SAMUEL LINES

[Dennis Williams]

This journey, like many others I have charted on here, was once again inspired by the immaculate Birmingham historian Jenni Coles-Harris, and much of the information, pictures and words are hers. I am deeply indebted to her research capabilities and skills…

The main focus of my primary interest was the painter Samuel Lines, who was actually a Coventronian, if there is such a word, and his paintings of old Brum. They are not particularly up there with Constable or Turner, but they have amazing details for anyone with a curiosity of the early development of our fair City and it’s oldest Streets and thoroughfares. So, lets begin with a bit of background info on the times Samuel Lines was active in, and see where it leads….firstly, here’s the link to one of the best Birmingham History sites on the Net….Jenni’s Georgian and Regency Streets of Birmingham Blog:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4FvJwSYUUw

The Georgian era of British history is a period which takes its name from, and is normally defined as spanning the reigns of, the first four Hanoverian kings of Great Britain who were all named 'George': George I, George II, George III and George IV. The era covers the period from 1714 to 1830, with the sub-period of the Regency defined by the Regency of George IV as Prince of Wales during the illness of his father George III. The definition of the Georgian era is often extended to include the short reign of William IV, which ended with his death in 1837. The last Hanoverian monarch of the UK was William's niece Queen Victoria who is the namesake of the following historical era, the Victorian, which is usually defined as occurring from the start of her reign, when William died, and continuing until her death.

SAMUEL LINES (1778–1863), painter, designer, and art instructor, was born in 1778 at Allesley, near Coventry, where his mother was mistress of a boarding-school. On his mother's death in his boyhood he was placed in the charge of an uncle, a farmer, who employed him in agricultural work. Lines, however, managed to teach himself the rudiments of drawing and painting, and in 1794 he was apprenticed to Mr. Keeling, a clock-dial enameller and decorator of Birmingham, for whom he worked as designer. He was employed in a similar capacity by Mr. Clay, the papier-mâché maker, and also by the die engravers Wyon and Halliday. Among other objects he was frequently employed to design presentation shovels and swords of state, manufactured by Mr. Gunby of Birmingham, a great amateur of art, with a fine private collection, and Gunby's gallery was freely open to Lines, as well as to his contemporary David Cox the elder.

In 1807 Lines commenced teaching drawing in Birmingham, using casts to draw from; he set up a school in Newhall Street, met with success, and was able to build himself a house in Temple Row (No 3), where he resided for the remainder of his life. In 1809 Lines, with Moses Haughton the elder, Charles Barber, John Vincent Barber, and other artists established a life academy in Peck Lane, New Street.




In 1814 the school, doing well, moved to larger rooms in Union Passage, and the same year they housed an exhibition which exhibited works from artists within a 30 mile radius of Birmingham. By 1821 the group had again outgrown their premises and consulted with wealthy patrons and local industrialists, the product of which was the formation of the Society of Arts which took up residence in the old Panorama building on New Street. This building was rebuilt in 1828. Lines took classes at the society and managed many of the exhibitions. In 1842 there was some disagreement within the society, which split into two, with the new group moving to rooms on Temple Row, called the Aetheneum.

Lines took a large share in the foundation of the Birmingham School of Art in 1821, and on the subsequent foundation of the Birmingham Society of Artists he was elected treasurer and curator, holding those offices till he reached the age of eighty, when he resigned, and was elected an honorary member. Nearly all the artists of the neighbourhood and many from other parts of the country received instruction in drawing at Lines's academy. A good landscape-painter himself, he possessed a great faculty of teaching others, and many of his pupils attained to much excellence. He died at his house in Temple Row on 22 Nov. 1863. He very rarely exhibited out of Birmingham.

One of his drawings was of a distant, early landmark in New Street, Birmingham....that of The Theatre...later to become the Theatre Royal...he is pictured here enjoying the view with a friend atop his House in Temple Row, No 3, next door to the now delightful pub, the Old Joint Stock....No 3 Temple Row now has a Blue Plaque installed as a commemoration of his life and work....


3 Temple Row



Lines view from Temple Row



Theatre Royal



Theatre Royal burning during Priestley riots 1792...



After several unsuccessful attempts to set the Theatre alight, in the early hours of the morning of 17 August 1792, the inhabitants of Birmingham were alarmed by the cry of Fire!'. Within a short time of discovery, the whole building was engulfed and completely destroyed by the fire, all apart from the elegant stone facade which remained for another 100 years. The Priestley riots had claimed another scalp….The Theatre in New Street….

Next door to the Theatre was Portugal House, Joseph Green's splendid home. Here you can see his furniture piled outside the front, presumably with Mr. Green himself, the renowned dandy, standing in the doorway. His house did not catch fire.

