John Atkinson Grimshaw

With Willow Gallery, London;

Where acquired by the present owners, in 2011

'They are remarkable in that they record the contemporary port's role within Victorian life; they appealed directly to Victorian pride and energy. They also show that same darkness, a mysterious lack of complete experience of the subject which one associates with large cities and big business, which Dickens recounts so well in Bleak House and Great Expectations and for which Grimshaw's moonlight became a perfect metaphor.'¹

The exponential growth of cities like Glasgow, was a source of great inspiration for John Atkinson Grimshaw who celebrated the age of industry and commerce in a series of nocturnal scenes lit by moonlight and lamplight. The present picture probably depicts Gourock on the Clyde in Glasgow. According to the illuminated clock it is 6.55 and the shops are closed. At the centre of the composition is an omnibus carrying passengers sheltering from the light rain that makes the road and pavement shimmer in the light emanating from the brightly-lit shops. The type of goods sold in these shops can be discerned from their tantalising window-displays illuminated by golden gaslight. However they were not intended to be a literal depiction of the shops that traded at Gourock – they are an assimilation of the type of shops that were popular with Victorian customers. The suitably Scottish word 'MaCallum' can be discerned in the window of what appears to be a tobacconists - an advert for Cope's tobacco can also be seen. Three advertising carboys filled with coloured water identify a chemist's shop. Above the chemist's premises is an advertisement for Anchor Line steamers, which sailed between Glasgow and New York.

The windows silhouette the figures making their way along the wide pavement. A young woman - perhaps shop-girl - is conversing with an elegantly-dressed man in a top hat and although the air is suffused with the dampness of a foggy autumn evening and one woman has an umbrella, there is a soporific leisurely atmosphere. Most of the pedestrians are slowly wandering along the pavement and people on the top of the omnibus do not seem overly-hampered by the weather. Using moonlight and the warmth of the gas lamps to illuminate this scene of everyday life Grimshaw transformed the familiar; the half-light giving the working dockside and its figures an ambiguity that is delightfully intriguing. 

The Broomielaw Quay had been the harbour of Glasgow since the end of the seventeenth century and was named after the Brumelaw Croft, a stretch of land between Anderson Quay and Victorian Bridge. Following remodelling by Thomas Telford Broomielaw, it became a busy dock. In 1870 Glasgow produced more than half of Britain's shipping tonnage and a quarter of all locomotives worldwide. By the end of the Nineteenth Century it had become known as the "Second City of the Empire", its shipping industry supporting and linking Britain's vast areas of jurisdiction throughout the globe. This time of growth and prosperity led to the building of Loch Katrine, opened by Queen Victoria in 1859 to supply the city with water, and later the subway, opened in 1896. An ambitious rejuvenation plan was also underway including the building of an impressive City Chambers by William Young and Glasgow University's main buildings by the great Sir George Gilbert Scott. Broomielaw was also the place that many Glaswegians left for their holidays with passengers alighting from the world famous Henry Bell's Comet, the first commercial steam ferry. The Clutha Ferries ran a half hourly service between Victoria Bridge and Whiteinch stopping at the Broomielaw Quay on their journey. The ferries brought passengers from the various neighbouring shipyards and docks and operated until 1903; the opening of the subway underground in 1896 and the introduction of the tram system in 1901 saw the demise of the ferry system. Grimshaw probably used artistic license in his depiction of the architecture of the shops and other buildings.

Although the present picture is undated, it probably dates from the later 1870s or early 1880s when dockside scenes became a recurring theme in Grimshaw’s work. Around 1875, he became established on the London art market and his growing popularity in the 1880s, particularly with art collectors in the northern urban centres, encouraged him to paint the industrial ports and harbours of Liverpool, Hull, Scarborough, Whitby and Glasgow. A new generation of wealthy industrialists, possessed of great civic pride, provided Grimshaw with a plethora of clients. The art dealer Thomas Agnew's archives reveal the artist's work recurring frequently in their stockbooks of the period, probably selling through their galleries in Manchester and Liverpool or through their considerable connections in Glasgow. In the 1870s and 1880s Grimshaw was under considerable financial pressure when he was called upon to honour a loan he had guaranteed for an untrustworthy friend which resulted in Grimshaw losing his house in Scarborough and his servants were dismissed. He returned to his previous residence Knostrop Hall in Leeds, later hiring a studio in London which he used until 1887. This sudden downturn in his finances led to a dramatic increase in the artist's production and coincides with the first moonlit urban and dockside scenes. Men made wealthy by trade were keen to own his lively scenes of city life depicting the ports that were the lifelines of an empire in its heyday. 

¹ D. Bromfield, Atkinson Grimshaw 1836–1893, exh. cat., 1979–1980, p. 15.