ROPE, George Thomas

1846 - 1929

George Thomas Rope was born at Langham Grove Farm, Blaxhall, Suffolk on 11 February 1846, eldest son and second child of George Rope (1814-6 December 1912), a merchant and ship owner, and his wife Anne née Pope (1821-1882), eldest daughter of the late Thomas Pope of Grove Farm, Blaxhall, who married at Blaxhall on 13 February 1844, his siblings include Ellen Mary Rope and Edith Dorothy Rope. George was educated at Ipswich School 1858-1862, where he found an interest in natural history after which he spent a year in London studying under landscape and animal painter William Webb (1790-1856). In gathering material for his natural history collection, he travelled extensively in Germany, Holland, and Norway, but a heart condition curtailed this activity, despite his poor health he lived to the age of 83, his permanent convalescence was spent in compiling his 'Country Life and Sounds'. A member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club 1878-1914, exhibiting from Blaxhall, near Wickham Market in 1881, thirteen pictures including ‘View on Westleton Walks’, two the following year, a portrait 'Harry' and 'A Suffolk Stream, Early Summer', in 1883 six works 'Farm House at Leiston', 'Jew's Ear', two monochromes 'Sketches in Normandy' and 'Study from Nature' and two watercolours 'Cottages at Benhall' and 'Sketch at Iken' and five in 1884 including 'View on Blaxhall Heath'. At the 1974 Centenary Exhibition of the Art Club, his oil 'Blaxhall Common' was on show. He also exhibited at the Bury St Edmunds Fine Art Society held in the Bury Town Hall in September 1886, an oil painting 'Cuckoo-Time, Cottages at Blaxhall' which won the £5 prize for the best oil painting also exhibiting 'A September Evening at Walberswick Ferry' and 'Shrew Mice' and in 1889 at the Woodbridge Art Exhibition at the Assembly Room, Bull Hotel, Woodbridge his oil 'Harvest Mice' was on show. He was also a member and exhibitor from Wickham Market, Suffolk at the Norwich Art Circle 1894-1899 and exhibited at the Royal Academy; the Royal Society of British Artists in 1876 an oil 'Housed in Winter' and at the Walker Art Gallery, and continued painting until the end of his life. Whilst passing over Langham Bridge on the River Alde, his pony and trap ran over an obstruction which overturned his trap, causing his death a shortly after. George Thomas Rope died on 12 December 1929. He published 'Sketches of Farm Favourites' (1881) and 'Country Sights and Sounds' (1915). [Biographical information from Arthur Rope).

Royal Academy Exhibits
from Blaxhall, Wickham Market, Suffolk
1877 353 Field Mice
1885 933 Harvest Mice
1900 976 Evening: Early Spring

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Works by This Artist