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Frederick L Tavaré
Credits & thanks for info & images go to Jim Tavaré & Family on Facebook
Frederick Lawrence Tavaré was born in Cheetham, Manchester in December 1846, the third son of Frederick and Ann Mather (nee Ward), with his baptism takign place at Manchester Cathedral in the following May .
[Read about his father Frederick, here ]
The Tavaré family is listed in the census of 1851 as living at 7 Bury New Road Cheetham in North Manchester. In this census house numbers were quite unreliable, there were no odds or evens sides as we have today. In this case there were actually more than one number 7 recorded. Looking at Slaters Directory from 1853, it reports their address as 7 Broom Terrace, Bury New Road. So it was number seven within a block or terrace of properties.
A letter from R Cozier (artist of the above portrait of Frederick & president of the Manchester Academy of Art) records that another artist, W Brookes had donated to the Deaf & Dumb Institution. The works of both Crozier and Brookes were held in high esteem by the fellow artists of the time, both of them along with F Chester being awarded first prizes from the The Royal Manchester Institution.
Jumping forward a decade, in 1861 the family (without Frederick junior) were recorded at 92 Bury New Road. The east side of the road had now been designated with even property numbers. There was also a gap of 10 properties (between 58 & 68) in the 1861 census (and still present today), showing that a block of properties had been demolished. So I suspect the Tavaré family had been forced to move, but chose/were relocated to a house just a bit further up Bury New Road.
Frederick senior was then listed as an Artist & Teacher. Only two, children were living with them, Annie E (aged 9) & Alfred N. (aged 2) and one servant. Frederick L was not present. Seven years later Fredrick died at the age of 58,and was placed with his mother at St Luke's.
In 1873, Frederick painted his earliest known street scene of Manchester, choosing the Wellington Inn in the Shambles. This was to be a recurring theme for Frederick as he would go on to create a series of paintings of some of the older buildings of Manchester, such as Poet's Corner (1874), Old Smithy Door (1877) and Victoria Market (1880).
Frederick had also painted the Sun Inn on Long Mill Gate (1874), which was known as Poet's Corner. This was where all the literaries of the area would meet. The first official meeting of the Literary Society had taken place there in 1842, probably with his father Frederick Tavaré, and cousin Charles Swain in attendance.
In 1884 Frederick painted Stocks House in nearby Cheetham Hill. This was the year after James Crossley, a writer, editor, antique book collector, and a founder of the Chetham Society (1843) had died. He moved in to Stocks House in 1878 and it became the place where many notable artists and literary sparks would congregate including Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray, and of course, Frederick L Tavaré. It is said that James had so many books that they were piled on the stairs and that in his later years he was no longer able to reach the first floor of his house.
He also painted Chetham's School(1885) and sketched Barton Aqueduct(1888).
The above painting of Cheetwood Priory is dated to 1920, and is Frederick Tavaré's latest know painting. Perhaps Frederick was revisiting his childhood, when the family would have taken a short walk from their home on Bury New Road, to visit his father's cousin, Charles Swain. Even if that was so, Frederick was at least continuing his series of paintings that recorded the lost buildings of Manchester. The Priory had been swallowed up about 1910, and demolished to make way for the expansion of the neighbouring brickworks.
His father, Frederick Tavaré, was a Landscape Painter, teacher, and cousin of Charles Swain the Manchester poet and Lithographer. He was also a founding member of the United Society of Manchester Artists along with W Brookes, R Crozier, T Letherbrow, and a few others.
Checking the pages around the Tavaré family in the 1851 census, we see that they were the 25th property up from Sherbourne Street at Strangeways (or 20th from the Salem Chapel School - which still stands today).
This is based on the enumerator covering "the north east side of the new turnpike road to Bury commencing with Sherbuourne Street, and ending with Fairy Lane" as per the census returns. This places the family near the junction of Waterloo Rd and Bury New Rd. Which is also where a property called Broom Cottage used to stand, which explains the naming of Broom terrace.
Frederick (senior) was listed as an "Artist, Landscape Painter", living with his wife Anne (aged 39), two children: Frederick L. (recorded as deaf & dumb, aged 4) and Charles E. (11 months). The family also had a nurse living with them.
Living just round the corner in 1851, in a house called Cheetwood Priory, was his father's cousin, Charles Swain the Manchester poet and Lithographer. It's expected that the two families would have met often given both their artistic circles and their family ties.
Frederick L exhibited at the Royal Exhibition of 1867, the same year that his first cousin once removed, Charles Swain, published his last verse.
Frederick junior had followed his late father's profession, and he was listed as an artist and teacher of drawing in the census of 1871, aged 24 living at 92 Bury New Road, Cheetham. Ann by this time was aged 55, and she had 4 more children: Charles Edward (also an artist teacher (aged 21), Annie Elizabeth (19), Alfred Nines (12) and Edwin Swain (7).
Also in 1871, Frederick sat for this photo.
In 1878 he sketched the Seven Stars, Withy Grove. However in 1879 aged 32, Frederick was found guilty of assaulting his mother Ann, and was sentenced to 3 months of hard labour. He serving his sentence in Belle Vue prison, West Gorton (Manchester City & Borough Gaol).
Other subjects that Frederick painted included Victoria Market, which he captured at least three times between 1880 & 1902. This market was a stones throw from the Sun Inn/Poet's Corner. [ Manchester Art Gallery date his painting to 1902, but it seems the buildings were demolished some time around 1880, they also incorrectly title one painting as "Smithfield Market"].
The next year Frederick appears in the Slaters directory of 1886, which records that he was living with his mother Ann, on Thomas Street in Cheetham Hill, so all seems to have been forgiven between them.
In 1893, Frederick produced a painting of Rosthern Mere in Cheshire, not far from Knutsford where Charles Swain's father originated from. But in 1897 and 1898 he was back painting in Manchester with views of Dyers Lane and Great Bridgewater Wesleyan Chapel (both lost under the Great Northern Warehouse in 1899). 1898 saw Frederick admitted to a workhouse (aged 51).
Frederick doesn't appear in the census again until 1901, when Frederick was lodging at the Post Office back in the Cheshire village of Mere, working as a letter carrier. His brothers Edwin(48) and Charles (61) were living in Rusholme, with Charles recorded as a retired artist and pensioner of the Royal Hospital. It also records that Charles had experienced fits since the age of 16.
Frederick's mother Anne died in 1903 and is buried with her husband at St Luke's. Two years later, Frederick was re-admitted to a workhouse (aged 58). The 1911 census shows that Frederick appears to have been married at some point as he is recorded as widowed when he was lodging at 14 Moor Street in Ardwick, aged 64. No trace of his marriage can be found.
In his last years, Frederick retired to Pendleton, Salford and died in 1930 aged 83. He is buried with his parent's in St Luke's churchyard.
St Luke'sSt. Luke’s, Cheetham, was once described as “the best early Gothic Revival church in Manchester”. Designed by Thomas Whitlam Atkinson, its foundation stone was laid by the great philanthropist, gentleman, and calico printer John Chippendale in 1836, whose grand house at Elm Bank stood nearby. Composer Mendelsohn himself played the great organ there in April 1847 shortly before his death, and a prized possession of the church was the Roman Baroque painting of “The Flight into Egypt” by Alessandro Turchi which now hangs in the Art Gallery in Mosley Street.[Geoff Ashworth]
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