ELGOOD, George Samuel

1851 - 1943

George Samuel Elgood was born at Oxford Street, St Mary, Leicester on 26 February 1851, one of the ten children of Samuel Elgood (1807-14 February 1874), a wool merchant, and his wife, Jane Octaviana Shirley (1817-22 November 1893), daughter of George Shirley of Mackworth, Derbyshire, who married at Tamworth on 19 December 1839. In 1861, George was a pupil at a small school kept by James Russell Potter, author & tutor, at Far Street, Wymerswold, Leicestershire and in 1865 entered Bloxham College, Banbury, remaining there for about a year. The family then moved to Cranford, near Framlingham, Suffolk, where his father Samuel had been born in 1807, but financial reasons had caused their return to Leicester by 1871, where Samuel Elgood ran a yarn agency. George attended the Leicester School of Art, studying under artist Wilmot Pilsbury (1840-1908) and sketched the Leicestershire countryside and together with Pilsbury made several painting trips together to historical places such as Shrewsbury and Ipswich. Elgood began a course at the South Kensington School of Art (later the Royal College of Art), specialising in architecture but, after the death of his father, had to return to Leicester in 1874 to carry on the family business. Travelling about the country for the yarn agency, gave him the opportunity to paint landscapes in his spare time and he exhibited his work for the first time at the Walker Art Gallery in 1874, showing again both in 1878 and 1880. He also exhibited at the Dudley Gallery and at the Baillie Gallery. In 1881, he became an associate of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, and in 1882 an associate of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. Most of his garden paintings, including 'The Forecourt of the Grand Hote Varese, formerly Villa Morosini', were shown between 1891 and 1925 at the Fine Art Society, where they were popular and sold to affluent patrons including members of the royal family: Queen Victoria and Queen Mary both purchased Elgood's pictures, many of which are still in the Royal Collection. George married at the Great Meeting, Leicester on 21 June 1883, Mary Wellington Clephan (1852-28 December 1925), second daughter of Edward Clephan of Southfields, Leicester. His new wife was also an artist and a woman of means and after his marriage Elgood began specialising in the painting of gardens, becoming one of the best garden painters of his time. The Elgood's spent several months in Italy every year, visiting Venice, Florence, and Rome, as well as Sicily. Elgood's garden paintings reached a wide public after his two books were published 'Some English Gardens', in collaboration with Gertrude Jekyll in 1904, and 'Italian Gardens' in 1907. In 1908 Elgood moved to ‘Knockwood’, Woodchurch Road, Tenterden, Kent where his wife died in 1925 and although she left over £18,000 George continued living without electric light or piped water. In 1939, a widower and an artist painter, living at 'Knockwood' with unmarried Jane Octaviana Shirley, daughter of Thomas Scott Elgood (born 17 June 1874). George Samuel Elgood died at 'Knockwood', Woodchurch Road, Tenterden on 21 October 1943, leaving £23,000. He signed his works 'George S. Elgood'.

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Works by This Artist