Event Images
At first sight, Captain Roland Addy, managing director of The Carlton Main Coal Company, was a solid Edwardian industrialist. He owned collieries at Brierley, Grimethorpe, Frickley and Hatfield Main and lived in splendour at Brierley Hall. But Captain Addy, born in Felkirk, South Hiendley in 1891, was also a sensitive connoisseur of midtolate 19th century art.
When his wife, Joan Nelson, died in 1978, she left 23 of her husband's paintings to the Cooper Gallery. He obviously had a knowledgeable eye: his collection includes two Turners, The Ancient Market Place and The New Council Room, Salisbury, Frederick William Elwell's Winter Sunshine and Irun from The Bidassoa by David Roberts.
Coal ran in the blood of Addy's family as both his father and grandfather were coalowners and colliery managers. In 1916, Addy bought Brierley Hall for £2,800 from the glassmaker Alphonse Wood and added an imposing new wing to the original early 19th century building. His elegant home became the centre of the village, and on June 3, 1938, it was used for the wedding reception of Mr William Wild, director of a foundry in Sheffield, to Dorothy Mary Ross Gardener, eldest daughter of LieutCol W. Ross Gardener, Chief Medical Officer of Hemsworth Rural District Council. Captain Addy is recorded as giving the toast.
In 1948, he retired to Oliver's Mount in Scarborough and sold Brierley Hall for £8,750 to Hemsworth Rural District Council. The ballroom became the architects' office, the billiard room was the council chamber, and the stable and coach houses were turned into offices. It now belongs to Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council.
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Irun from the Bidassoa
Irun from the Bidassoa was painted in 1836. He depicts both the prosperity and the poverty on either side of the river. In the background the high mountains with a deep valley and what appears to be thriving vineyards.
Portrait of John George Lambton 1st Earl of Durham
George Richmond was a portrait painter and draughtsman who studied at the Royal Academy Schools where he met Samuel Palmer and formed a life long friendship. He also studied under John Henry Fuseli, the celebrated Romantic artist famed for his gothic paintings and was deeply inspired by William Blake.
The East Window of Melrose Abbey
This scene of Melrose Abbey focuses on the ruin of the great East Window in a typically Romantic style. The dramatic Gothic architecture towers above the figures of a man with a dog, emphasising the monumental structure of the building.
The Roland Addy Bequest
View work from the Addy Bequests
Winter Sunshine
Winter Sunshine is quite a solitary, melancholy interior showing a woman sitting knitting in the sunlight that floods into the room. It has an almost photographic quality. Elwell’s representation of the room’s heavy, dark furniture may show a continued interest in his father’s craft of cabinet making which would have been influential in his early life.
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