Who is the artist of this Shell shock drawing or print?

[John Gilinsky]

 

The above print or drawing is reproduced online by the Science Museum, London, England (see article below).

 

However although I have attempted to search the Science Museum online collections as well as the IWM online search function with alternative spellings of the artist surname: 

Hewett, Hewart,... I have not been able to confirm who this artist is nor the details of the work.

 

Can someone please confirm that "By Lieut. J. P. D. Hewart" [ sp? ] is the correct spelling, the dimensions, the medium, current location of original(s) and if prints were made of this (indeed if they were prints to begin with?)?

 

Thanks,

John

 

 

War's long-term effects

 

http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/themes/war/effects

[seaJane]

There are a couple of Lieuts J P O Hewett on the National Archives - possibles?

 

Alternatively it should be worth asking the Science Museum's librarian / archivist / webmaster for the exact source in case they have a provenance note or more accurate description tucked away somewhere. If it is a card, for example, it's quite unlikely (as an ephemeral piece, given the lack of staff resources) to have warranted a full publicly-accessible catalogue record. Looking at the list of the people who worked on the project of which that web page is part, I'd hazard a guess that it originally came from the Wellcome Collection. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/aboutus/thankyou

Yes - Wellcome - Lieut J.P.D. HEWATT - source given here.

[John Gilinsky]

Thank you so much Jane 007 for your very quick and accurate findings!  

Not sure of the exact citation The Fourth London General Hospital magazine but which volume, issue and page does the illustration appear on?

Moreover if you have or can identify Lt. Hewatt (patient more likelier given the time nature of the illustration and that it is somewhat of a caricature nature) that would be wonderful.  

Again many tx!

 

[battiscombe]

there was a Lt J P D Hewat [t/Capt] listed in May 1917 as with [9th] Highland Light Infantry [also TF Bn]

Edited 21 January , 2017 by battiscombe
addition

[MaureenE]

Volume 1, No 8 December 1916 is available online (National Library of Australia), but I couldn't see the illustration from the original post in it.

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-19669457/view?partId=nla.obj-19670322#page/n6/mode/1up

 

However, there is an illustration by Lieut JPD Hewat, HLI,   (confirming post 4 above) which is reprinted from an earlier magazine

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-19669457/view?partId=nla.obj-19671757#page/n17/mode/1up

 

Cheers

Maureen

[anderston]

Here is your man:

2nd Lt.John Parker Douglas HEWAT,9th Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Highlanders).

He was their Transport Officer in August 1914,with the  task was of purchasing horses. A Pre-War Territorial Soldier,I would imagine.

Wounded in the leg at High Wood in July 1916,he was in and out of hospital over the next two years,suffering from sleeplessness,nervousness,and severe headaches.

Demobbed 1919.

 

Cheers,

Chris (Glasgow)

[John Gilinsky]

A BIG thank you to everyone, 
Corporal Anderston, Lt-Col Maureene, Lt-Col Battiscombe, and of course Major-General seaJane.  

I wonder if anyone now will ever be able to identify the sitter (more than likelier again from the artist's hospital stays, diagnoses for himself, overall circumstances...)?

Any more basic biographical information on Lt (T/Capt) John Parker Douglas Hewat, 9th Highland Light Infantry (birth/death details, vocation(s), education, career post-war)?

Did this man ever have art training, art school, did he ever exhibit, did he ever publish anything related to his war experiences,....?
I intend to publish shellshock in art, shellshock in poetry and shellshock in film btw.

Recently found a great artwork by a Torontonian born artist depicting a Toronto war veteran in the late 1920s.  This Toronto artist was also a professional artist for years and taught at what used to be the Ontario College of Art (now the Ontario College of Art and Design University or OCADU) here in Toronto.  

Moreover it is great when transatlantic GWF members help!
Tx again all!

Edited 21 January , 2017 by John Gilinsky

[seaJane]

I'm on the train so unable to research, but Scotlandspeople website may have the gen. Or the Scottish Archive Network, scan.org.uk.

