You might think you recognise this painting… but it’s not the original by J.M.W. Turner: it’s a copy of ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ by Captain Alfred Percy Codd who founded Bridport Museum in 1932.

 In that year Codd took the lease of the ‘Old Castle’ building, now our Museum, for £1800 in order to house his art collection. He later gave the building to Bridport Borough Council to be an ‘art gallery and museum’ on the condition that the Council would pay for alterations. He also transferred his art collection to the Borough Council for the sum of £20.

Codd was a huge Turner fan, and the gallery included 26 of Codd’s own copies of Turner watercolours, and 39 of his own ‘Sketches by Nature’ created ‘to appeal to the average lover of Nature rather than to artists or art critics.’

The Bridport News reported the opening by the Mayoress Mrs. F.W. Knight, which read like a Who’s-Who of Bridport, including local family names such as Gundry, Colfox, Cornick, Whetham, Palmer and Gale. They report of Codd’s ‘magnanimous gift’ and include the fact that several paintings by William Holman-Hunt were also loaned by his son, Cyril, who was living locally at that time.

5 years later, it appears that the Council were considering increasing admission charges to the Museum. Codd writes an open letter advising against it, suggesting that such a charge would be ‘likely to keep people away altogether.’ However, he goes on to be cynical about the cultural tastes of the town: ‘this raises the question of whether the pictures are worth seeing at all, or whether there is no-one in all Bridport, high or low, rich or poor, who cares to pay 6d. to see them […] the greatest mistake of all my own in ever supposing that the pictures could be of any real benefit or interest to a small country town, and if I keep the exhibition open for a few more weeks, it will be for reasons of my own and nothing to do with Bridport. It will then be closed for good and all, and the Corporation will doubtless find a more popular and profitable use for the Castle, (Bridport News, 1937).

As a younger man, Codd had spent many days in London at the National Gallery, carefully analysing and copying many of Turner’s paintings. He visited for periods between 1897 and 1899, making 56 copies, including the rather beautiful painting shown here, a copy of perhaps Turner’s most famous work, ‘The Fighting Temeraire.’

About 100 years earlier, Turner himself had visited Bridport, and sketched West Bay, or Bridport Harbour, as it was then known. This watercolour now resides in the collection of Bury Art Museum in Lancashire, and was loaned to us for our ‘Turner in Bridport’ exhibition in Summer 2019. The entire town celebrated the painting’s arrival through a big cultural celebration of the sea.

Find out more in this short film.

Emily Hicks, Director

(adapted from an article original published in The Bridport Times)

All of the information included in this article is correct to the best of our knowledge. However, if you believe anything is incorrect, or would like to submit further information, then don’t hesitate to get in touch.