Tonbridge School Drawing Master

Victorian Visions

Victorian Visions is currently showing at the Tunbridge Wells Museum Art Gallery.  It's an amazing collection of Victorian Paintings that were left to the museum in the will of Ernest Russell Ashton in 1952, and are known as the Ashton Bequest.    The collection is small but reflects many genres of painting including social history, portraiture, the exotic and landscape giving an excellent overview of life in Victorian England.

So what has an exhibition in Tunbridge Wells museum got to do with our home town of Tonbridge?  The answer to this question is that two of the paintings in the exhibition were painted by artist Charles Tattersall Dodd Senior (1815 - 1878) who was the Drawing Master at Tonbridge School for 40 years. The two paintings exhibited are worth a view.  'The Timber Wagon' is of a scene at Fairlight Cove in East Sussex, and the other of a rural Rusthall Common virtually unrecognisable to the 21 century eye, other than one house that still remains today.

Left - Russell Common                             The Timber Wagon - Right

Charles Tattersall Dodd was a member of the Temperence Movement that encouraged reduced use of alcohol, and he must have disapproved of the free beer given out in celebration by Tonbridge brewers Bartrams during the time he was employed as a Master at Tonbridge School.  He probably kept a close eye on the pupils' drinking habits too.

The exhibition is really worth a visit and is open until September, so next time you are out and about in Tunbridge Wells check out this Tonbridge connection.