MIDGLEY, James Herbert

1854 - 1929

James Herbert Midgley, sometimes Midgeley, was born at Saffron Walden, Essex in 1854, son of James Haworth Midgley (26 January 1822-9 June 1858), a banker & maltster, and his wife Elizabeth née Gibson (25 August 1823-18 April 1863), who married at Saffron Walden in 1846. His father died in 1858 and in 1861, young James was a 7-year-old living at Bailey's Lane, Saffron Walden with his 37-year-old widowed mother Elizabeth, and his two brothers, Arthur 8 and Llewellyn 4, both born at Saffron Walden, and they kept four indoor servants, another brother Edward Gibson Midgley died at Caldwell House, Ipswich on 19 July 1881, aged 33. James was educated at Stramongate Boarding School, Kendal, Westmorland. He married at Newton Abbot, Devon in 1879, Martha Lilias Cash (1852-1918) and in 1881, a 27-year-old landscape artist, living with his 28-year-old wife Lilias, at Birstwith, Cockington, Newton Abbot, which was the home of his mother-in-law, 61-year-old widow Martha Cash. A member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club 1883-1915 and in 1881 exhibited from Oakville, Surbiton, Surrey, five works 'Two for Mirth', 'A Devonshire Kitchen', 'Dead Among the Thistledown' and two sketches 'Ravenglass, Low Tide' and 'Causey Pike, Derwentwater'. In 1882 he exhibited from Ettenberg, Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, five works 'The Gull Rock, Bournemouth', 'St Abbs Head, from near Eyemouth', 'Foreground Study', 'On the Earn, Perthshire' and 'The Daffodils Meadow' and from the same address in 1883, a further ten pictures 'Evening on the Stour, Dartmoor', 'The Brookside', 'Low Tide, Berwick Coast', 'Down through the Wood', 'Away to the West, the Sun goes Down', 'Where Leaves Shut Out the Sky', 'A Devonshire Smithy', 'A Devonshire Farmhouse', 'The Old Market Road' and 'Craigmillar Castle' and a further seven in 1884. In 1885 he exhibited eight pictures from Grange-over-Sands, Lancashire, including 'Shepherding in Devon' and 'Wild Hyacinths' and was a regular annual exhibitor and in 1889 also showing at the Woodbridge Art Exhibition at the Assembly Room at the Bull Hotel, Woodbridge several oil paintings. In 1891, a 37-year-old landscape artist and a magistrate, living at Berner's Close, Rockery Terrace, East Broughton, Ulverston, Lancashire with his 38-year-old wife Martha, who was born in Manchester, and their three children, the eldest Winifred being born in Scotland, with Hilda Lilias and Patrick Haworth and they kept three indoor servants. They were still there in 1901 but by 1911 had moved to Birstwick, Chelston Road, Torquay, Devon where James Herbert Midgley died on 2 August 1929, aged 75, his estate was more than £22,000.

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Works by This Artist