A celebration of those members of our extended family with creative and artistic talents
 

Portrait of General
 Sir Redvers Buller VC by Henry Cornish

Artistic genes have emerged in the extended family in a number of ways. We have a page dedicated to Arthur Junaluska - actor, director, designer and choreographer. This is his backdrop for the Rose Moon Dance in his Native American Ballet The Dance of the Twelve Moons.  But there are a number of other artistic talents threaded throughout the extended family that is the subject of these pages - musicians, writers, artists and photographers.
The talents of some were well recorded to the advantage of posterity. Others are a mystery - Cousin George Turner 1840-1886, son of a bricklayer, described himself as a teacher of drawing and painting in Chelsea in 1871, and as an Art master in Kendal in 1881. Walter Hattin, born in 1880, the son of four generations of shoemakers, in the 1901 census is found lodging at 5 Beaumont Terrace, Paignton, Devon, described as a "Painter's Artist". Intriguingly the Enumerator's supervisor has scribbled "Sculp" alongside. Walter's artworks have so far eluded me, but other family members were well documented. 

The Marvellous Corrick Family Entertainers

The Marvellous Corrick Family of Entertainers were a household name in Australia and New Zealand in the early 1900s. Indeed they toured the world, and references can be found to their appearances in Asia and in the UK (for example at the Athenaeum in Llanelli).
 Albert Corrick was born in Street, Somerset, in 1849, the son of John, a shoemaker, and Eliza Corrick, who both worked for Clarks, the already well-established shoe manufacturer. Albert emigrated to New Zealand on the Mermaid, in 1862. He began a career as a music teacher, church organist, composer and performer. He met and married Sarah, nee Calvert, an emigrant from Durham, who taught piano. They opened a music school in Christchurch, and imported sheet music. When the children started to arrive, Albert was determined that they would become musicians, and all were taught instruments. The family started what was to have been a short concert tour during school holidays. It proved so successful that it was extended to all capitals in Australasia; then to the East, and in 1907 to Europe. The line-up comprised "Professor" Albert Corrick (organist, conductor and teacher), Madam Corrick (contralto, cello), and their children Alice (soprano, piano), Gertrude (piano, cello), Amy (flute, piccolo), Leonard (clarinet), Ethel (singer, violin),  Jessie (violin), Elsie (singer, violin, piano) and Ruby (cornet).  The family were also hand-bell ringers of some note. Alice seems to have been the star, and had already won acclaim with her voice at the age of 17. During a European tour she visited Paris where she received voice coaching under Mme. Machesi.

 In Australia as well as the cities they would tour the goldfields and the outback to great acclaim. The daughters were famous for their glamorous stage gowns, often embroidered with Indian silver thread, and made in Paris.
After 1900 they began to introduce a biograph show into their act (magic lantern slides) which very soon was supplemented with moving films. Son Leonard took responsibility for this part of the act, and became skilled in film-making, for the Corricks included films they had made themselves, as well as showing commercially acquired short films. In the 1970s the Corrick Collection of over 100 early films, including their own, was presented to the Australian National Film and Sound Archive.  For some time, also,  the family provided the musical accompaniment to the silent films in the Princess Theatre in Launceston, Tasmania. Albert died in Launceston in 1914. The family settled there after his death and performed occasionally for charity. They last appeared together in 1932. Sarah died in Launceston in 1935.

This extract from a review of their season at the Mechanics institute that appeared in the Launceston Examiner, 27th May 1902 gives a flavour of their appeal.
"A programme of 16 items was submitted, ...[which] was considerably augmented by encores. The entertainment was not confined exclusively to musical numbers,  and occasional variety was afforded by exhibitions of fancy dancing, and the display of a series of interesting biograph pictures. The first number was an overture, "Bohemian Girl" by the company, the instruments consisting of flute, cornet, violins, piano and clarionet.  ...The music was of high class quality. Miss Alice Corrick sang the grand scena and aria from "Der Freischutz", and received quite an ovation. For an encore, [she] sang "Soldiers in the Park", and her second number on the programme was "Tell me, my heart". This latter item was well received, and in response to a double encore, Miss Corrick sang "Comin' thro' the Rye" and "The Cows are in the Corn".  Madame Corrick, who is possessed of a sympathetic contralto voice, sang "Alone on the Raft" which was illustrated with limelight views... Various selections were played on the hand bells by the company and some excellent music was produced, each item being encored. Miss Ethel Corrick was recalled for her singing of the humorous song "Keep on the Sunny Side" and Professor Corrick sang with good effect "Lads in Navy" which was illustrated with 50 views, descriptive of the words. A clarionet solo, orchestral selections and a number of biograph pictures contributed largely to the success of the entertainment. "

