Frederick Tavaré (1810-1868) was an English landscape painter who specialised in watercolours.

Frederick Tavaré
Portrait by Robert Crozier, 1850
Bornc. September 1810
Died(1868-06-17)17 June 1868
Resting placeSt Luke's Church, Cheetham, Manchester
Children8, including Frederick
RelativesCharles Swain (cousin)

He was the father of F. L. Tavaré, also an artist, and a cousin of the poet Charles Swain.

Early life

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Frederick Lawrence Tavaré was born in 1810 in Manchester, England, to Charles Tavaré and Catherine Owens; his birth date is unknown but he was baptised in September.[1][2]

Charles Tavaré was born into a family with French ancestry in Amsterdam's Sephardic Jewish community in 1771; he anglicised his name from Nünes de Tavarez to Tavaré when he emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1791.[1][3][4] A student of the University of Göttingen, he found success co-founding and operating a series of dye and bleach works—first with Roger Smith in Pendleton until 1813 (where Frederick was likely born), and then with George Horrocks in New Islington next to the docks at the confluence of the Ashton and Rochdale Canals, where several streets of houses were constructed for his workers (and where his name survives today on Tavery Close).[1][5][6] He also established his own chapbook publisher, did literary translation as a hobby—he could read and write 12 languages, and speak nine—and taught languages at the Manchester Mechanics' Institute.[4][7][8]

Charles Tavaré's sister, Caroline, was the mother of Charles Swain, making Swain and Frederick Tavaré first cousins. Swain's father died when he was six, and Charles took in his sister and nephew, raising the boy as if he was his own son and later employing him as a bookkeeper.[4] He had an immense influence on Swain, who dedicated an 1827 book of poems to him.[9][10] Swain and his uncle also co-founded engraving and machining businesses together in the 1820s before Swain fully committed himself to literature. However, Charles Tavaré's businesses faltered in the late 1820s, and in 1832 he was declared bankrupt.[11] He died three years later; Swain wrote the inscription for his headstone: "If learning, talent, virtue claim a tear / Long will thy worth be mourned and honoured here."[1][12]

The influence of his father and cousin meant Frederick Tavaré grew up surrounded by creative figures. Charles Swain's engraving business was near to The Sun Inn on Long Mill Gate, which was the city's main meeting house for industrialising Manchester's nascent community of artists, writers, and other intellectuals (including both Swain and Tavaré).[13] It was renamed Poets' Corner in the mid-19th century to honour its most famous clientele, the Sun Inn Group (also known as "The Manchester Poets"), a group of working class poets which included figures such as John Critchley Prince, Samuel Bamford, Isabella and George Linnaeus Banks, Ben Brierley, and John Bolton Rogerson.[14][15][16] Henry Liverseege and his family—including Henry's brother-in-law, Alfred Gomersal Vickers—were also neighbours and close friends of the Tavarés during Frederick's childhood.[17]

Career

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In 1826, Tavaré became the apprentice of Charles Swain's close friend Michael Pease Calvert—the indenture stated that for five years Tavaré would "be taught and instructed in the art, trade, and mystery of a Landscape Painter and Drawing Master."[18]

Manchester's artists began to band together into clubs and societies in the late 1820s as the city's early art markets and cultural institutions—such as the Royal Manchester Institution—failed to provide them with reliable financial support.[19][20] Tavaré was a founding member of the Manchester Artists' Drawing Society in 1829—along with Arthur Perigal, Charles Calvert, James Parry, and George Evans—and the Manchester Artists in 1830.[19][21]

When life drawing classes were eliminated by the Manchester School of Design shortly after its foundation in 1838, Tavaré was one of a group of local artists—which also included Robert Crozier, Thomas Letherbrow, and Warwick Brookes—who founded the United Society of Manchester Artists in protest.[1][22][23] The society held its own life drawing classes in a studio above a china shop on King Street until 1849, when classes were restored by James Astbury Hammersley, the School's president.[23]

He was the head of a committee of artists established in 1844 to solicit funds to support the widow of Joseph Maiden, and he proposed forming another society—"The Artists of Manchester"—during a meeting of members of the School of Design in 1849.[24][25] He was also one of the founding members of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts in 1859.[26]

Tavaré was employed as an art teacher at a number of different schools throughout his career, including Chorlton Hall School (in Chorlton-on-Medlock), Irwell Lodge (in what is now Drinkwater Park) and Newton House (in Longsight).[27][28][29]

