Occasionally you’ll see an original
George Sheffield painting for sale on Ebay or up for auction at a provincial
auction house. He’s buried in a sprawling Salford cemetery and thankfully I
found his grave within minutes.
George was born in Cumberland and encouraged to
paint by his uncle George who carried a reputation as a portrait painter. Still
a lad George moved south with this dad to Lancashire and studied at art school.
He moved to Manchester and trained as a pattern maker for a printing company
and painted in the evenings. Hobbies don’t pay bills and he looked for work and
became a sailor. Only when he gave up sailing did he devote time to painting
(mainly landscapes and seascapes.)
Little is known about him but aged 32 he was
living in Wilmslow Cheshire. By age 42 he was living in Douglas on the Isle of
Man. He was married by this time he was married and would eventually have eight
children. By age 45 he returned to Wilmslow (probably due to his wife’s death.)
Short of money he produced sketches on a mass scale to generate and income and
was frowned upon for selling him. Sadly he died aged 53 in Ancoats Hospital.
Besides leaving children he left paintings in many private collections.
I had one grainy photo of the headstone somewhere
in the 39-acre Weaste Cemetery. About 330,000 people have been buried there but
thankfully George's headstone was taller than most. I scanned the place slowly
and saw a few tall headstones shouting "come and see me!" and by luck
the first one I walked to was the right one. The photo gave the impression the
headstone was about 25 feet high but it was about 10 feet high. The spaces
between each graves are so narrow they made me think the coffins must be almost
touching one another. You've gone George but your paintings will live on.
Some lads from
Salford Council arrived in their vans for a lengthy break. There was a
scrumptious smell of cheesy pasta and chips. I noticed a war grave comprising
19-year-old lad Private Arthur Shaw who died in the First World War. Fading
flowers showed someone had visited him (even though they were plastic flowers.)
I did a hearty salute and left.