Those were the days: Oaks Road and Coombe Road, Croydon by John Fitz Marshall RBA sits in the council’s art collection
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: From a business begun on George Street, using pioneering photography and with paintings exhibited at the Royal Academy, John Marshall and his son, John Fitz Marshall RBA, were acclaimed artists of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. By DAVID MORGAN
One of the important books in the archive of Croydon Minster is the Corbet Anderson volume Antiquities of Croydon Church Destroyed by Fire 1867. It shows which memorials, plaques and architectural features were lost in the fire and provides sketches to show what the interior of the church was originally like.
The book can now be found online, by clicking here: https://archive.org/details/antiquitiesofcro00ande/page/84/mode/2up
At the back of the book were advertisements from Croydon’s local businesses of the time, the revenue from which helped to pay for the publication. The adverts gave a fascinating insight into the social history of Croydon.
It pays to advertise: the Marshall ad, taken in the special book which logged the lost artefacts in the Croydon church fire
One of those ads was placed by John Marshall. Based at 28 George Street, he ran an artistic and photographic business. The business was established in 1851, but Marshall made the transformation from being a portrait painter to using the breakthrough technology of the time and becoming a photographer.
The collodion or wet-plate process was invented by Frederick Scott Archer around 1848. This involved creating a negative image on a glass plate coated with collodion, a solution of nitrocellulose in ether and alcohol. This remained the main method of producing quality photos for around 30 years.
When Marshall placed his advertisement in Corbet Anderson’s book, he was one of 10 photographers listed in the Croydon directory at the time, a seemingly large number until you look at the town’s rapid growth. In the 1861 census, Croydon’s population was 39,771. Ten years later, it had risen by nearly 16,000, to 55,670. Which meant lots of extra customers for all sorts of services, including Marshall’s photography studio.
Growing business: the photographers listed in the 1869 Croydon directory, including John Marshall
Marshall first appeared in the registers of Croydon Parish Church, now Croydon Minster, when he and his wife, Frances, took their son John Fitz Marshall to be christened. John Fitz Marshall was born on February 7, 1859, and brought for baptism on Sunday October 2 that year.
The Marshall family appeared in the next three census returns – 1861, 1871 and 1881 – as living and working at 28, George Street. In 1861, the family consisted of Mr and Mrs Marshall and two sons. Ten years later the family had grown to include two sisters as well as the two boys. The business must have been doing well, as they could then afford to have a servant who lived at the address.
In 1881 John Fitz was still living at home with the two sisters. His younger brother died in 1877. John Fitz listed his profession as an artist. His father, who for the previous two census returns was listed as an artist, now described himself on that form as a photographer.
The Croydon Times of May 5, 1886, told its readers that among the painters at that year’s Royal Academy Exhibition were the father and son duo, John Marshall and John Fitz Marshall.
Fruity: John Fitz Marshall painted fruit as still life throughout his long career. This, Plums, is in the Southampton City Art Gallery
John senior’s painting A Neglected Nook was of strawberries still on the plant in the corner of a garden in rustic surroundings.
John Fitz’s offering, As They Grew In Beauty, was a picture of a very heavily laden bough of Victorian plums resting on a mossy bank.
The address supplied to the Royal Academy for the Marshalls in 1886 was The Hollies, 15 Broad Green Avenue. The family were going up in the world.
Epsom sorts: in the 1890s, the Fitz Marshalls established businesses in the Surrey town, only moving back to Croydon following the death of his father
Three years later, in 1889, the Marshalls again took the plaudits at the Royal Academy. John senior, described in The Croydon Advertiser as a “veteran”, submitted Fresh From The Orchard, which hung in the room reserved for cabinet pictures. His son had four pictures on display, all with a floral theme. Fitz Marshall also displayed paintings at the New Gallery Exhibition, Regent Street, that summer.
Both father and son were recognised for their artistic talent but it was John Fitz Marshall who would go on to gain the greater acclaim. He was elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists in 1896, the same year he won a diploma of honour at the Edinburgh exhibition.
John Fitz Marshall married in 1894 and moved to Epsom. In the 1901 census he was running a studio there in the High Street. His wife was a milliner who ran a hat shop next door to her husband’s studio. The two boarders living with them worked in Mrs Marshall’s shop.
Frangrant Hawthorn: by John Fitz Marshall, on display in Sunderland
The Marshall family didn’t stay in Epsom for long, as in the 1911 census he was listed as back living in Broad Green Avenue with his wife, son Harrison, and a servant.
Numerous newspaper articles continued to be written about Fitz Marshall’s paintings. In June 1914, at the Surrey Art Circle Exhibition held in Kingston, two of his pictures were among the 137 on display.
Both Fireside Fancies, a collie gazing into the fire on a hearth, and Lost, a pup out in the snow, were described as being of “outstanding merit”.
One Fitz Marshall painting stood out as a classic example of British Victorian still life, Still Life of Birds Nest with Primroses.
Painted in 1884 and signed by him on the back of the canvas, Fitz Marshall included great detail, such as a ladybird and dew drops on the delicate primrose leaves.
Records of the sales of his paintings showed that he painted many dogs, a popular and commercial subject for his Victorian and Edwardian market. The Poacher’s Dog sold for 18 guineas (£18.90) in 1901, worth nearly £3,000 today, and Pups at Play for £25 in 1897.
Local landscape: Mills at Butter Hill, Carshalton, by John Fitz Marshall is now held by the Sutton Museum collection
Today, Fitz Marshall’s pictures can be found in a variety of settings. His painting of The Mills at Butter Hill, Carshalton is part of the Sutton Central Library collection. Fragrant Hawthorn is in the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens Gallery. One of his landscapes, completed in 1884 and entitled Oaks Road and Coombe Road, Croydon is part of the Croydon Art Collection.
In 1916, his uncle, Thomas Marshall, a retired dairyman, left “the ultimate residue of his estate to John Fitz Marshall” when he died.
Old dog: Roused, by John Fitz Marshall, is one of many paintings of dogs and other pets. This is in the Nuneaton Museum and Art Gallery
Fitz Marshall moved into his uncle’s house in the Oxfordshire village of Shipton-under-Wychwood and was recorded there in the 1921 census with his wife, son and a servant. In the census, now aged 62, he listed his occupation as a “retired artist, painter in oils”.
John Fitz Marshall died in September 1932, aged 73 and was buried in the village churchyard. His father and artistic mentor, John senior, had died in 1899 while his son was living and working in Epsom.
John Fitz Marshall RBA’s work continues to sell at auction, though the Victorian style of pet dogs and cats, bowls of fruit and suburban landscapes are not hugely fashionable, and tend to fetch between £500 and £1,000 when they do come up for sale.
Nothing, though, is left of the Marshalls’ pioneering work in the early days of photography. Unless, of course, you discover some faded collodion prints in a trunk or an attic…
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Best Polonius you’ll never see: Miles Malleson’s classic clown
- YouTuber Swallow is taking us on a Croydon walk through time
- Champion Ivy Russell’s weighty influence on women’s sport
- Witherby’s life’s work gave migrations of birds a ring of proof
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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