[anderston]

The full extract from "Come on Highlanders!(Glasgow Territorials in the Great War)" by Alec Weir,The History Press,2005,reads as follows:

 

July 1916:THE SOMME:

"2nd Lt.John Douglas Parker HEWAT who,as Transport Officer had gone off to buy horses in the first week of August 1914,was hit in his left leg during the initial approach to the wood (High Wood) in the dark.Although a 'big man',a couple of Glasgow Highlanders,including survivor Pte 3579 John CRAIG,managed to roll him into a shallow hole from whence he was later rescued.Within a week he was suffering from complications involving an ischio-rectal abscess which meant he was unable to walk or sit.Although his wounds did eventually heal,he was in and out of hospital for the following two years and suffered sleeplessness,nervousness,and severe headaches.He spent the last months of 1918 serving in India,and was demobbed in December 1919."

[anderston]

I only have access to the 1901 Census (not 1911 unfortunately),and it records that "J P Douglas HEWAT,aged 7,Scholar,b.Glasgow" was living at 9 Berkeley Terrace,Sandyford,Glasgow ,with his father Andrew HEWAT,50,Commission Agent,b.Edinburgh,and his mother Helen L.HEWAT,39,b.Donegal,Ireland.His mother's sister Isabella PARKER,25,is also staying with them,and a domestic servant,Annie CAMPBELL,15.No siblings recorded.

[John Gilinsky]

Thanks again Corporal Anderston!  The source for the original information is helpful and the 1901 British census giving Hewat's age as 7 means that he was born in 1895.  

I will contact the Wellcome and report back what they tell me.  What is quite interesting is that this is a contemporary documented patient illustration of presumably another patient or composite.  There must be other examples of this as well given the large diagnostic pool and that in the main the vast majority of such soldier patients would have a great of time to while away

[seaJane]

Hm, I beg leave to doubt that this is a specific portrait any more than Edvard Munch's "The Scream" is - it seems to me more like a half-abstract depiction of a state of mind. 

 

I'll be interested to know if the Wellcome can prove me wrong.

 

 

Edited 22 January , 2017 by seaJane

[IanA]

On 1/22/2017 at 15:21, John Gilinsky said:

Thanks again Corporal Anderston!  The source for the original information is helpful and the 1901 British census giving Hewat's age as 7 means that he was born in 1895.  

 

The register of his birth says he was born 16th September, 1893, at 7.45 a.m. (Scottish registers are very precise!)

 

Ian

[IanA]

And he was married on 22nd November, 1921 to Janet Magdalene Margaret Grieve (29) - the daughter of a solicitor - at St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow. He is described as a 'farmer'.

[IanA]

And 'John P D Hewat' died in 1955, aged 61, in Harrow.

[anderston]

I have looked at his Marriage Certificate as well,and it certainly says that his occupation is "Farmer",which seems odd.

At the time of his marriage he is recorded as living with his parents in their large,west-end house in Dowanhill,Glasgow.

John and his wife Janet/Jenny are recorded as living at nearby 14 Grosvenor Crescent for the next few years - another posh address,and I think that they had a daughter Helen born around 1923.

No record of having exhibited any artwork in Glasgow,so John probably just a talented amateur.

[John Gilinsky]

Again many many thanks to Anderston Corporal, Ian A and SeaJane!   FYI I am processing IODE Canada stuff right now and the Great Depression is really hitting hard (about to start 1932ish +).  As I have reported previously on the GWF the Toronto Branch of the CRCS fed well over 900,000 (roughly 1 million) meals to unemployed men (large number of veterans plus others of course who understandably may have claimed to be veterans but were not) in 1933 Toronto.  Over and over and over : giving food, paying the rent , supplying fuel(coal), educating children of dead/disabled soldiers, Christmas / Food baskets/hampers, bursaries to ex-soldiers' children, adopting (basically domestic sponsorship) of soldiers' children, etc. etc.... This is what is so poignant and yet also fascinates me: the origins and early history of the Canadian welfare state.  Ian A: apparent age discrepancy: media simple factual error or possibility of deliberate age falsification (knowing that he joined right at the start during the mad rush to the colours which might lead credence to his willful lopping off a few years)?  Post-war marriage to a probably solid middle-class (he being of the Scottish working class) woman yet self-reporting himself as a farmer may be that for some months of the year he did return and helped out on the family farm (?) in Scotland?  What is so fascinating with his artwork are the circumstances: patient-artist to patient-sitter/subject.  Tx again!

