Death of fourth generation estate agent Joseph Woodward

Art, antiques, silver, furniture and property specialist Joe Woodward had a professional engagement spaning eight decades

Joe Woodward, RIP,  with the painting of Cork Harbour by William Vanderhagen. Picture Denis Scannell

THE death has occurred this week of a fourth-generation estate agent in Cork City, Joe Woodward, as his family firm comes up on 140 years buying, selling and appraising fine art, antiques, silver and property.

Known to generations of families in the southern capital, the late Mr Woodward joined the 1883-founded Joseph Woodward & Sons Auctioneers business in 1950 on leaving school, and continued his  personal involvement in the profession into an eighth decade.

He had been a founder member of the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI), now the SCSI. He passed away, peacefully at his home off the Douglas Road, Cork,  on Sunday. 

He was an acknowledged dab hand with an auctioneer’s gavel, especially in the appraisal of and sale of fine art, paintings, antique furniture and silver, held in particualry high esteem for his knowledge of Cork Republican silver.

On the art front, Joe Woodward set a record of €360,000 for an oil painting Cork Harbour 1738 by William Vanderhagen, depicting sailing in the harbour against a backdrop of Haulbowline.

Among his many headline-making property sales were the sale of Brookfield House on College Road to UCC for a record €4.5 million– it’s now the university medical educational campus. Close-by, Mr Woodward also sold Hayfield, also off College Road, which was demolished to become the five-star Hayfield Manor Hotel.

He was a member of The Royal Cork Yacht Club, and competed in a range of craft and dinghies, at national and international level, as well as sailing extensively around Galicia in north-west Spain, later becoming an honorary ambassador for the Monte Real Club de Yates in Baiona.

In his native Cork, he was member of the Rotary Club, a link which continues with his son Tom who took the current Woodward family auctioneering business into a fifth generation.

Predeceased by his wife Mary, Joe Woodward is survived his son Tom, daughters Janet and Laura, seven grandchildren, and by his later-in-life partner Eithne (Payne.)