A typical Corrick concert
 

CHEETIE PUSSIE

George Donald, about 1840

Published in Songs for the Nursery, in Whistle-Binkie,
pub. Robertson & Co, Glasgow, 1840
(and the source for much of the information on George)
 

 CHEETIE!  cheetie pussie!
Slippin’ thro' the housie,
Watchin' frighted mousie—
Makin' little din;
 Or by fireside currin',
Sang contented purrin',
Come awa' to Mirren,
Wi’ your velvet skin!

Bonny baudrons ! grup it !
Straik it weel an' clap it!
See the milk, it's lappit,
Ilka drap yestreen;
Hear to hungry cheetie!
Mewlin' for its meatie,
Pussie, what a pity
Ye shou'd want a frien'!

Throw the cat a piecie,
Like a kindly lassie,
Ne'er be proud and saucy,
Hard an' thrawn like Jean;
Doggie wants a share o't,
If ye've ony mair o't,
Just a wee bit spare o't,
 An' you're mither's queen!

Cheetie! cheetie pussie !
"Watchin’ frighted mousie,—
Slippin' thro' the housie
Wi your glancin' een;
Or by fireside currin',
Sang contented purrin',
Come awa' to Mirren,
Tell her whare you've been!


Cheetie Pussie Manuscript

SONGS FOR THE PEOPLE No V

George Donald, 1840

Published in The Chartist Circular, January 11th 1840

What is a Chartist – is he one

Whose creed is anarchy and spoil?

Is blood the basis of his plan,

And does he ply the impostor’s guile?

He dares the authors of his ills

From word or action to infer

That these compose his principles-

That this is like his character.

He, with indignant sorrow hears

The prayer of want and wail of woe

Fall heedless on the tyrant’s ears,

And swears that such shall not be so.

Along the city’s crowded streets,

And in the once contented cot,

The willing sons of toil he meets,

Now unemployed, and weeps their lot.

By foul corruption’s lavish waste –

By faction’s lust for power and place,

He sees his land to ruin haste,

And strives to save it from disgrace.

He knows that men are equals born,

But sees the many by the few

Are of their birthright basely shorn,

And holds the robbery up to view.

He says that all should have the choice

Of those for them that legislate;

For well he knows the people’s voice

Their wrongs alone can terminate

He says – and wealth at this may storm-

That there is many a wealthy fool;

And rank and riches should not form

The right of any one to rule.

Oppression in its every guise,

Against the body or the mind,

He hates, and fain would exercise

Good will and peace to all mankind.

This is a Chartist – who will say

His claims are wicked and unjust?

Keep patriot, then, your conquering way,

Till opposition bites the dust.

Soon happiness and liberty

Shall crown the battle you have fought,

And Whig and Tory only be

Remembered by the wrongs they wrought.

Be steadfast in your glorious cause,

Tho’ here and there some victims fall,

Till equal rights and equal laws

Shall be secured to one and all.
 

George Donald, was born in Calton of Glasgow, in 1800. His ancestors were from the Western Highlands. His father was a tenter (mechanic) in one of the power loom factories in Calton.  At the age of 8 George worked with his father for 14 hours a day, 6 days a week with an hour and a half for meals. Because he exhibited a passion for reading he was allowed to attend school for two hours a day by the factory manager.  This mean education was enough to inspire his writing, and to nurture the independent mind that prompted his radicalism. There had been rebellion and unrest in Scotland in the late 18th century, and the rumblings of rebellion flared up again in 1820, with a widely supported general strike. At Paisley 300 armed radicals closed the mills. George was inspired by and participated in this radical rebellion. The family believe that George had to leave Scotland for some time as a result of his part in this uprising.