In his drawing from 1821, you can also see a distant Windmill, which I think is Chapman's Mill on Holloway Head..?

 

[Dennis Williams]

Continued....

But by far the most potent and informative painting in my opinion, is his view from St Philips Church spire..…estimated to have been painted in 1832. I have labeled, (with Jenni’s help), some of the older and current landmarks and Streets you may be familiar with if you live in Birmingham…a fuller discussion of some of them will follow…but first, this is the passage from the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s description of the painting…




This view, by Samuel Lines Senior, looks in a south-westerly direction from Temple Row in the foreground over a block of land bounded by Upper Temple Street, New Street, and Colmore Row. Although buildings lined these streets, much of the backland was still undeveloped and gives the impression of a country town. This open land was attached to Bennett's Hill House. When this ground was let in 1698 on a 120 year lease, a clause was included which forbade the erection of permanent buildings on it.Lines's painting was produced only a short time after the expiry of the lease and before the land was developed. The buildings on the corner of Upper Temple Street as far as the bend in Temple Row were demolished in 1823 for the opening up of Waterloo Street, which was driven through the middle of this open land towards Christ Church. Waterloo Street was crossed slightly later by Bennett's Hill, a street linking New Street with Colmore Row. By 1830, a Birmingham directory could describe these new streets as 'both rapidly filling up with handsome buildings, having stuccoed or plastered fronts'. Below is a closer view of the centre of the painting..





Panorama Building...print dated 1804..



Canal Office and Allins Shop with Flag



Georgian Post Office..another Samuel Lines drawing...


Here is the key to the lettering...A to E are along New Street

A) Is the Theatre, by the time of the painting, the Theatre Royal.
B) Next to the theatre was Portugal House, a grand Georgian town house owned by Joseph Green, at the time of the painting divided into two properties with a distillery attached.
C) Just over the street is the original Georgian cottage Post Office, which had at its rear in….
D) The Post Office yard where the Royal Mail coaches would arrive from 1812.
E) Is the Panorama, where 360 degree actual size paintings were shown.
F & G are in what is now Victoria Square
F) Is Christ Church
G) Is placed just to the left of the flag that topped Allin's shop, nicknamed The Flag as it always flew the Union Jack. The Town Hall was later built near this spot. In the distance, behind the 'G', is the Canal Offices on Paradise Street.
H) Is Bennett's Hill House and the walled garden. All the green land in that area was the original Bennett's Hill, and had been protected from building work by a clause in the 120 year lease for the house and land. The lease had expired in 1818 and not long after Lines's painting the whole are was built up with two new roads, houses, shops and other businesses.
I) Is Ann Street, later Colmore Row.
J) Is Temple Row
K) Is Temple Street

 

[Dennis Williams]

As a corollary to the above...regarding Bennett's Hill and it's eventual development..here is an earlier map from 1785 of the above area covered by Lines' painting of 1832 ..but not too much had changed....

1785 map showing the Pemberton family home, Bennett's Hill House and the attached garden. Swinford Street became the top end of New Street and Bewdley Street became Ann Street and is now called Colmore Row.
Bennett’s Hill and Waterloo Street are right in the middle of the area that was being built up in the mid 1700s, but the land that they cover was once the large garden of a grand house; Bennett's Hill House.


1785 Map


The house was built in 1698 by the wealthy iron merchant, John Pemberton, with a lease for the land of 120 years, but it was his son, Thomas, that added the fashionable gardens to the house in the early 1730s. He initially added a walled garden and then planted long walks lined with trees .A visitor to the house in 1755 described the gardens:
‘[They] consist of two parts, a handsome flower-garden about half an acre, square and walled in; neatly laid out, and as neatly kept. On the left hand stands a convenient summer-house, opposite to which is a gate opening to a long grass-walk, having a row of fan elms on each side, with borders of various kinds of plants and flowering shrubs; this walk parts the fruit and kitchen garden; at the end is another walk on the left hand, with rows of tall fir-trees, etc. The house stands on the highest ground of the town, over which the garden commands a good view of the country on that side for some miles.’


Bennett's Hill House



1731 Underwood's SW Prospect showing Bennett's Hill House

 

[Dennis Williams]

And a bit more information of that fascinating edifice that was Christ Church, also featured in Lines' painting....

CHRIST CHURCH

Christ Church, Birmingham was a parish church in the Church of England on Colmore Row, Birmingham from 1805 to 1899.


Christ Church 1896



Beilby's Painting



Interior of Christ Church


The church was built by public subscription. The site was donated by William Phillips Ing. The foundation stone was laid on 22 July 1805 by George Legge, 3rd Earl of Dartmouth. The Earl of Dartmouth was representing King George III, who had personally intended to lay the foundation stone, but was prevented from doing so by illness. The King gave £1,000 (£70,804 as of 2014) towards the construction. The final cost was £26,000.

