Chichester History Turner’s Chichester canal

12 History

Admiring Turner’s painting of ‘Chichester Canal’ By local historian Andrew Berriman

Turner’s Chichester Canal version 1 c.1828

Each painting is in double-square format, looking out towards the lake. Petworth is home to twenty Turner oil paintings, the largest group outside Tate Britain.

Until the Earl’s death in 1837 Turner was a frequent visitor to Petworth House, and he was very fond of his supportive patron. The Earl allowed him to use the Old Library, right above the Chapel, as an artists’ studio. The room still has its huge window and strong north-east light.

Turner painted two, almost identical, views of the canal from near Hunston Junction, both probably in 1828. In the first it is dusk, the sun has almost set (albeit due north!), the water is slack, the trees untroubled by wind, the anglers in their rowing boat unhurried. Nor does the three-masted barge or collier brig seem to be showing any sign of movement, not that a vessel of that size and draught would have actually managed to sail this particular stretch of water. Everything is serene, emphasised by Turner’s use of pastel shades. Only a moorhen, or is it a coot, shows any movement, keen to hide in the bankside reeds. This painting is now in Tate Britain, part of the Turner Bequest in 1856 to the nation. Turner’s second painting is the one chosen by the Earl, and still on show in the Carved Room. It is much more striking, the hazy sky an intense shade of deep yellow. It has been argued that Turner is making belated reference back to the huge volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, in April 1815. It was the most powerful ever recorded, affecting the whole globe, causing a ‘year with no summer’ in 1816. The huge cloud of ash and sulphur in the atmosphere led to spectacular, fiery sunsets. Was Turner making reference to this earlier natural disaster? Or is the explanation more prosaic; was he aware of the Earl’s preference for oils with a distinctly golden hue, and wanted to keep happy his very kind patron? Having written last month about the Portsmouth and Arundel Navigation, I sense that I’ve still got unfinished business with our local canal. As do some of my readers who have asked me, in quite an accusatory tone, why I hadn’t mentioned JMW Turner’s painting of the canal? And they do have a valid point. Indeed, even as I type this article a large print of this ‘Turner’ hangs on the study wall behind my laptop. But what has this view to do with December? Well, it has sometimes been used as a local, if somewhat unseasonal, Christmas card! You all know the story. Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775/1851), to give him his rather splendid full name, often stayed at Petworth House, home of the 3rd Earl of Egremont. The Earl was hugely wealthy, generous and kind; he once closed the main entrance gate because the gatehouse porter was old and ill, and not to be disturbed. He sired over 40 children by 15 women, who all lived together in reasonable harmony in his household, though no one seemed too sure whose child was whose! He was keen on canals; he used his own estate labourers to dig the Western Rother Navigation in 1794, linking Petworth to Midhurst. He was the main promoter of Chichester’s canal. It was only right that ‘Egremont’ was the name chosen for the first narrowboat used for passenger trips on the newly restored canal in 1993. But the canal never paid a penny in dividends to shareholders. The Earl had invested £15,000 in the project, as well as guaranteed an Exchequer loan of £40,000. By 1826 he had to surrender the first, and repay the latter. Despite these losses he still commissioned Turner to paint what had been ‘his’ canal. It was hung in the panelled Carved Room at Petworth, with three other Turner paintings of the Park. All four landscapes were hung quite low so that they could be seen at eye level by diners, surrounded by Grinling Gibbons’ exquisite limewood carvings, the finest in Britain. Turner’s Chichester Canal version 2 c.1828