Power Loom

" My Dragon" in "Songs for the Nursery"
 

He became an ardent advocate for religious and civil liberty, and began to write poems for the many political journals in circulation. In turn his literary efforts opened the door to a radical social circle, and he became well known to the liberal political leaders of Glasgow. Unfortunately the social habits of this group were as enthusiastic as their political beliefs, and George entered too willingly into the drinking habits of the set. Eventually although he  threw himself into his writing, he similarly embraced his drinking, and he began to neglect his family.  His wife Mary left and took their children to her home in Thornliebank. Finding himself out of work he went to the America for a while but soon returned to Scotland.
The Chartist Circular wrote of him in 1841,"He is the woeful nursling of a cotton factory - intelligent, morbid, sensitive, long inured to poverty and tossed about this barren world like an isolated wreck on the stormy ocean. Penury and woe are his familiars, yet he is a bard of genius..."
For 18 months he was a partner on the short-lived radical  newspaper The Liberator, which failed, losing much money.  His wife returned to him for brief periods, and George's life continued in and out of work and drink. He published "The Lays of the Covenanters" which won him some critical acclaim but very little money. He wrote "Memoir of a Glasgow Unfortunate" which was serialised in a Glasgow newspaper. At one time he wrote to a benefactor "I am shoeless and shirtless and cannot write for the cold"

In  about 1840, George wrote to the Editor of Whistle-Binkie

I thank you for what you gave me – it enabled me to break my fast. My thoughts at times are fearful. May God forgive and protect me. You are a stranger to me but you are a Christian and can feel.  I dread the time is not too far distant when I shall fall down in the streets. And I am ashamed to make my situation known. This is my reward for having written more than any other working man in Glasgow – I deserve it.
 

Some of Donald’s happiest efforts may be seen in the pieces he contributed to the little popular work, “Songs for the Nursery,” which was appended to a popular two volume anthology entitled Whistle-Binkie, published in 1840.
During part of his last days Donald was employed in the office of the Glasgow Examiner. A cold, which he caught in 1850, settled down to his chest. His health never recovered. Despite the ministerings of his family and his doctors he died in December 1851.
George's failings had involved his family in long struggles with poverty and its attendant ills.
George's eldest son, George Donald Jnr. could not forgive the privations that his father's lifestyle had imposed on the family. He was obliged to begin work in the calico printfield at the age of 12 as a calico print colourist apprentice. But he had inherited his father's poetic gift, and whilst working at a succession of jobs he attended the Glasgow School of Arts in the evenings and submitted poems and articles to newspapers and journals. At the evening school he was latterly appointed a monitor- teaching for one hour, and receiving free instruction during the next. Eventually he was to serve for 11 years as a journalist for the Glasgow Examiner. But he was also the proprietor of a Temperance Hotel, and for a while an Assistant Inspector for the administration of the Poor Law for the Govan Parochial Board. The family story is that this George too became an alcoholic. His last recorded job in the 1891 census was as a clerk. He died in 1893 at the age of  66.

George Donald Junior
In the course of his life, as well as poetry, George Donald Jnr published prose sketches, tales, literary reviews, etc., in newspapers, periodicals, and magazines. He taught himself French, and published translations of French verse. In 1865 he published a collection of his work in Poems Reflective, Descriptive and Miscellaneous, which received favourable reviews.

Our Ain Green Shaw by George Donald Jnr., 1826-1893
(extract)
They speak o’ gilded palaces, o’lords and leddies fair,
And scenes that charm the weary heart in cities far awa’,
But nane o’ a’ their gaudy shows and pleasures can compare
 Wi’ the happiness that dwells in our ain green shaw.

 O weel I lo’e when Summer comes wi’ sunny days and glee,
 And brings to gladden ilka heart her rural pleasures a’,
When on the thorn the mavis sings, and gowans deck the lea,-
 O there’s nae spot then sae bonnie as our ain green shaw.

