Talk:F. J. Mears

Genealogy

See inconclusive forum discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:45, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Nottingham Journal 7 May 1920 Page 1

ART IN A GARRET - SOLDIER'S PICTURES BOUGHT BY DUKES AND DUCHESSES "In a small bed-sitting-room (without a bed) a London metal worker is painting war pictures which are bought by dukes and duchessess. He and his wife work, sleep, wash clothes, and have their meals in a room about 9ft by 6ft at the top of 13, Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Road," "There is no bed in the garret, partly because there is no room for it, and also because Mr. F. J. Mears, late of the R.G.A., cannot afford to buy one. So he and his wife sleep on the floor." "Before the war Mr. Mears was a metal worker of exceptional skill, earning good wages. He was gassed and knocked about in Flanders, and invalided out of the Army two years ago with a disablement pension of 8s a week. He went back to his old trade, but found the work to heavy for him" "Shared a Kipper" "Compelled to give up his work, he decided to express, by means of art, what he had seen and felt in flanders. He knew nothing of drawing it. He had never had instructions of any kind, but he and his wife agreed to a little money they had left in buying brushes, paint and paper." "Then they starved. One day they shared a kipper, another day they had a few potatotes. But Mrs. Mears, a slim, fragile women, believed in the genius of her husband, and encouraged him to persevere. Thus stimulated, he painted a picture which expressed the whole spirit of the war - of war as it is, as the solider sees it, and not as seen by the conventional artist." "A Real Picture of War." It was a picture of a shattered, splintered trees crying aloud, as Mr. Mears himself puts it, against the horrors of it all, of dark sinister pools of mud, of a troubled sky, and of insignificant little crouching figures running across a shell-swept road. It expressed - what the artist had wanted to express - the utter insignificance of men crushed by the pitiless machine of war," "Dame Furse of the Wrens, happened to pass the shop in Piccadilly where the picture - a water-colour in a monotone of blue - was shown in the the window. She bought it at once. That night Mr. and Mrs. Mears had their first meal for weeks." "He painted more pictures, all burning with the same idea, and he took them round to 20, Old Bond-street, where 30 are now exhibited." "The Duchess of Norfolk bought one, Lord Wodehouse, Lady Astor, Major-General Ponsonby, Major-General Gough, and Miss Elsie Janis bough several. A countess took away a study of the men in the road in her Rolls-Royce." "Few, probably, suspected that the man who had painted these singularly powerful criticisms of war was an invalid metal worker living with his wife in a bed-sitting room (without a bed) up a squalid passage in Tottenham Court-road."

Having done the usual searches and lack of a presence in the official documents it is a possibility that the name and story may have been made up, but I cant prove that either! MilborneOne (talk) 19:19, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

@MilborneOne: Thank you. I've put that on Wikisource, as s:Nottingham Journal/Art in a Garret, and started to incorporate salient facts into the article. Please note the genealogy discussion I linked to, in the previous section, where one poster says "Electoral registers show a Frederick James Mears at 13 Windmill Street in 1921, 1922 and 1923". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:45, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

I did have a look at the discussion, the only reference that ties in is the electoral roll but I have not been able to find that so I could look if it lists his wife. The only Frederick James Mears I could find lived in Chiswick. So something is probably wrong, either his name or dates. The death index on Free BMD only show one "Frederick J Mears" dying in 1929 in Chelmsford aged 23 which would indicate a birth around 1906, to young to serve in the war. MilborneOne (talk) 17:30, 16 January 2020 (UTC)