Cotmania. Vol. VI. 1930-31

The average water-colour of the early
English school may strike most present-day
visitors as a rather tame affair after the
brilliant counterpoint of the top half of
Mr. Paul Nash's "Winter Farm," the
effective patterning of Sir Charles Holmes's
"Glandyfl, Cardiganshire," and the colour­ful "Thames;" by Mr. F. J. Porter. But
there is more in these drawings, faded in
many cases after a lifetime of a hundred
or a hundred and fifty years, than appears
from a first glance at their familiar features. Girtin, at any rate, was rarely
tame; there is enthusiasm in his drawings
and attack. He had in him the stuff of
Crome, Cotman, and Constable, and a good
deal of Turner's peculiar qualities as
well. Nor was Turner tame; on the con­trary, he was often quite aggressively pom­pous. In this exhibition he appears in his
most engaging moods, and as, unquestion­ably, the most original artist of his age.
Such things as " Val d'Aosta," "Lausanne
from Le Signal," " Buckfastleigh Abbey,"
and "The Seelisberg, Lake of Lucerne,"
represent a really tremendous grapple with
problems of air and space.

The Observer - 7.3.'31.

LADY SADLER
We regret to announce that Lady
Sadler, wife of Sir Michael Sadler, Master
of University College, Oxford, died at
Oxford yesterday at the age of 79.
A friend writes of her: —
She was Mary Ann, daughter of Charles
Harvey, of Park House. Barnsley, Yorkshire.
Keeping herself in the background, she gave
indispensable help to her husband in every
stage and phase of his work. Her family
belonged to the Society of Friends, though her
father had been "disowned " for marrying out­side the society. She was the niece of Thomas
Harvey, of Leeds, and first cousin of William
Harvey, who gave his pictures to the National
Art-Collections Fund for circulation, and
whose son, T. Edmund Harvey, was at one
time Warden of Toynbee Hall. Ancient family
tradition connects these Harveys with
William Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of
the blood.

Lady Sadler was educated at a Quaker
school (Polam) at Darlington. She had musi­cal talent; gained much from severe teaching
by Dr. Burton, organist of the Leeds Parish
Church; and greatly desired to study music
in Germany, a project given tip in deference
to her father's wish. In their small West
Riding home-town she and her future husband
enjoyed with other young friends the freedom
which in those days was found, more rarely
here than in New England. On her marriage
in 1885 she came to live in Oxford, and by
her naturalness got on well with Jowett, who
was never formidable with her, but liked to
talk about his ancestral West Riding. For
several years she was Treasurer of the Asso­ciation for the Education of Women in Oxford,
and in 1892 visited with her husband Philadelphia. Richmond, Va., and Boston on Uni­versity Extension business. On leaving Oxford in 1895, she and her husband settled at Weybridge, where she was associated with Miss
Gilpin's educational work from its first
beginnings. After 1903 she lived in Manchester
for one of the University terms in each year,
moving from Weybridge to Leeds in 1911. In
1923 she travelled in Canada from coast to
coast, as the guest of the National Educational
Association. In the same year she returned to
Oxford on her husband's election to the
Mastership of University College.
She loved the Lakes, Leeds, and the York­-
shire moors, glaciers, travel and books of
travel, the Cots wolds. Assisi, the small towns
and country roads of Western France, Alpine
meadows in spring, Oxford, and the English
countryside. A yearly visit to her sister, Mrs.
John Dymond, of Burnt wood Hall, kept fresh
her knowledge of the West Riding. She
inherited a French distaste for unthrift. She
had a deep reverence for the plain truth in
assent or praise; and a self-forgetting, watchful
anxiety to guard those whom she loved from
danger, discomfort, or want of due precaution.
Rather self-distrustful, she was austere with
herself, but unsentimentally foreseeing for
others. She felt deeply the significance of
historical associations, but was no respecter
of persons. She had a penetrating, rather
conservative, judgment, and the gift of racy
speech. She delighted in Constable's sketches,
and in the drawings of John Sell Cotman and
P. Wilson Steer. All her life she loved animals,
and a dachshund. Simon, was one of her
dearest friends. At Weybridge. Leeds, and
Oxford her garden was the haunt of birds.
Every spare hour was spent in work in her
garden, and she saw "a heaven in a wild
flower." There was a very close tie between
her and her only son, Michael, and like him
she loved Trollope.

The Times 17.3.'31.