Personal life & death

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Tavaré married Ann Ward on 10 July 1844.[30][31] They had seven sons and one daughter, though two sons died within their first year.[32] Their two oldest surviving sons were also artists; F. L. Tavaré followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a professional landscape painter, while Charles Edward Tavaré became an art teacher.[33] Both comedian Jim Tavaré and England international cricketer Chris Tavaré are descendants of their fifth son, Alfred Nunes Tavaré.[32][33][34]

Tavaré died on 17 June 1868 at the age of 58, and was buried at St. Luke's Church in Cheetham alongside his parents.[2][1]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f "Frederick Tavaré". prestwich.org.uk. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  2. ^ a b "Family History, Tavaré Chart 0500 Charles Tavaré and Catherine Owens". www.terrys.org.uk. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  3. ^ Cheshire Notes and Queries. 1900.
  4. ^ a b c "City news notes and queries [afterw.] Manchester notes and queries. Ed. by J.H. Nodal. Vol.1-8 [issued in 33 pt. Wanting pt.1,5]". Manchester City News. 1880.
  5. ^ "Notice is here hereby given..." The Manchester Mercury. 18 May 1813. p. 4. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  6. ^ Notes and Queries. Oxford University Press. 1889.
  7. ^ Tavaré, Fred L (24 October 1914). "The Old Mechanics' Institution". The Manchester City News. p. 5. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  8. ^ "Manchester Mechanics' Institution". The Manchester Times. 14 March 1835. p. 1. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  9. ^ Swain, Charles (1827). Metrical Essays on Subjects of History and Imagination. Ebenezer Palmer.
  10. ^ Tavaré, Fred L. (15 January 1910). "Notes & Queries—John Ralston, Artist". The Manchester City News. p. 2. Retrieved 19 October 2023.
  11. ^ "Legal Notices". The Manchester Courier. 18 February 1832. p. 1. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  12. ^ "Obituaries". The Preston Chronicle. 6 June 1835. p. 3. Retrieved 18 October 2023.
  13. ^ "Charles Swain". prestwich.org.uk. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  14. ^ "The "Sun Inn" Group · Laboring-Class Poets Online". laboringclasspoetsonline.omeka.net. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  15. ^ "Poet's Corner". manchesterhistory.net. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  16. ^ "JOHN CRITCHLEY PRINCE". minorvictorianwriters.org.uk. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  17. ^ Tavaré, Catherine (5 May 1893). "Notes and Queries". The Manchester Times. p. 5. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  18. ^ Tavaré, Fred L (10 October 1914). "THE CALVERTS". The Manchester City News. p. 6. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  19. ^ a b Moore, James (3 April 2018). High culture and tall chimneys: Art institutions and urban society in Lancashire, 1780–1914. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-1-5261-1565-2.
  20. ^ Wolff, Janet (1988). The Culture of Capital: Art, Power, and the Nineteenth-century Middle Class. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-2460-3.
  21. ^ "Answers. Paintings and drawings by John Ralston". The Manchester City News. 23 June 1906. p. 2. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  22. ^ "Collections Online | British Museum". www.britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  23. ^ a b Sykas, Philip A. (22 September 2022). Pathways in the Nineteenth-Century British Textile Industry. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-58139-3.
  24. ^ "Manchester School of Design—Soiree of the Members". The Manchester Times. 29 December 1849. p. 6. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  25. ^ "Answer. Joseph Maiden, artist". The Manchester City News. 27 January 1906. p. 2. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  26. ^ "Manchester Academy of Fine Arts". The Manchester Courier. 13 March 1858. p. 9. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  27. ^ "Chorlton Hall School". The Manchester Courier. 10 July 1852. p. 1. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  28. ^ "THE ACADEMY conducted by..." The Manchester Courier. 30 December 1843. p. 1. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  29. ^ "IRWELL LODGE, LOWER BROUGHTON". The Manchester Courier. 8 January 1853. p. 1. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  30. ^ "Marriages". The Manchester Courier. 13 July 1844. p. 5. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  31. ^ "Marriages". The Manchester Courier. 13 July 1844. p. 6. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  32. ^ a b "Family History, Tavaré Chart 0400 Frederick Lawrence Tavaré and Annie Mather Harris". www.terrys.org.uk. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
  33. ^ a b "FL Tavaré". prestwich.org.uk. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  34. ^ "Family History, Tavaré Chart 0300 Alfred Nunes Tavare and Annie Morris". www.terrys.org.uk. Retrieved 22 October 2023.
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