 While heaven supplies my simple wants, and leave me still my cot,
 I’ll bear through life a cheerfu’ heart whatever may befa’,
Nor ency ithers’ joys, but aye be canty wi’ my lot
 When wanderin’ in the e’en through our ain green shaw.

Published in Scottish Modern Poets, Volume 2,
Edited by Edwards, Brechin 1881
 

The Feys and the Pymans

Many of the Feys who moved to Bristol, and their in-laws and descendants, were talented musicians and performers, both professionally and as amateurs. Fred Fey was the Musical Director at The People's Palace, Baldwin Street, Bristol - a Music Hall between 1892 and 1912. Fred conducted the orchestra there, and also composed music. His niece Gladys Pyman was featured there at the age of 9. A talented child, she was billed as "The Baby Pianist". She was so tiny her feet could not reach the pedals.
Her sister Elsie Lillian Pyman played cello with "The Saville Cwyn Orchestra". When she was older Gladys too joined an orchestra - the Bristol Folk House Orchestra.  The Bristol Folk House emerged from a movement in  1870 offering education to Bristol dockers and became an established part of the movement for adult education and social action. Part of the national temperance movement in 1922, the name of Bristol Folk House was acquired. Its orchestra would have been established at about that time.  Younger sister Queenie Pyman took over as the orchestra's pianist from Gladys who gave up the role when she got married. Her brother Gil Pyman was violinist with the orchestra. So too was a former docker William Williams whom Queenie was to marry. And sister Elsie Lillian met her husband through the Saville Cwyn Orchestra. The family seem to have successfully combined romance with their musical talents! 

Bristol Folk House Orchestra, with Queenie Pyman, front

Gladys Pyman

William Hector, Pioneer Photographer

William Hector, , the son of a wool sorter and weaver, in the then declining woollen industry of Crediton, followed a different career as a thatcher with his brother, and over 15 years built his business, moving from a modest cottage in an alley, when his wife was employed as a housekeeper, to a much more lavish abode at 40 High Street by 1861, where William was employing two men and a boy, and his wife no longer needed to work. But William was evidently a man of ingenuity and enthusiasm. Somewhere along the way he developed an interest in science, which he pursued through astronomy, and the newly invented skill of photography. Initially William's interest was as a gifted amateur. Photography as anything more than just a scientific experiment had been around for less than 15 years when he began to experiment with it, and by 1861 he had submitted a small  photograph to the exhibition of the Photographic Society of Scotland.

This would have been one of William's earliest photographs, of the building of the railway from Crediton, in 1852

 On 1st October 1869 there was a review of William's business in Photographic News. In the 1871 census William at his High Street premises described himself as Thatcher and Photographer. His son John was living a few doors away carrying on his business as Painter and Glazier. His son William was living with his parents, his occupation Organist. (Their neighbour was carpenter William Fey) By the early 1870s the business was well established, producing cartes-de-visite such as this one of Mary Wright. By 1878 not only did he have the Crediton business, but had opened at Fore Street, Okehampton. By 1881 William had given up thatching, and described himself in the census as a Photographer. His daughter Amelia is his Assistant, still at 40 High Street. As well as his interest in photography, William himself was an accomplished musician - not only in the town band, but with his brother playing the bass-viol regularly in the church. He died on September 28th 1882, aged 62 -certainly a pioneer.

There is a family story that William collaborated with William Friese-Greene, a pioneer in moving pictures, but whilst they may have known one another as photographers, Friese-Greene did not experiment with movies until after William's death. Perhaps the collaborator was his son-in-law Henry Cornish, for after William's death the business at 40 High Street Crediton was taken over by Cornish, who had married William's daughter and photographic assistant Amelia.
The Hectors certainly had artistic genes, for son William (1852 - 1925), seen here on the left standing in the doorway of his shop, was not only a watchmaker and jeweller, but developed his skills as an organist and music teacher. Young William had been the organist at Shobrooke Parish Church by the age of 12. Later he became organist at Newton St Cyres parish church. And his son became organist at Brighton Parish Church, after studying music at Oxford University.