IN her later years, the watercolour artist Ethel May Mallinson, would be remembered for her ‘upright, Victorian, and immaculate figure, painting in the streets with complete concentration.’
Ethel lived in Ilkley for over 50 years and her watercolour paintings were characterised by their lively impressionist style and subtle colouring. She also captured a sense of time, place, and historical period, and often included literary quotations or aphorisms into her sketches.
Ethel May Mallinson. Image courtesy of Jennifer Weatherhead
Ethel was born in Potternewton, Leeds, in 1878 the second of four children to parents, William and Jessie. William Arthur Mallinson was a partner in the woollen cloth manufacturers, Thomas Pratt & Sons, of Yeadon, and Scottish-born Jessie Nicoll (nee Smith), was originally from Dundee.
Around 1892 the family moved to Ilkley. However, William died, aged 44, the following year, and after his death Jessie and the children moved to a new home at Middleton Villas, where Jessie lived until her 100th year. Ethel studied at the Leeds School of Art, and also spent some time in Paris studying art.
Ethel became good friends to (Jessie) Beatrice Kitson, who was to become prominent in local public service. Beatrice Kitson was a member of the prominent Kitson family in Leeds, with a long history of engineering and manufacturing in the city, and Ethel was a frequent visitor to the Elmet Hall, Roundhay, the Kitson family home. Beatrice Kitson later became a Leeds Magistrate, a Poor Law Guardian, and during the Second World War was elected Lord Mayor of Leeds, the first woman to be appointed to this post.
In the first decades of the 20th century, Ethel and Beatrice travelled widely, often by bicycle, touring England and Scotland, as well as journeying abroad across Belgium, Italy and North Africa. Ethel recorded their travels in her sketchbooks, and Beatrice later observed that Ethel’s companionship: ‘Taught me to see things to which I had hitherto been blind: the wonderful gradations of shade and colour, mass and outline. I believe that those who are not artists need to be taught to see, just as much as being taught to sing.’
Ethel and Beatrice on a Dutch Train
Ethel and Beatrice both shared humanitarian interests and would accompany Leeds city children out on trips to Bolton Abbey or Ilkley, where Ethel would also sketch the children at play
Ethel’s artwork, in the early 20th century, also reflected the turbulent political and social upheavals of the period, including the campaign for women’s suffrage and social protest about unemployment and militarism in Europe.
From around 1898 onward, Ethel exhibited her artwork both regionally and nationally. She was a member of the Leeds Fine Art Society and from 1908 to 1948 was its Secretary. Her watercolours were also exhibited widely, particularly at Scottish shows of the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Art, Royal Scottish Academy, and Royal Scottish Academy of Painters in Watercolour.
She was also a member of the Yorkshire Union of Artists, and of the Ilkley Art Club, exhibiting watercolours at their regional shows.
Dutch Market by E Mallinson
Ethel’s friendship with Beatrice Kitson, and her links with the Ilkley Art Club and Leeds Fine Art Society, brought her into contact with many Bradford district artists, including the Ilkley artist Gertrude Priestman, as well as other regional artists, such as Jacob Kramer and Ina Kitson Clark. At Leeds Fine Arts Society she also exhibited her paintings alongside Robert Hawthorn Kitson (1873-1947), the brother of Beatrice and himself a watercolour artist, and an old friend and patron of the artist, Frank Brangwyn.
Ethel lived at the family home in Ilkley until her mother, Jessie, died in 1948. By this time her sister Hilda had married and moved south to Tunbridge Wells. Ethel joined her sister in Kent, moving to live in Tonbridge.
In Tonbridge, she continued to paint, and after her death in 1970 the Kent and Sussex Courier art critic noted that Ethel was ‘gay and spirited in outlook, and these qualities are shown in her work’ and that, ‘Her delight in painting and complete indifference to criticism sometimes led people to underestimate her considerable talent.’
In July 1970, a few months after Ethel’s death, there was a display of her artwork by the Tonbridge Theatre and Arts Club at the Old Library, Tonbridge School. It covered the 20 years of Ethel’s paintings whilst resident in the town and included scenes of old Tonbridge, flower paintings, as well as landscapes of Italy, Kent, Sussex - and Yorkshire.
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