Impressive art collection was small part of Baron’s contribution to town
» IF you go to the Friends Gallery at The Wilson, a venue managed by The Cheltenham Trust, you’ll see we’ve been making some changes.
We’ve put on display more of the collection that was given to Cheltenham as a founding gift by the Baron de Ferrières, in 1898.
The art gallery opened its door the following year in 1899, after a generous gift of £1,000 (a gift that would be worth more than 100 times that amount today) to create the new attraction for the town.
In total, the Baron gave 43 works from his art collection to the town.
The Baron who gave the collection to Cheltenham had inherited it from his father, August du Bois, the second Baron de Ferrières.
The family were of Walloon, that is, of French speaking Belgian extraction, and it was this Baron’s father, a military man, who became the first Baron, one of about 1500 new barons created by Napoleon during the First French Empire.
The second baron added the name ‘de Ferrières’ to his titles through his marriage to the English Henrietta Louise Peterson in 1821, whose mother was a de Ferrières. He seems to have begun collecting art in around the 1840s, while he was living in Brussels.
At the time, 17th century Dutch and Belgium paintings were very popular, and the baron’s choices reflect the fashions in art at that time.
He also collected paintings from contemporary Dutch and Belgian painters. This collection moved with the Baron to Hardwick Hall, near Chepstow in about 1845.
His son, Charles, had settled in Cheltenham by about 1860. He lived in Bayshill House for over 40 years.
The house is now Sidney Lodge, part of Cheltenham Ladies’ College.
The site is an important one, for Bayshill House was built on the site of Fauconberg Lodge, where George III stayed when he visited the town in 1788, and kick-started Cheltenham as a spa. Charles was naturalised in 1867 so that he could pursue public life in Cheltenham.
He became mayor in 1877, and served as Cheltenham’s MP – a liberal – from 1880 to 1885. He is best remembered for his public works, including supporting the Gordon Boy’s Brigade, and giving gifts to Cheltenham’s growing number of churches.
If you go to St Mary’s you can see two windows donated by him – one is the impressive Central West Window, by popular Victorian stained glass designers Heaton, Butler and Bayne – and the other you might miss, a small window in the porch.
He also donated stained glass windows to Chepstow, Cheltenham College, Gloucester Cathedral and St Peter’s, Leckhampton – indeed, his obituary says there was ‘scarcely a society or charitable institution in the town that [had] not benefited from his support’.
But it’s the gift to set up the art gallery for which he is best remembered.
He had previously given works to the V&A and to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, making it more exciting that he decided to give the bulk of the collection to the town.
The year after the art gallery opened, the Baron was made a Freeman of the town.
The new display in the Friends Gallery focuses on a selection of the 17 th century Dutch paintings that originally put the gallery on the map, looking at portraits, still lifes and scenes from stories and daily life.
A selection of 20th century works, many given through the Contemporary Art Society, are also newly on display.
We’ve also refreshed the Open Archive with a new selection of watercolours by Edward Adrian Wilson and a new display of private press books from the Emery Walker Library, The Private Presses after the War.