Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

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I had heard of the contemporaneous Barbizon School in France, and the Newlyn School in Cornwall,

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but this astonished me, to learn so late in life that my childhood playground had also been home to such a phenomenon in the century before I was born, still more that a great American artist had come there to paint some of his most interesting work! And I an artist!

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This picture by John Charlton is one of my favorites. It shows the start of a dramatic lifeboat rescue on New Year's Day, 1861. The ship ‘Lovely Nellie’ had been wrecked off Whitley Bay. The storm prevented the lifeboat being launched at Cullercoats. It had to be towed by horses and villagers three miles along the coast. Charlton probably painted real-life Cullercoats fishwives for his picture. He has shown the lifeboat coming down the steep slope of Briar Dene [another of my local haunts]. Charlton regularly spent time at Cullercoats. He exhibited paintings in London and Newcastle.

 

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Often the wives and daughters of fishermen, fishwives were notoriously loud and foul-mouthed, as noted in the expression, 'To swear like a fishwife'.

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Fishwives in fishing villages such as Cullercoats and Newhaven were noted for their beauty, hardiness and industry and were celebrated by artists and royalty.

 

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William Finden noted, in 1842, that the wives and daughters of the Cullercoats fishermen searched for the bait, digging sand-worms, gathering mussels or seeking limpets and dog-crabs.

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"When fish are scarce, they not unfrequently carried a load on their shoulders, weighing between 3 or 4 stone to Newcastle, which is about ten miles distant from Cullercoats, in the hope of meeting with a better market."

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Edward Corvan wrote and performed a popular music hall song about the Cullercoats Fish Lass in 1862:

 

Aw's a Cullercoats fish-lass, se cozy an' free

Browt up in a cottage close on by the sea;

An' aw sell fine fresh fish ti poor an' ti rich--

Will ye buy, will ye buy, will ye buy maw fresh fish?

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Jean F. Terry wrote, in 1913, "The Cullercoats fishwife, with her cheerful weather-bronzed face, her short jacket and ample skirts of blue flannel, and her heavily laden "creel" of fish is not only appreciated by the brotherhood of brush and pencil, but is one of the notable sights of the district".

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William S. Garson, in his 1935 book, The Romance of Old Tynemouth and Cullercoats, wrote: "The Cullercoats fishwife plays a man's part in helping to launch the lifeboat, frequently wading waist-high into furious and ice-cold waters, and she never hesitates to allow her man to take a place on the boat, though he may go to face death and disaster."

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Winslow Homer lived in the fishing village from the spring of 1881 to November 1882, and soon became sensitive to the strenuous and courageous lives of its inhabitants, particularly the women, whom he depicted hauling and cleaning fish, mending nets, and, most poignantly, standing at the water's edge, awaiting the return of their men.

 

 

Here is a gallery of paintings by Homer and his British contemporaries in celebration of their lives, lost before I was ever born, but could well have been my ancestors...

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Winslow Homer

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