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From rifles to a place of beauty

THE Whitworth Art Gallery, in Manchester University, seems relatively unsung today beside the more centrally located attractions of its newly refurbished rival - the Manchester Art Gallery - on Mosley Street.

But this red-brick palace of culture, a mile or so down Oxford Road, on the borders of Moss Side and Rusholme, has an equally first-class artistic pedigree, and there is a story behind its more than 100 years of offering the wonders of the art world to the masses. It welcomes over 100,000 visitors every year.

Its main benefactor, Sir Joseph Whitworth, was a world-class engineer, famed for inventing everything from knitting machines to mechanical road sweepers. Whitworth also produced a state-of-the-art rifle, adopted by the French army, who later gave him sundry military honours.

Despite his expertise in the art of the killing fields, Whitworth was also deeply concerned about the plight of the living and was a great believer in education and culture. He supplied the funds for many engineering scholarships and research at technical colleges, and the establishment of technical colleges and places of learning like Owens College (later Manchester University) and Manchester High School for Girls.

When he died, he bequeathed over £1m to various causes. This included about £160,000 for what was then known as the Whitworth Institute. The original plan was for this to have a School of Technology integrated with a School of Art and an art gallery. In the event, the Schools of Technology and of Art, together with the money for an endowment, were taken over by the City Council.

The gallery's first premises were Grove House, a then private residence on the site of the present building, to which was soon added a new, redbrick façade. It was on land called Potter's Field - later to be laid out in more formal fashion as Whitworth Park. The park, which then boasted a boating lake and tearooms, proved so expensive to maintain that it was leased to Manchester Corporation, in 1904, for 999 years. And, yes, it still remains in the care of Manchester City Council.

Design

The design of the new gallery facade, added in 1908, was by local architects J W and J Beaumont, selected in a competition judged by the architect of Manchester Town Hall, Alfred Waterhouse. It was built in Welsh Ruabon brick.

The first displays included plaster casts and William Morris tapestries, and, as the years went by, the collection grew enormously.

The gallery is now internationally famous for its collections of art and design, and also home to an impressive range of watercolours, prints, drawings, modern art and sculpture, as well as possessing the largest collections of textiles and wallpapers outside London.

Artists represented include Durer, Rembrandt, Hogarth and William Blake, as well as pre-Raphaelites Ford Madox Brown, Rossetti and Burne-Jones. There are also paintings by masters such as Van Gogh, modern art from legends like Picasso and David Hockney, and sculptures by Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein.

Structurally, the Whitworth Gallery has altered drastically. It survived the Second World War with little change or bomb damage. But in 1958 its neighbour, the University of Manchester, took it over and renamed it the Whitworth Art Gallery.

The new director, John White, called upon a young London architect, John Bickerdike, to draw up a full refurbishment scheme. This was carried out between 1964 and 1968, and the lofty Edwardian galleries were given wooden floors and lowered ceilings, in keeping with the spirit of the times. One of the rear galleries was converted to a 200-seat lecture theatre.

A new gallery, the Calouste Gulbenkian Room, named after the foundation that paid for the renovation, was created out of a corridor and two adjoining rooms in the centre of the building. The façade of the south gallery was opened up to give views on to the park. The Darbishire Hall was refitted with floor-to-ceiling cases, to show the textiles collection, and two exhibition galleries to the rear offered new spaces to show exhibitions.

To coincide with the gallery's centenary in 1989, an appeal was launched to raise money to add new space, and London architects Ahrends, Burton and Koralek were appointed to draw up a development plan. This was presented in 1993, and the first phase, the Mezzanine Court, opened in 1995.

The development work continues, and the gallery is now also a focal point for seminars organised by a wide range of organisations. There is also a critically-acclaimed bistro.

The gallery is open Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm, and on Sundays from 2pm to 5pm, and admission is free.

Old philanthrophist Whitworth would have been particularly proud of the latter fact.

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