It was consecrated on 6 July 1813 by James Cornwallis, 4th Earl Cornwallis, the Bishop of Lichfield. It was unusual in that all of the seating on the ground floor was free, and it came to be known as the 'Free Church'. It was built in stone in the Classical style with Doric columns dominating the west front. The square west tower, completed in 1814, supported an octagonal belfry and an octagonal spire. The catacombs beneath the church were believed to have once contained the re-interred remains of John Baskerville. There is a detailed link to Baskerville's interment and what followed here:

post4165.html?hilit=%20Baskerville#p4165

The parish was assigned from St Martin in the Bull Ring and St. Philips' Church in 1865.
When first opened, the building and the number of free seats were much admired, though the fact that men and women sat separately in its early days, led some wit to pen the following:

Our churches and chapels we generally find
Are the places where men to the women are joined;
But at Christ Church, it seems, they are more cruel hearted,
For men and their wives go there and get parted.

The design was by local architect and sculptor William Hollins, but the work was carried out by the Birmingham builder and surveyor, Charles Norton.

The cost of building turned out to be more than anticipated, so the trustees applied to Parliament for permission to convert the arches under the church into catacombs. They proposed selling spaces for £4 each and they themselves bought one third of them. However, up until 1818 only two corpses had been interred there. It was hoped, ‘that when the inhabitants are familiarised to that mode of sepulture, they will prefer them to the present custom of erecting vaults, which are attended with considerably more expense.’

When Christ Church was built in 1805, it was decided that four small shops should be built into the high church wall, which were to be rented out in order to provide an extra income for the church. The shops under Christ Church were too small to be lived in, and the only way in or out was from the front. Behind the back walls of the shops were the catacombs that sat beneath the church, and further back, behind the church, the graveyard. At the time the church was built this area was developing as a commercial part of the town, it had begun to be built up with residential properties from the 1740s, but later became a busy shopping area. The illustration below depicts some of the shops of Ann Street in the distance, with the Bell and Candlestick pub in the centre, its name representing the prominence of the brass trade in Birmingham.


Frontage showing shops in Ann Street



Shops Map


The plan, above, was drawn up in 1821 and gives an insight into the life behind the facade of the shops. The four small shops that were set into the wall are all different sizes with irregular walls, giving an impression of how they may have been laid out inside. The four shops are run by Jones, Wakelam, Smith and Jones. The plan also shows two new shops in darker pink run by Freeman and Carr, that had just been built, as well as the wagon yard to the right. The buildings just behind, running along the length of the church's wall, are Freeman's kitchen, Freeman's pantry, Carr's brewhouse, the privies and some stables with another brewhouse. The wagon yard was run by a Mr. Wallis, and it seems that it made and stocked wagons for business and goods use rather than having coaches for travelling, though you could hire hackney coaches a little further down New Street.

The church building was not much loved in its later years, when the Gothic style held sway for church architecture. Bates's Pictorial Guide to Birmingham 1849: With its appearance most of our readers are too well acquainted; it is a heavy, plain, stone structure, with a projecting roof, and a tetrastyle Doric portico at the western end. The present ugly spire was not erected until 1815, and was a deviation from the original plan, . . . it appears to have been the architect's intention to have given the building a dome and cupola, in humble imitation of those of St. Philip's, and far more in keeping with the building itself, - heavy and unsightly as it would even then have been,-than the senseless and tasteless combination of a spire intended to be Gothic, (of the most debased order,) with a building supposed to be Classic.

Eliezer Edwards described it in 1877 as‘the excrescence called Christ Church, which still disfigures the very finest site in the whole town.'

As the City Centre turned increasingly to business and commerce, the central population moved to districts immediately outside the City Centre. The congregation fell to unsustainable levels and the church closed in 1897 and was demolished two years later. The parish was merged with St Philip's, and the proceeds from the sale of the land helped to fund the building of St Agatha's Church in Sparkbrook.


Demolition of the Church


Burials from the catacombs beneath the church were transferred to the Church of England Cemetery catacombs in Warstone Lane.

The Angel Fountain of 1850 was moved to St Philip's Cathedral, and thankfully survive, although I went past it yesterday and it is dreadfully decrepit and urgently needs some love and care...!!!

And finally, as I said in the preamble...I cannot stress what a debt of gratitude I feel towards Jenni Coles Harris (cupofteabiscuit on here), who provided some pictures and a whole lot of the text of this story...I just strung it together a bit....her blog once again, which you will love if you like Brum History...is at....https://mappingbirmingham.blogspot.co.uk/...go enjoy...