Louisa Fennell Cock and Swan Yard, Wakefield

An original late 19th-century watercolour painting, Louisa Fennell, Cock and Swan Yard, Wakefield.

A wonderful evocation of Victorian Wakefield in the West Riding of Yorkshire, by the celebrated watercolourist Louisa Fennell (1847–1930). The artist populates her backstreet view with women working—hanging out washing, sweeping the pavement and minding children. The location is 'Cock and Swan Yard' off Westgate Wakefield, the earliest coaching inn in Wakefield. 'Cock and Swan Yard' was renamed Bishopsgate and the inn was demolished in 1964.

Louisa Fennell is particularly known for her atmospheric paintings that capture the buildings of historic Wakefield, her home town, many of which have now been lost to redevelopment.

Fennell was the eldest of twelve children and lived at her family's wine merchant business in Westgate. She showed an early talent for art, which was encouraged in her youth with drawing lessons and visits to art galleries and cultural sites at York and Whitby. In 1865, aged eighteen, she received a First Class Medal at the Wakefield Industrial and Fine Art Exhibition, and by 1866 she had enrolled to study at the Wakefield School of Art under John Batty Tootal. In 1876 her studies continued at the prestigious Penzance School of Art, and she exhibited for the first time at the Royal Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street. Over the next six years she went on to exhibit eleven paintings at Suffolk Street and also regularly with the Society of Women Artists.

Fennell spent time painting in London and Rome, but after her mother's death in 1897 she returned home to Wakefield and re-focussed her attention on the city's historic buildings. She lived first at the family home on Westgate before moving to St John's Square with two of her sisters. After her death in 1930 Fennell's works were bequeathed to Wakefield Art Gallery (now The Hepworth Wakefield). More recently, she has been the subject of new research as one of the 'Forgotten Women of Wakefield', a project intended to give voice to the city's historical women and achieve Blue Plaque Parity for them.