Obadiah Short

Obadiah Short (26 July 180315 July 1886) was an amateur British painter of landscapes. He is associated with the Norwich School of painters, which was the first provincial art movement in Britain. He wrote a detailed account of his childhood memories and produced accurate paintings of Norwich scenes, both of which have provided historians with a record of the city he lived in all his life.

Born of poor parents, he was orphaned during the Peninsular War when his mother, who was a camp follower with the British Army, fell sick and died in Lisbon, and his father was killed at the Battle of Corunna a few weeks later. The young Obadiah was subsequently brought up by his grandparents, and worked as a Norwich textile labourer before learning the trade of a weaver. He went on to become a pattern designer for Edward Willett, Nephew & Co., which manufactured shawls, and worked for the firm for 50 years.

After 1829 he began to draw, strongly influenced by the work of James Stark. In 1832 he walked from Norwich to the residence of the Earl of Leicester, and was permitted to study paintings in the Earl's collection. The following year he was commissioned to illustrate the Norwich surgeon John Green Crosse's prize-winning essay on urinary calculi. His paintings usually feature wooded landscapes around Norwich, or rural river scenes.

Background

Obadiah Short was associated with the Norwich School of painters, a group of artists connected both by geographical location and their depictions of Norfolk landscapes, as well as by personal and professional relationships. The school's most important artists were John Crome, Joseph Stannard, George Vincent, Robert Ladbrooke, James Stark, John Thirtle and John Sell Cotman, along with Cotman's sons Miles Edmund and John Joseph Cotman. The school was a unique phenomenon in the history of 19th-century British art, and Norwich was the first English city outside London where a school of artists arose, and which had the right conditions to create a provincial art movement. It had more local-born artists than any subsequently-formed schools elsewhere. The city's theatrical, artistic, philosophical and musical cultures were cross-fertilised in a way that was unique outside London. The leading spirits and finest artists of the Norwich School were Crome and Cotman.

The Norwich Society of Artists was founded in 1803. It arose from the need for a group of Norwich artists to teach each other and their pupils. Not all of the members of the Norwich School were members of the Norwich Society, which held regular exhibitions and had an organised structure, showing works annually until 1825 and again from 1828 until it was dissolved in 1833. Unlike most of the Norfolk-based members of the Norwich School of painters, Obadiah Short never belonged to the Norwich Society of Artists. Born six months after his parents married, he was baptised a day later at St Augustine's Church, Norwich. His father worked converting raw grain into malt on Mousehold Heath and was the sexton for the Norwich parishes of St. Augustine's and St. Saviour's. His mother was a Norwich cotton weaver. Two of Obadiah's younger brothers died in infancy and another, William, was baptised in 1807. His father enlisted in the British Army during Napoleon's campaign of 1808–1809 and travelled across the Iberian Peninsula, with his mother accompanying him as a camp follower. They died within weeks of each other: it is thought his mother succumbed to the conditions and his father was later killed in battle.

As a son of a British soldier killed during the Napoleonic Wars, Obadiah could have attended the Royal Military Asylum at Chelsea, but he was instead brought up by his grandparents in Norwich. His family's poverty forced him to seek poor relief and to be taken by his grandmother to Duke's Palace Plain, where employers came to hire boys as cheap labour.

Later in life, Short recalled his childhood, writing down his memories in a small leather-bound book, now in the Norfolk Museums Collections at Norwich Castle. In the book, which he called Recollections, he also recorded information about his family. It describes events such as the arrival in Norwich of news from London by mail coach; public celebrations after the announcement of the end of the Napoleonic Wars; the procession of the 'Gregorians' on the River Wensum; bull-baiting; the annual fair held north of the city; the public executions at the Castle; Norwich Guild Day and the procession of Snap the Dragon; prisoners transported by wagon to Thetford; pitched battles on Mousehold Heath; and lamplighting. Short's Recollections have provided modern historians with a link to the past and allowed the revival of previously forgotten traditions, such as wassailing.

According to his Recollections, Obadiah, who was known to his family as Oba, supplemented his parents' income by working as a small boy in the textiles industry. He was paid to turn a cord wheel, for a master who treated him with relative kindness. He later worked for another master, running errands and polishing boots. His book recollects his memories of his parents and of what he was told about their fate.

