William Cowan
A View of Rotherham in 1828 by William Cowen
William Cowen (1791 - 1864) was born of humble parents in Rotherham on 18th June, 1791. Little is known of his early life but by the age of 20 he had established himself as a drawing master in Sheffield where his talents attracted the favourable attention of Charles William Wentworth, the third Earl Fitzwilliam. Both Earl Fitzwilliam and his son, Viscount Milton, were to be generous patrons to Cowen. With their help, Cowen was enabled to make several sketching trips to Italy amd Switzerland which furnished him with ample material for the continental landscape views for which he was most celebrated during his lifetime.
In between his sketching trips abroad, Cowen divided his time between Rotherham and London. According to exhibition lists, Cowen was living in Rotherham between 1811 and 1821 and from 1825 to 1831. He had an address in Wellgate during the 1820's yet this period also saw him working and exhibiting in London. He made his debut at the Royal Academy in 1828 with an oil painting of Sion in Switzerland and continued to exhibit there until 1839. Although Cowen devoted much of his time to picturing foreign landscapes, he did not neglect the scenery of his native Yorkshire. In 1826 he contributed three etchings, including a view of Rotherham, to Ebenezer Rhodes' book Yorkshire Scenery. Cowen also produced several watercolour views of Rotherham, two dated 1820, are now in the British Museum, together with at least three oil paintings of his native town, including the one featured above.
Cowen once described Rotherham as a small town famous only for it's two ancient Bishops, it's cathedral-like church built by one of them, and it's hundreds of cannon ... manufactured during the French War by the noted family of the Walker's.
The painting illustrates all these aspects of the town's character. Rotherham is portrayed as a small and pleasant - almost rural, town dominated by the unmistakable spire of the Parish Church and the scattered chimney's of the foundries. The view seems to be taken from Bow Bridge and the building to the right of the picture is most likely the Wheathill Foundry.
A couple of his paintings are on display at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, on the walls of the Leicester Passage: Three Views in Normandy and The Seine below Paris. A View of Edinburgh from the West, near Craigleith Quarry is on display at the Ashmolean Museum.
William Cowen eventually settled in London where he became a founder of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour. He did not forget Rotherham however, and in 1846 painted the large and striking "Interior of Rotherham Parish Church" which hangs in Clifton Museum. His last years were spent in Brompton where he died in 1864. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery.
©2004