Lowes Cato Dickinson and the London Working Men's College

[ABOVE] Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), the Rector of Eversley and Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge, as depicted in an 1862 portrait by Lowes Cato Dickinson (1819-1908).  Charles Kingsley is perhaps best known today as the author of the children's novel "The Water Babies"(1863). Charles Kingsley, like Lowes Cato Dickinson and Thomas Hughes, was a Christian Socialist. Rev. Kingsley gave support to the London Working Men's College, which was founded by Frederick Denison Maurice, Thomas Hughes, Lowes Cato Dickinson and other leading Christian Socialists in 1854.

[ABOVE] A group of working men attending a free evening class (1862)

[ABOVE] The theologian Fredrick Denison Maurice (1805-1872), a founder member and first Principal of the London Working Men's College. Rev. F. D. Maurice, who was a Christian Socialist, was the Principal of the London Working Men's College between 1854 and 1872. Together with Miss Frances Martin (c1829-1922), F. D. Maurice helped establish the College for Working Women (for 'women only') in 1874.

[ABOVE] A photographic portrait of Thomas Hughes (1822-1896), the lawyer and author who  wrote the novel "Tom Brown's School Days" in 1857. Hughes was one of the founders of the London Working Men's College

Composite Group Portraits

The idea of producing "Composite Group Portraits" at sporting events was pioneered by the Brighton print publisher W. H. Mason in 1849, when he published a picture entitled "The Cricket Match between Sussex and Kent at Brighton", featuring 60 individual portraits of the most famous cricketers of the day.

[ABOVE] A detail from "The Cricket Match between Sussex and Kent at Brighton", a coloured lithographic print produced by the fine art publisher Selig Lipschitz in the 1880s. This picture was based on  W. H. Mason's famous print of 1849. The original group portrait, depicting the most famous cricketers of the day, was painted by the portrait artists William Drummond and Charles J. Basebe around 1848 and published as a coloured print the following year by W. H. Mason of King's Road, Brighton. As with later "Subscription Pictures", W. H. Mason issued a numbered Key with the print.

In the 1880s there was a short-lived fashion for "Subscription Pictures". A local newspaper would announce in advance the intention of an artist to record a significant or fashionable sporting event, such as a horse race or cricket match. Individuals who wished to be featured in this pictorial record of the event would make a contribution to the cost of the painting. The bigger the financial contribution, the larger and more prominent the figure would appear in the finished painting. The big spenders would appear conspicuously in the foreground of the picture, while those of more modest means would be depicted in a sea of faces in the background.

There is evidence that the artist Lowes Cato Dickinson produced a number of "Subscription Pictures" in the mid-1880s. It appears that Lowes Dickinson was involved in the production of two large oil paintings on a "subscription" basis in 1885 - "The Birdcage at Newmarket", showing race-horse owners, trainers, jockeys and fashionable race-goers assembled in the winner's paddock on the day of the "2,000 Guineas" horse race (see below), and the "Yearling Sale at Doncaster", which depicts a large collection of figures assembled to witness and participate in the sale of young horses at the Tattersall Horse Ring in the Waterdale area of Doncaster (see above). The Doncaster Museum Service has discovered the original notice which appeared in the local press announcing that a picture would be painted commemorating the Yearling Sale at Doncaster and that the large oil painting would "contain the portraits of all the leading owners, breeders, and trainers as well as many of the frequenters of this busy scene, where may be found, year by year, a gathering of every one of note connected with horses".

The finished painting entitled "Yearling Sale at Doncaster, South Yorkshire", contained 149 portraits of named individuals, including the Earl of Scarborough, the Duke of Westminster and the Earl and Countess of Zetland. In 2011, this large painting was on display in Doncaster Museum, together with a numbered Picture Key. It appears that this and other "Subscription Paintings" were reproduced and published as lithographic prints and issued with an identifying Key Plate. (See below for Key Plate which was published by Dickinsons of 114 New Bond Street, London

 "The Birdcage at Newmarket on the 2000 Guineas Day"(1885), a composite painting by Lowes Cato Dickinson

[ABOVE] "The Birdcage at Newmarket on the 2000 Guineas Day"(1885), a composite painting by Lowes Cato Dickinson. A lithographic print of "The Birdcage Newmarket" was published by Messrs. Dickinsons, Publishers to the Queen, 114 New Bond Street, London shortly after the painting was completed in 1885.

[ABOVE] A detail of "The Birdcage at Newmarket on the 2000 Guineas Day"(1885), by Lowes Cato Dickinson. A total of 136 individuals are identified in the accompanying Plate Key (see above, right). The identified figures are listed in the numbered key which runs from No.1 to No. 136. For instance, the horse and rider that came first in the 2,000 Guineas Stakes is depicted in the centre of the original painting and on the Key Plate the line drawing is numbered 75. The Key Plate identifies the winning jockey (No.75) as Fred Archer mounted on the winning horse "Paradox". The detail above shows the central section of the painting, with Fred Archer, wearing the scarlet red body silks with black & white hooped sleeves, riding his mount  "Paradox" towards the trainer John Porter and the horse's owner Mr. Broderick Cloete.

