arts and Crafts collection, too. In 1898 the Manchester
School of Art’s museum was opened with many Arts and Crafts works,
and to which Horsfall was a generous benefactor [17]. It was beginning
to pronounce itself not too far from London in art and design.
Fig.4 W. Crane, Suggestions for the
Municipal School of Art Manchester,
1893
5. Conclusion
By the end of the era, although Lancashire began to lose its claim for the heart of the ‘workshop of the world’,
its effort to enrich its cultural capital had certainly bore some fruits in the form of a couple of art museums, art
collections, the School of Art, and above all, a more or less revised view of Manchester. It can be pointed out that
by then the question was not of art and design, but of art, craft, and design. The fact that Morris and his followers
stood between art and design with ‘handicraft’ issues very likely complicated the matter of ‘design’ in industrial
Manchester. However, although it was perhaps against the original vision of the authority of design education like
Cole, it was certainly in tune with what some local manufacturers would have hoped for – for better or worse.
In the Victorian Manchester, the notion and policy of design education largely formed by the local middleclass manufacturers was much affected by their perception and expectation of art. The case study of Manchester
suggests, therefore, that the production of design was intertwined with the consumption of culture.
Acknowledgment
This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Grant-in-Aid
for Young Scientists (B), 14710257, 2002-4.
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More, Manchester Polytechnics, 1980.
2. Howe A. ibid., 96. We must also note that the great majority of the textile masters were not so much self-made
men, in the sense of the socially mobile men from the ranks of the disadvantaged of the pre-industrial world,
but men with considerable economic and educational resources who benefited from the growth of the cotton
industry, at the rising prestige of occupations and leadership in industry (Howe, ibid., 61).
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London, (1854).
14. William Morris to Thomas Coglan Horsfall, February 9, 1881, in Kelvin, N. ed., Collected Letters of William
Morris, Prinston University Press, vol.II, Letter no.671(1984).
15. Horsfall, TC. ‘The Right Way of Using the Art Museum’, Handbook to the Art Museum, 21(1888).
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