SAMUEL TOWERS, R.S.C.

Samuel Towers - Newspaper Article.

Samuel Towers - A History by H. Brian Brazier.
SAMUEL TONERS was born in l862, the son of a tailor in Bridge Street, Bolton, to whom he was apprenticed. For some years he and his brother continued the family business. He received his artistic grounding at what was the Canon Slade Grammar Schoo1, and his later success at the Bolton School of Art encouraged him to leave the tailoring trade. He was one of the original members of the Bolton Art Club, and at the first exhibition in 1882 exhibited, "Old Farmhouse, Hivington". He exhibited again two years later, and about this time, at The Royal Academy, a picture of Bolton seen from the Queen's Park. Subsequently, he had pictures in many art galleries including The Walker at Liverpool, and Manchester City. He also became a member of the Royal Cambrian Academy, whose headquarters are at Plas Mawr in Conwy, North Waki In 1906 he had a special exhibition at the Mere Hall Art Gallery, Bolton, of 18 pictures, illustrating Tennyson's Poem "The Brook". His subjects were taken from districts round Bolton, or from such places as North Wales, the Lake District and the Vale of Evesham, where he moved from a cottage near Conwy in 1907, and bought a 14th century black and white cottage in Harvington.

He was commissioned to paint portraits on canvas almost life size for Deane Church of noted English churchmen such as The Venerable Bede, St Aidan, Stephen Langton, Wycliff, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer and George Marsh - the Deane Martyr.

On moving to Harvington his picture subjects included many old watermills which he enjoyed painting so much. He was a picturesque old figure, and spent much of his spare time playing his beloved harpsichord and concertina, also writing music and poetry, besides conducting a male voiced choir which was formed in the village. His setting in his ancient cottage, smothered in roses and honeysuckle in a hot little old English garden in the beautiful Vale of Evesham, was as remote as anything could have been from the tai1or's shop in Bridge Street. But Sam Towers loved beauty passionately. You had only to let him show you his pictures to realize that. And eventually he filled his life with it. He died in June 1943 and is buried in the village churchyard.

This small collection (an exhibition put on by Mr H. B. Brazier) of the paintings of Sam Towers is only a small fraction of the total number of pictures he must have painted in his lifetime. At a more recent exhibition in 1983, at the Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, 66 pictures came to light.

The flower pictures are the work of his daughter, Mrs. R. L. Brazier, my mother, who was only able to paint subjects that "stood still". Having started a picture my father, brother and I almost had to go without food, until it was finished:
H. Brian Brazier.

Samuel Towers - Obituaries.
A Bolton friend and prominent patron writes:) I have known Sam Towers upwards of 60 years and so can speak with authority of his great ability as an artist. He was devoted to his art, and even in the summer holidays of his younger days, subjects for his brush were his first consideration. In many directions he was a student and a thinker, holding views and strong opinions of his own from which no arguement would move him. While he had of necessity to sell the products of his brush, he was often loth to do so. I myself have thought had he been blessed with even a little more of a commercial mind and pushful nature, he could easily have reached an eminence in the world of art, even beyond that attained with the Royal Cambrian Academy, of which he was so worthy a member. For many, Sam Towers will live long in the treasured works that he leaves. (W. Whitehead)


Few Evesham people, with the exception of those who have attended exhibitions in London and Liverpool, have had opportunities of seeing examples of the work of the Harvington artist, Samuel Towers, R.C.A. A fine landscape by Mr. Towers, who died last week, is displayed in the window of Messrs. H. Fowler's premises in the High Street. Entitled "The Vale of Evesham", it gives a vista of the town, as seen from an elevation lower down the river. Although the painting bears a the stamp of the artist's own individuality, there are indications of the influence of J. M. W. Turner, whilst the trees and the slight mist are reminmiscent of the French artist, Corot.


It was probably a real surprise to the majority of our readers, to those, that is to say, who have looked into the window of Messrs. Fowler of Evesham, to discover something of the beauty of the work of Mr. Towers. We have all known of him as an artist, but that picture reveals something of his power and artistic ability not known before by more than just a few, for it was typical of him that he never revealed his real self to any but his inner circle of friends. What he lost by this, he alone could judge; what we lost by his retiring disposition and absolute dislike of all that savoured of publicity and admiration is more easy to estimate. He has now passed to the life where the secrets of all hearts are open and revealed, and where he will see in its perfection that Beauty which he was always seeking in Nature and Music. To Mrs. Towers and her family, we offer respectful sumpathy.