 Portraiture and Photographic Painting at 114 New Bond Street

When the patent restrictions on the new art of photography were removed around 1854, the Dickinson Brothers firm of artists and publishers diversified their activities to include photographic portraiture. A photographic studio was established at 114 New Bond Street, London in 1855 and branch studios were opened in the seaside towns of Brighton (see top panel) and Scarborough in the 1860s.

In addition to taking photographic portraits at their studios, the firm of Dickinson Brothers also provided a service whereby the customer's photograph could be enlarged and transformed into a large painted portrait. As early as 1855, calotype photographs (Talbotypes) of sitters were enlarged and painted over by professional artists at the Dickinson Brothers' London studio . One of the artists hired to paint the costumes and backgrounds at "Dickinsons' Portrait Manufactory" in New Bond Street was Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893). It appears that Lowes Dickinson and other portrait artists would paint the faces of the distinguished sitters from the studio photographs and then artists like Ford Madox Brown would paint the subject's clothing and colour the scenic backgrounds. As Ford Madox Brown noted in his diary at the time, the portraits painted from photographs at the Dickinsons Brothers' studio were mostly "presentation or memorial pictures, the individuals represented being either dead or too busy to sit to the artist". For this work, Ford Madox Brown was paid" a guinea a day, three days a week." In his diary, Ford Madox Brown reveals how he hated doing this "hack work" at the Dickinson Brothers' studio:

Between 1855 and 1856, at the Dickinson Brothers' studio in New Bond Street, Ford Madox Brown worked on at least four large portraits taken from photographs, including General Henry Percival de Bathe (1823-1907), a hero of the Crimean War, and Lord John Russell (1792-1878), the British Prime Minister.

The practice of producing large painted portraits from studio photographs was continued by the firm of Dickinson Brothers over the next twenty years. The partnership between William Robert Dickinson Lowes Cato Dickinson and Gilbert Bell Dickinson had been dissolved in 1867, but William Robert Dickinson continued to head the publishing firm of Dickinsons until he was joined in the business around 1875 by Joshua James Foster (1847-1923), formerly with Agnew's Fine Art Publishers. The firm of Dickinson Brothers & Foster Ltd was in business for about a year. Joshua James Foster purchased the firm in 1876, but continued to trade under the name of Messrs Dickinson & Foster.

Composite Pictures by Lowes Cato Dickinson

In the 1880s, Joshua James Foster commissioned Lowes Cato Dickinson, an established portrait painter and former partner in Dickinson Brothers, to paint a series of "subscription pictures" on sporting themes [e.g. "The Birdcage at Newmarket on the 2000 Guineas Day"(1885), "Yearling Sale at Doncaster, South Yorkshire"(1885) ]. These large paintings containing up to 150 individual portraits taken from studio photographs were later issued as lithographic prints by Messrs. Dickinsons, Publishers to the Queen, 114 New Bond Street, London. ( It appears that Joshua Foster retained the name of Dickinsons long after the Dickinson brothers had left the firm in 1875, probably because of the Dickinsons' established reputation and long association with fine art publishing over a period of 50 years ).

The composite pictures produced by Lowes Dickinson and published by Messrs. Dickinsons of 114 New Bond Street, London appear to have been heavily influenced by the work of the Scottish-born Canadian photographer William Notman (1826-1891). After studying the technique of composite photography pioneered by Oscar Gustave Rejlander (1813-1875), George Washington Wilson (1823-1893) and Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901), William Notman produced his first major composite group portrait, in 1870. (The Skating Carnival at the Victoria Skating Rink in 1870, which featured 150 individual portraits).

The method and techniques employed by William Notman and his Art Department in Montreal, Canada, were copied by Lowes Cato Dickinson and the London firm of Dickinson & Foster. An advertisement was placed in the local press announcing the intention to produce a large scale group portrait depicting a forthcoming event and inviting those who intended to attend the event to sit for a photographic portrait. After the individual photographic portraits had been taken, the figures in the photographic prints were cut out with fine scissors and pasted onto a previously prepared background (e.g. a lifelike painting of a horse-racing course, a cricket ground, etc) to form a composite picture. A team of artists would then blend in the figures with the painted background by adding shadows, blades of grass, etc. The finished pasted-up composition was then re-photographed on glass negatives of various sizes. Larger coloured versions of the composition could be created by using a solar enlarger to project the image on to a specially prepared canvas and then employing a professionally trained artist to use oil colours to paint over the monochrome photographic base.

The portrait artist Lowes Cato Dickinson is known to have produced several large group portrait paintings on sporting themes which were based on composite photographs in the mid-1880s. (See the two examples above).  Prints of these composite pictures were then published by "Dickinsons" (Joshua James Foster) of 114 New Bond Street, London. It appears that Lowes Cato Dickinson ended his association with Joshua James Foster and the print publishing firm of "Dickinsons" sometime before1891.