Stunning painting displays city's old elegance

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After spotting a painting of Derby at a recent auction, Maxwell Craven decided to find out more about the artist, Augustus Deacon – co-founder of the Derby School of Art.

Painting of Derby by Augustus Deacon

IF I had any spare money, I would have definitely bid for a stunning painting of Derby which I spotted in an auction sale this month.

It is one of the most impressive watercolours of the city I have seen for a long time. In the end it went for £350 – a bargain, I feel.

The painting, by Augustus Deacon, measures 19 inches by 13 inches and is a view of Derby from the river.

I thought the painting refreshing because of the odd angle from which it was painted. The churches are, of course, St Alkmund’s (with the slender spire) and, beyond and to the right, St Mary’s, Bridge Gate.

The artist was clearly sitting at the western tip of the island, close to the east bank of the river, just below the Darley arm of the canal, on which part of the Phoenix foundry stood.

Usually, artists tended to paint southwards from that point, to encompass the impressive mass of the Silk Mill, but he turned west. It is easy to pick out the pinnacles of the east end of H I Steven’s impressive 1846 church of St Alkmund, rising above the smoke of numerous domestic fires. The backs of the houses, seen left, are those of the east side of St Alkmund’s Church Yard, our only Georgian Square, destroyed in 1967 to build the Inner Ring Road.

The fairly prominent squarish building immediately to the left of the church spire is the Church Army Mission Hall at the end of Court No 4, off Bridge Gate. The river edges left to an inlet just here on the north side of the Silk Mill, so engineered to enable the mill race to function in turning George Sorocold’s enormous wheel.

To the right, the river bank is edged by waste land behind Whalley’s boiler works which lay immediately south of the Bridge Chapel.

The land is framed with a backdrop formed by the three mean cottages of Court No 7, otherwise known as Three Crowns Yard, along with the pub’s stabling.

They were all to be swept away by the building of New Road – renamed Sowter Road – three years later in 1895. The remainder of Lower Bridge Gate is hidden by the tree at the river bank on the right.

The artist hiding behind the prosaic initial and surname was Augustus Oakley Deacon, born at 27 Piccadilly, London, in May 1819 to a well-connected family.

He got his middle name from his uncle, Derby artist Octavius Oakley, who painted scenery for the Theatre Royal, Bold Lane. He was a good but under-valued artist and may well have tutored his nephew.

Augustus came to Derby, probably at Oakley’s invitation, and lived in Burton Road and then Ockbrook. He finally acquired the Hurt family’s secondary residence, Chase Cliff, above Ambergate, where he died on the last day of the 19th century. He was a co-founder of the Derby School of Art in St Peter’s Street and retained his connection when it was set up on an official footing in Green Lane in 1876 under Thomas Simmonds.

He also taught art at Derby School from 1859 to 1871. The painting almost certainly dates from that period – probably the 1860s – and is therefore valuable as a topographical record of mid-19th century Derby. Indeed, I was amazed that Derby Museum was not bidding for it.

Augustus Deacon married 19-year-old Anne Maria Elizabeth at St Pancras Church in London, in August 1844, and they went on to have six sons and a daughter. Two sons were engineers and two others went to the colonies. One was a bank manager in South Africa, the other a tea planter in China.

Another son was a tea merchant in Glasgow, no doubt due to his brother’s activities in the Far East. Maurice, one of the engineers, was the managing director of the Sheepbridge Iron company at Chesterfield for some time.

Augustus Deacon married again well into middle age and had yet another son.

He must have been as prolific an artist as he was as a husband for when Chase Cliffe was inventoried in 1924, the house included no less than 64 of his paintings – and just one Octavius Oakley. I did wonder if the splendid one at auction was one of them.