Privilege and Poverty: The Life and Times of Irish Painter & Naturalist Alexander Williams RHA 1846-1930

The last entry in Williams’ diary dates from 1930, when he was 84, while one of his earliest watercolours is signed and dated 1866. Visitors to the Lake Hotel in Killarney, where there is a large collection of his work, will be familiar with Williams’ views of Kerry scenery. Over the years, he produced a visual record of the Irish coastline, concentrating on Dublin, Connemara, Achill and Kerry, Although best known today as a landscape painter, Williams also produced studies of birds, flowers and other aspects of natural history.

The gardens at Bleanaskill Lodge on Achill are shaded by the Monterey Pines he planted there over a century ago. He was a committed artist who was also a part-time chorister in Christchurch Cathedral, while simultaneously pursuing a career as a taxidermist, and hatter.

Born in Monaghan in 1846, Williams spent a happy childhood in Drogheda. When he was 15, his father moved to Dublin, opening a hatters’ shop on Westmoreland Street. The Williams family had been making hats for generations. Williams’ ancestor, a hatter from Glamorganshire, had settled in Ireland in the mid-17th century, and making felt hats remained a closely-guarded craft within the family. However, in the 1860s an influx of cheap imported hats began to erode their livelihood.

As the hatting business declined, another craft began to take its place: the killing and preserving of birds and other animals. The Williams’ shop in Westmoreland Street became a centre for naturalists. However, there were setbacks. The chemicals used in taxidermy contributed to a fire that destroyed the family business in 1866. Six people in an adjoining house died. The following year, Williams’ mother succumbed to typhus.

Alexander and his brother Edward focused increasingly on the taxidermy business, running this in conjunction with their father’s hatting. Established in a new shop, at 2 Dame Street, crowds would gather at “Williams and Sons, Naturalists” to admire displays of stuffed birds in the window. However, Alexander ceased his involvement in the business to concentrate on his painting. While he continued over the years to paint mainly in watercolour, he also worked in oils. His paintings of Irish landscapes and coastal scenes are a valuable record of long-disappeared buildings and boat types, while his pen and ink drawings reveal a delicate artistic sensibility.

This meticulously researched book by Gordon Ledbetter in many ways resembles its subject’s artistic output. There is a great deal of it, and perhaps too much in the way of detail. Ledbetter is an able guide, leading the reader through arcane and little known areas of late Victorian and Edwardian life in Ireland. Ledbetter’s mother was a niece of the artist, so this book is clearly bound up with the desire to commemorate a family member. Little that is known about the artist’s life has been omitted. Even his account books have been gone through in detail. The result is a well-produced and valuable contribution to the cultural history of Ireland.