Short wrote in Recollections that in 1808 straitened circumstances forced his father to become a substitute soldier in the East Norfolk Militia. Such militia units, which did not have to serve overseas, were used to supply trained soldiers in time of need. It was acceptable practice for a soldier in the militia to pay a substitute such as Joseph Short to serve on his behalf. Having later enlisted in the army, Joseph Short was promoted to the rank of corporal. He travelled that year to Spain as a regimental sergeant in Sir John Moore's army, along with Elizabeth, who came with her husband as a camp follower. After falling ill during the retreat of the army across Spain, she was sent with the sick and wounded to a military hospital in Lisbon, where she died. As Joseph Short failed to return to England and was never heard from again, it was assumed by his family that he was killed on 16 January 1809, in the midst of the Battle of Corunna.

Working life

Before the 1840s, many of Short's family were employed in Norwich's textile industry. Spinning and weaving were done in the workers' homes, but the fast-changing fashions, and competition with the mills of the north of England made such a practice obsolete. Norwich's textile mills owners had to buy fibres from manufacturers in the north, where they were made more cheaply. The Jacquard loom allowed manufacturers to invent their cloth designs, but were an expensive investment. Textiles mills around Norwch, such as St James Mill, failed to compete with mills located near raw resources such as coal.

Short worked as a weaver from the age of about thirteen, and learnt to weave bombazine. In 1834 he found work as a pattern designer at Edward Willett, Nephew & Co, a large manufacturer of silk shawls initially based in Pottergate, Norwich. As a designer, he had an important role, albeit as part of a large team of workers. Pattern designers were seldom named in company records and so nothing is known about many of them. Not all were locally based employees, or noted artists, as was the case with Short, who remained with the same firm for 50 years.

No records have survived of Short's designs, but an example of a fabric known to come from one is now in the Norfolk Museums Collections. Measuring , it is a silk Jacquard square made from eight pieces of shawl fabric, sewn together to make what may have been a cushion cover. Each quarter of the square shows a long pine and lily shape.

In the 1841 census Short was described as an 'artist', but later census returns give his profession as a 'designer', a 'designer of textile fabrics', and a 'designer artisan’. |group=note Their children were Elizabeth (born in 1824), Harriet (born in 1826), Ann (born in March 1830, but died in February 1831), Obadiah (born in July 1833, died in infancy aged 10 months), Obadiah (born about 1835), Rachel (born in 1838), Charlotte (born in 1841), and Emma (born in 1844).

Short's second son Obadiah followed him in the textile trade and became a designer's assistant. The record of his marriage in 1856 to Elizabeth Wurr stated his occupation (and his father's) as 'designer'. He died in 1863, aged only 28. Susan Short died in 1871, having been married for fifty years.

Artistic career

Some time after 1829 Short saw an artist named Harbord copying a work by Crome, an encounter that may be why he began to sketch and paint. He was acquainted with the artist Edmund Sparshall,

Output, reputation and legacy According to his obituary, Short produced a large number of oil paintings, described as always having a "charming choice of subject".

Several of Short's paintings show buildings which have since been demolished; such works are now a source of information for historians. Examples include his depiction of the area around St Laurence's Church, Norwich on Westwick Street, a watercolour of Cromer, showing the town's early wooden pier in 1870, and paintings of buildings beside the River Yare at Thorpe and at New Mills. His painting of one of the Norwich's towers was used in Norwich City Council's survey of its city walls.

Shorts's paintings have been sold at auction. Landscape with Oak Trees, sold in 2005, fetched $2,758, and A View Of Cromer From The Northrepps Road was sold at auction in 2007 for $1,931. Other prices for his works have been lower, such as when £300 was fetched in 2017 for Whitlingham Lane, Norwich.

Death Obadiah Short died peacefully on 15 July 1886 at Heigham, Norwich, aged 82. His obituary, published in the Bury and Norwich Post a few days after his death, asked its readers to appreciate "a life not barren of interest to those who care to mark the events of a well-spent career", and "to notice the success of perseverance under difficulties". He was described as kindly, unambitious, undemanding, and a devout Christian, whose art was praiseworthy for its “charming choice of subject” and "delineation of foliage". His will was proved in Norwich (in which he was described as a 'Pattern drawer'), with his estate valued at £208.