As part of our celebration of 175 years of the borough of Oldham we will be sharing a series of guest blogs linked to items on display in our exhibition. These objects have been selected by staff, councillors, friends of Gallery Oldham and members of the public. This week research volunteer Alison Jones shares her discoveries about Oldham artist and naturalist Lilian Bates.
Lilian’s parents were John Stanley and Edith Annie Bates. Lilian was born on the 17th February 1899, she lived with her parents and older sister Ethel May on Brompton Street in Glodwick. Her mother died in 1948 and Lilian and her father moved to The Furze, Conwy in 1956.
Lilian went to Waterloo Juniors and was one of only 3 children out of 36 on her page of the school roll to go on to secondary school.1 Her Grandfather was a printer and her father continued the business; when he married in 1895 and when Ethel May was baptised in 1897, he gave his occupation as ‘Letter Press Printer’. 2 He later qualified as an Art Teacher and by his death in 1961 he had been Senior assistant master at Oldham Municipal School of Art for 35 years and art master at Hulme for 16 years. 3 He is buried in Chadderton Cemetery. Lilian’s use of paper printed with the words MARGARINE may link back to her father’s business.
Lilian never married and we do not know if she worked outside the home; in the 1939 Register she is recorded as carrying out ‘unpaid domestic duties’, and she continued to look after her father until his death in 1961.4
Art education had been provided by the Lyceum from the 1840s. The School of Science and Art was built next door in 1864. The Earl of Derby opened the rebuilt Oldham School of Science and Art on the 12 February 1881. Rebuilt at the expense of Platt Brothers on land donated by William Richardson (a Director of Platts), the emphasis remained on technical education. At prize giving for the 1887/1888 academic year, numbers in the Science Dept were 386 and 180 in the Art Department, apparently an increase of 84.5 Many lists of exam success and awards rarely mentioned Art, one speaker commenting ‘much more had been said of science than art.’ 6 By 1892, when Lilian was a student, the Art School had passed to the control of the council and become Oldham Municipal School of Art.
Lilian was a talented artist and attended classes at the Municipal Art School for a number of years. Her portfolio in the collection of Gallery Oldham contains examples of a range of disciplines including Life Drawing, Perspective, Landscape, Natural History, Advertising and designs for a range of mediums including textiles and wallpaper. Lilian continued to paint and in 1973 she exhibited in the Conwy Valley Art Society Summer Show.
The Earl of Derby, in his address on the reopening, reflecting on the building’s architecture and the education provided, stressed the importance of something not ‘sordid or squalid’ in ‘these Northern towns where it must be owned that the climate and surroundings are not inspiring’ 7 One hopes he would have approved of Lilian and her father who managed to find inspiration in their surroundings.
References
1 , 2, 4 Find my Past website.
3 Obit NW Weekly News May 1961
5 Manchester Courier 15.12.1888
6 Ashton Standard 1879
7 Manchester Courier March 1881
