My grandfather was, obviously, interested in drawing and not only as a pleasure. He would have had to have produced his own sketches that he could use in the classroom as illustrations in the various lessons he wiould be teaching. For a teacher in a small country parish of just over 400 people,and most of those working on the land in some capacity, any suitable books that may have been published would not have been available to him, because of their high cost and the number of children that would need them. It's probable that some books were bought and shared by the children but, in the early years, especially before the 1902 when the education system be the cost on the ratepayer, via the School Managers, these would have been rare. At one stage, the school ran completely out of exercise books and paperfor the children to write on had to be found from wherever it could.
This section contains a few he did as a fifteen year old when the family, went from Hampstead, where they were living, to the village of Herne, in Kent, for the burial and the settling of the affairs of his grandfather, John Newport, who had been a market gardener there for many years. It’s because of these sketches that we know what the back of the house, in Herne, looked like, in 1881, as the house was pulled down, in 1899, after the last remaining son had moved to Herne Bay and given up the market garden.
While at Pentridge, in Dorset, where he was Head Teacher for about a year, he drew several pictures of houses in the area - Pentridge School, the Rectory, …… and, even, the “Fowl house”!
He produced several drawings of houses in Hooe, including the one he lived in and named; “Caritas Villa”, which translates as “Charity House”
There are two drawings he did, in 1926, while in Hospital having an operation for either a hernia or appendicitus - I've never managed to find out which.
I have not added his sketches and drawings to this website because he was a brilliant artist; he, obviously, wasn't but he had a passable talent and great enthusiam, so, they're here because they have survived, in most cases, for well over a hundred years and the interest for me lies in seeing those things as he saw them, all those years ago.
We have some idea as to when most of the pictures were drawn but there are a few where we have can only guess.
If I find any more, I shall add them as I go along but I hope that these are of interest to others.