[anderston]

Hi John,

 

I don't think that John PD Hewat can be described as "Working Class"! Definitely from a very comfortable Middle Class background.I have found that his schooling was at Kelvinside Academy,Glasgow - one of the City's two most exclusive Private Schools.Here is something of interest:

 

LONDON GAZETTE 1 April 1913:

"9th (Glasgow Highlanders)Battalion,Highland Light Infantry.JOHN PARKER DOUGLAS HEWAT (late Cadet,Kelvinside Academy Contingent,Junior Division,Officers Training Corps),to be 2nd Lt..30 March 1913"

 

I have also come across a listing of him having been a Student Member of the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland in 1913.

 

When he was demobbed in 1919,he might have been unable to cope with living back in Glasgow.Whilst his home was in a leafy suburb,he was only a mile or so from the noise and bustle of the Shipbuilding Yards on the River Clyde,and with horse and carts trundling over cobbles in the streets outside,and trams screeching along tracks on the main roads,it might have been a bit too much for him,given his recent ill health.I suspect that he was packed away to the countryside for a bit of piece and quiet,and possibly to a relative's farm.As he never finished his Pre War studies,he could not call himself a Student or an Actuary on his Marriage Certificate,and his recent "employment" on a farm might have had to suffice.All speculation though.

 

His marital home at 14 Grosvenor Crescent (also his home at the time of the 1911 Census,when aged 18 he is listed as a "Student") had a palatial 14 rooms,and was his residence till he left Glasgow in the late 1920s (presumably moving to the South of England - where he died in 1955).

 

Cheers,

Chris,

Glasgow.

[John Gilinsky]

Another BIG thank you to Chris aka Sergeant Anderston (he has been promoted for his posts here in this thread!:))).  What is fascinating as you fill out his life story is how the war in particular dramatically impacted this one promising well positioned (economically, family ties, education...pre-war) and how the war from strong circumstantial evidence most likely had lifelong detrimentally ill-health effects on him.    

[anderston]

Just a last wee bit of information that I came across,and confirming that he seemed to have turned out okay in the end: in 1953 he is recorded as being the General Manager of the Nuffield Press Ltd.in Cowley,Oxford.The Nuffield Organisation,of which this was a part,made the Morris,MG,Wolseley,and Riley cars.

[seaJane]

This may mean that there is more material in the Oxfordshire History Centre. https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/public-site/oxfordshire-history-centre

[John Gilinsky]

Hello and hope everyone is having a GREAT day!  I am!  I have not yet contacted the Wellcome Institute nor even time to consult the 4th G H mag issues that are digitized to find exactly where/when this illustration was published.  My Toronto sculptor though apparently started work at the ROM aged 15 and worked there till he was 27 (12 years).  Somewhat ironically he became blind when he was 54 years old but lived on.  

[seaJane]

The "when" is available from the link to the Wellcome Image Library as far as I can see - that is, 1917, either January or February, as matching the dates with the holdings numbers suggests that "The Fourth" was published monthly.

 

Regarding the 'where': also evident from the linked record is the fact that the magazine was "of the 4th London General Hospital" which  http://www.wartimememoriesproject.com/greatwar/hospitals/4londongeneralhospital.php tells me was based at Denmark Hill, later spreading to Ruskin Park.

[John Gilinsky]

The illustration appeared "originally" 

The Fourth General Hospital Magazine (online via Wellcome Library website)

Volume 1, Issue No. 9, January 1917, page 174

 

Lots of other art also!

[Janet Chambers]