Mary Anne Holmes (1878 to 1944)

Mary Anne Holmes was born on the 28th of September 1878 at Leck, in the Lune Valley near Kirkby Lonsdale. In 1891 she lived at Low Lane House, Leck with six siblings, their parents Thomas and Jane, her maternal grandfather and a farm worker. Thomas Holmes was a farmer.
In 1901, 22 years old, she was living with her elder sister Dorothy, 24, at 60 Regent Street, Lancaster, recorded as ‘Art Student’. At that point, she was studying at the Lancaster School of Art. From 1901 to 1903 she was also an Art Pupil Teacher at the School, where she gained the Class Teacher qualification.
In 1903 she went to Liverpool, enrolled in the School of Art and became a Pupil Teacher, then Art Teacher at the Walton & Kirkdale Institute.

In the 1911 census she is a boarder at the YWCA Mildmay, Blackburne Place, Liverpool, aged 32, shown as a ‘Student and Teacher’. It is likely that she stayed there throughout her time at Liverpool.
By 1905 she was a part-time Art Teacher at the Liverpool Institute Girls High School, continuing to study at the School of Art. An item in the Todmorden Advertiser says that at Liverpool “her career was highly successful, culminating in the award of a Senior City Art Travelling Scholarship [in 1913]. Her academic qualifications include the full Art Masters Certificate of the Board of Education as well as the Art Class Teachers Certificate and the Teacher Artist’s Certificate of the R.D.S.”
The Lancaster Guardian tells us that “Thanks to the Travelling Scholarship she spent several months in Italy, studying the works of the great Italian painters and, with the permission of the authorities, made copies of several notable works.” She also did watercolour paintings and drawings of places visited during this trip, known ones are of Venice and Pisa.
During the holidays Miss Holmes usually returned to Leck, where she found many subjects for her works in the local area, often returning to the same scenes. She also made pen and ink sketches of poultry for British, American, and Russian trade journals.
In summer 1916, Miss Holmes ended her employment at the Girls High School and her studies, and left Liverpool. In late 1917 she was appointed to the position of “Art Master” at the Fielden School of Art and Inspector of Drawing in local schools, in Todmorden, starting on the 1st January 1918.
She studied a variety of topics over the period 1901 to 1916, which must have served her well at Todmorden, as the Fielden was small, so with few staff but a typically broad range of topics. She was clearly an influential and successful leader of the school, as numbers increased, and many students produced high class work, gaining excellent qualifications. The large range of subjects available continued throughout her time, but British and international art changed significantly during this period, and that will have been reflected in the teaching, and in the student’s work.

This appreciation is based on a newspaper article at the time of her retirement at the end of 1939, and obituaries on her death in 1944.

In 1939, the Chairman of the Todmorden Borough Education Committee, Alderman W Greenwood was quoted at length in the Todmorden Advertiser, and his remarks are only slightly summarised below.
Miss Holmes had been an Art Teacher for nearly forty years, and had been in the service of the Local Education Authority here for 22 years. Some people had the idea that the teaching of art was not very essential, he said, but they made a great mistake, for whether we knew it or not, art played a very great part in our everyday lives. In fact, it influenced the lives of some people even more than religion. Life would be very drab if nothing more than the three R’s were taught in schools.
It had been Miss Holmes’s lifelong work to train the eye, the mind and the hand so that students might first of all perceive the beauty in nature and then outline it with their hands. Those who had visited the annual exhibitions at the Fielden School of Art would have seen the results of that training.
Many people who had passed through the School were now using the knowledge they had gained there in textile designing, dress designing or architectural work.
As a result of Miss Holmes’s work, a great number people have been able to enjoy life more fully, and also help others to get more pleasure out of life.
In 1944 Obituaries were published in the Todmorden newspapers and the Lancaster Guardian. The paragraphs below are compiled from that material.
The death occurred on Friday the 1st of September, at Holmfield, Leck of Miss Mary A. Holmes, who for 22 years was head of the Fielden School of Art, Todmorden, retiring in December, 1939. She first studied at the Lancaster School of Art, where she became a student teacher. From there, she went as a student to the Liverpool School of Art, and was appointed mistress of a branch Art class, also at the Liverpool Institute High School for girls, a position she held for 11 years. At Liverpool she studied under the tuition of Mr Fred V. Burridge, later the distinguished Head of the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London.
During her vacations, Miss Holmes made pen and ink sketches of poultry for British, American, and Russian trade journals. As the winner of a travelling scholarship awarded by the Liverpool City Council, she spent several months in Italy, studying the works of the great Italian painters and. with the permission of the authorities, made copies of several notable works. After a short period of study in London, she was appointed mistress of the Fielden School of Art, and inspector of drawing in Todmorden Elementary Schools in 1918.
Her work has had a great influence on the artistic tastes of Todmorden people. Hundreds of people have passed through her classes, some have achieved notable success in industrial design and others have seen their work hung at exhibitions in some of the larger provincial galleries.

Mary Anne Holmes – Timeline