Lot 350
Young, William Weston. British Birds, An album of 41 fine watercolour drawings of birds, each 163mm x 257mm approx.., mounted in frame, most captioned in pencil on mount, lacking free-endpapers, nineteenth century calf, the upper cover blocked in gilt 'William Weston Young. British Birds. Neath 1804', expertly rebacked by Bayntun of Bath, c.1940, 4to
A RARE SERIES OF ORNITHOLOGICAL WATERCOLOURS FROM AN ARTIST WHO WORKED AT THE CAMBRIAN POTTERY.
William Weston Young was born in Bristol on 20 April 1776 into a devout Quaker family, the third son of Edward Young, a Bristolian merchant and Sarah (Sally) Young (née Weston). William led a diverse and entreprenuerial life, but an early bankruptcy forced him into paid employment. On 23 January 1803, Young and his wife Elizabeth moved to new lodgings in Swansea, Glamorganshire. Here he gained employment under fellow Quaker, Lewis Weston Dillwyn, as a 'draftsman' at Dillwyn's Cambrian Pottery, where he remained until August 1806 on a salary of £75 per annum. The watercolours in the present lot would seem to date from this period.
Dillwyn and Young, both in their mid-twenties, struck up a close friendship due to their common interest in natural history. Many of Young's painted wares feature accurately depicted flora and fauna as well as the taxonomic names of the illustrated species. Collections of this pottery can be seen at the V&A Museum, South Kensington, The National Museum of Wales, Cardiff and at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea.
In 1814, and now recovered from his debts, Young became the major investor in the Nantgarw Pottery established by William Billingsley and Samuel Walker. When the pair left the struggling business in 1820, Young assumed full control, and managed the debts through careful marketing and sale of remaining stock.
Young's experience of firing ceramics, together with his familiarity with the region as a local surveyor and his amateur interests in geology enabled him to conceive of a heat-proof, blast-furnace brick, using silica found in large deposits at the head of the Neath Valley. His profit share from the Dinas Firebrick Works was ultimately a very modest pension, and William Weston Young died in relative poverty in Lower Mitton, Kidderminster on 5 March 1847.
PROVENANCE: Loosely inserted are three ALS and a carbon typed copy from the bookseller J. Kyrle Fletcher to the purchaser F. E. Andrews, relating the discovery of the album. The first, dated 13 February 1935 notes, 'Mr William Weston Young made the drawing for Mr Dillwyn's valuable work on British Confervae and a series of drawings of British Birds now in the possession of Mr Yarrell'. The correspondence relates that the bookseller traced the descendants of Yarrell and acquired the volume, which was sold to Andrews in 1941, thence offered here by descent.
