Charles Calvert (Painter)

Infobox Person
name = Charles Calvert (and family)


image_size = 200px
caption = Manchester and Liverpool Railway Taken at Newton 1825
birth_date = 1785Dictionary of National Biography now in the public domain]
birth_place = Glossop Hall in Derbyshire
death_date = 1852
death_place = Bowness, Westmoreland
education =
occupation = Landscape painter
spouse =
parents = Charles Calvert the elder
children =

Charles Calvert (1785-1852) was a landscape-painter, born at Glossop Hall in Derbyshire, on 23 September 1785. He was the eldest son of Charles Calvert, agent of the Duke of Norfolk's estate and an amateur painter (see below). He was apprenticed to the cotton trade, and began busfness as a cotton merchant in Manchester, but against the wishes of his friends he abandoned commerce for art and became a landscape-painter. [Pigot's 1834 Directory lists him as a lanscape painter in Princess Street, Manchester]

Charles was one of those instrumental in the foundation of the Manchester Royal Institution (which has since become the Manchester City Art Gallery, and he gained the Heywood gold medal for a landscape in oil, and the Heywood silver medal for a landscape in water colour. Much of his time was necessarily devoted to teaching, but all the moments that could be spared from it were passed in the lake districts. Even in his later years, when confined to his bed by failing health, he occupied himself in recording his reminiscences of natural beauty. [Gentleman's Magazine [http://books.google.com/books?id=F8ghAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA630&lpg=PA630&dq=charles+calvert+painter&source=web&ots=9LqBvJGrPc&sig=qPoFwBPWPLRpRmjt_b4sFfRhK2s#PPA631,M1 accessed on line] September 2007] He died at Bowness-on-Windermere, Westmoreland, on 26 February 1852, and was buried there.

The Calvert Family

The father of the landscape-painter, Charles Calvert the elder, was an amateur. He was born in 1754 ; died on 13 June 1797, and is buried in St. Mary's churchyard, Manchester. Charles the elder would live in Oldham Street, Manchester during the winter and at Glossop Hall in the summer. [The Admission Register of the Manchester School] by Jeremiah Finch Smith, Manchester (England). Grammar School - 1866 - accessed via Google books September 2007] Charles the elders younger brother, Raisley Calvert, who died in 1794, was a sculptor, and is well known as the friend and admirer of William Wordsworth, to whom he bequeathed 900 pounds. Raisley had been to Cambridge University with Wordsworth and he looked after Raisley on his deathbed as he died of consumption. Other sons of Charles Calvert the elder were Frederick Baltimore Calvert, Henry Calvert and Michael Pease Calvert who were all painters. Michael was the youngest of eight children and he was born five months after his fathers death in January 1798 in Derbyshire.

:“Calvert! It must not be unheard by them:Who may respect my name, that I to thee:Owed many years of early liberty.:This care was thine when sickness did condemn:Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem."

- William Wordsworth [ [http://www.wordsworthcountry.com/william-wordsworth.htm Raisley noted at Wordsworthcounty.com] accessed September 2007]

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External Sources