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Memories of Bristol England Forum

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This is an easy to use messaging forum for everyone researching their family history or local history. The focus is on the Bristol area. Local Historians and Family Historians have a great deal of knowledge to share. This service is entirely free, with the hope that you and the historian and genealogy community as a whole will benefit from it.

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Sir John Swaish

Searching Family Genealogy This is so exciting. My Grandmother was Kate Swaish and I am quite certain that Sir John is her cousin. I would LOVE to find members of my Swaish generation or younger to correspond with. I hope this may lead to something. And one of the wonderful coincidences is that my Mother Evelyn Garrett was born in Bristol in 1896. She lived to be 105 and died recently. Thank you. jksss@telus.net

Re: Sir John Swaish

Message from the webmaster of this website.

Sir John Swaish was a former Lord Mayor of Bristol 1913-1914 See link below.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3833386

“During the First World War, Alderman Sir John Swaish, Lord Mayor of Bristol five years in succession, resided at Oldbury Chase, Willsbridge. Petrol having been rationed due to the war, he was often seen travelling to Bristol in Henry Fry’s market garden lorry amid the vegetables, sometimes attired in his silk hat and morning coat, to attend to mayoral duties.

One of Sir John’s sons, George, was a very talented artist and lived with another artist, Mr Stacey at Field House in Court Farm Road. Mr Stacey was a founder member of the Bristol Savages (a brotherhood of artists who meet regularly at Red Lodge in Park Row) and was commissioned by Lord Mayor Swaish to paint his portrait in his mayoral robes.

George Swaish’s portrait was shown in the National Gallery and also in art galleries in Liverpool and Edinburgh. 10 of George’s pictures are listed in the archive of Bristol Art Gallery. Among the first to find favour was “Convalescent” purchased in 1907 and exhibited in the Royal Academy in the same year. In 1913 “The Darkened Room” was similarly exhibited and purchased by Bristol Art Gallery. It depicts a critically ill child being examined by a doctor while the mother is peering anxiously into the room. It was done in the Field House studio and most likely shows Dr Aubrey of Bitton.

It is a large picture, 4ft high and 6ft wide but larger still is his painting “The Building of the Great Keep of Bristol Castle” at more than 8ft x 7ft. Baroness Orezy, author of the Scarlet Pimpernel, paid 1,000 guineas for one of his paintings. He also painted the portrait of Henry Fry, a well-known market gardener of Longwell Green whose business stood on what is now the Ellacombe Road estate.

Shortly before his death he presented his own life-size portrait of his father to Bristol Art Gallery.

George Swaish died at Cologne, Germany in 1931.

Regards Paul Townsend Bristol England 2008.