St. George’s Church, Doncaster

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This print shows the medieval Church of St. George in Doncaster. It was destroyed by fire on the morning of 28 February 1853. Only the church records and silver plate could be saved. The church, much of which dated from the 15th century, included some internal features from an earlier twelfth century Norman building.

The Committee for the Rebuilding led a highly successful project to raise funds for the replacement church: ‘…in the course of only a few weeks, [the Committee] commanded a subscription of nearly £30,000 towards replacing it; an effort which reached the ear and sympathy of the Throne.’ The Town Council of Doncaster gave £5000 to the project, the Archbishop of York £500 and a donation of £100 came from Queen Victoria.

The subsequent church, which remains on the site today, is known as the Minster Church of Saint George and was built to the designs of architect Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878) between 1854 and 1858.

Nathan Theodore Fielding was born in Sowerby, near Halifax, Yorkshire. In 1780 he married Elizabeth Baker in Rochdale, Lancashire, and the couple went on to have six children, all of whom would become artists. Fielding moved to London by 1788 and exhibited at the Society of Artists and the British Institution from 1791 to 1814. He was particularly known for his carefully studied portraits of elderly people. He moved to Keswick in the Lake District by 1800. With this move to the countryside, the subjects of Fielding’s work shifted towards landscape. He moved again to Liverpool between 1807 and 1809 and died about ten years later, in his early 70s.
Theodore Henry Adolphus Fielding was born in Yorkshire, the son of a painter. In 1819, he married Mary Anne (daughter of Robert Walton), also a watercolour painter. From 1823, he worked with publisher J. F. Ostervald in Paris, who had also employed his brothers Thales and Newton Fielding. The three brothers established an atelier in Paris. Fielding returned to work as a teacher and engraver in London. In 1826 he was appointed teacher of drawing and perspective at the military college of the East India Company in Addiscombe and moved to nearby Croydon. He produced numerous sets of prints after works by himself, his brother, Copley Fielding, and Bonington and also published books on painting and engraving. He died aged about 70 in Croydon.

Places

England, Yorkshire

Subjects

gravedigger, topography, townscape/cityscape, man, woman, gravestone, churchyard, house, church, church windows, tower

Materials & Techniques

aquatint, colour aquatint

Artist

Nathan Theodore Fielding (1747 - c.1814)
Theodore Henry Adolphus Fielding (1781 - 1851)

Title

St. George’s Church, Doncaster

Date

published 1801

Medium

Colour aquatint

Dimensions

height: 40.50 cm, width: 46.50 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from the Parker Gallery, March 1969

GAC number

8366