Art, Industry and Nostalgia: The Last Ships
To celebrate the National Gallery’s 200th anniversary a number of their exhibits are being sent ‘on tour’ and the Laing Gallery in Newcastle is to host, ‘The Fighting Temeraire by J. M. W. Turner. The painting was voted the nation's favourite in 2005 in a BBC poll and is to be shown alongside twenty of Turner's other works, looking at the rise of steam power and industry in Britain.
The Fighting Temeraire fought at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 but by 1830 steam was overtaking sail and she was sold by the Navy. In the picture she is towed by a black tug belching out smoke, on her way to Rotherhithe and the breaker’s yard. Turner’s dazzling sunset indicates the melancholy end of an era.
Image credit: J. M. W. Turner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The North East is familiar with the melancholy of industrial loss, and also at the Laing the wonderful photographs of Chris Killip (‘The Last Ships’) record the final days of shipbuilding in our region in the 1970s.
Our own Admiral Lord ‘Cuthbert’ Collingwood would have known the Fighting Temeraire. He was involved in several British victories most notably as second-in-command to Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar. Later in 1805 Collingwood was granted a peerage and he took the title of Baron Collingwood of Calburne and Hethpool.
Cuthbert Collingwood was born in Newcastle in 1748, attended the Royal Grammar School and joined the Navy aged 12. In 1791 he married Sarah Blackett, the daughter of a Newcastle merchant and they set up a family home in Oldgate, Morpeth overlooking the River Wansbeck.
Whenever I think now I am to be happy again my thoughts carry me back to Morpeth’.
(On Collingwood’s family house in Oldgate Street, Morpeth, overlooking the Wansbeck)
Collingwood planted a number of oak trees on his Northumberland estate, to provide timber for naval ships. After his death (1810) his wife continued with the project and planted a further 200 trees along the banks of College Burn near Hethpool, Northumberland.
The trees were never needed as the construction of naval ships moved from wood to iron. Now the oak trees, like The Fighting Temeraire, and Chris Killip’s photographs, stand as a reminder of past skills and trades.
The Turner Exhibition at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle is between May 10 and September 7th. Chris Killip’s ‘The Last Ships’ is part of the Laing’s permanent collection.
Mary Finn