Listed status for former art school, museum and gallery
Percy Shakespeare was the best painter in oils the school has produced Ivo Shaw
DUDLEY Museum and Art Gallery has been listed at Grade II by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England, giving it greater protection and recognition.
The building, owned by Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, was originally a free library, art gallery and art school when it opened in 1884.
When the library was opened to the public, filled with around 5,000 books and a large well-lit reading room, it became so popular it led to calls for a stand-alone facility. Following a grant gifted by Andrew Carnegie, a new library was opened on the opposite side of the road in 1909. The old free library then became a geological museum, in 1912.
The art school, too, was popular. It was here in 1920, after a chance meeting at the art gallery with Dudley Art School principal Ivo Shaw, that the painter Percy Shakespeare (1906–1943) began his studies.
The school recognised his talent for figure drawing and portraits and waived his fees. This was important as Shakespeare was born into relative poverty in Kates Hill, Dudley, the fourth of eight children.
Shakespeare went on to exhibit at Royal Academy and Paris Salon on numerous occasions. Tragically, he was killed in a bomb explosion in Brighton in 1943, aged 37. His former mentor Ivo Shaw called him “the best painter in oils the School had produced.”
In recent years there has been increased interest in his paintings. In January 2022, a Blue Plaque was unveiled on the façade of the building commemorating his life and work (see Bugle 1536). The art school was closed in 1966 and the building was used solely as a museum and gallery. The museum’s important geological collection inspired an artwork, which was added to the former reading room windows in 1992. Etched geological images chart the history of evolution via various fossil references including Dudley’s famous Crinoid, along with a quotation from Salvador Dali: “the rocks of the imagination still remain.”
On the eastern corner of the building a set of meteorological instruments were added in 1927.These were donated by former Mayor of Dudley James Smellie to commemorate his wife, who was mayoress from 1925-1926. The instruments consist of an aneroid barometer, a dial thermometer and a dial wind-speed indicator, all of which were specially made, and ‘of the most modern and accurate type’.
The building was closed in 2016 and the collections have been moved to the Dudley Archives and Local History Centre. The council is in talks to repurpose the building.
Rachel Williams, Historic England Listing Adviser, said: “Dudley’s former museum and gallery is an impressive building of great architectural merit. There are details and features in the surviving fabric, such as the Dudley Town coat of arms on the building and references to Dudley Castle in the stained glass windows, that tell the stories of social, artistic and scientific education in the town, and reference local
places and traditions”.
Councillor Simon Phipps said: “Dudley is a hive of regeneration and heritage activity, and we are delighted to have yet another Grade II listing in the town centre.
“Although the newly listed building is currently unoccupied, we are in exciting talks with third parties for it to be repurposed and brought back into active use. The building also features in our recently launched architectural heritage trail and a behind the doors online tour is available at www.dudleyheritageopendays.org. uk.”
Tim Bridges, conservation advisor at The Victorian Society, which applied for the building to be listed, said: “Here at the Victorian Society we are delighted by the news that our application to protect the Dudley Museum and Art Gallery with a Grade II listing has now been granted.
“As the Conservation Adviser for the West Midlands, I am particularly pleased that all our good work has paid off, and that the community in and around Dudley will have a magnificent Victorian building to enjoy, in new ways, into the future for many generations to come.”