Part 391: The Danson Family of Scenic Artists
In 1889 W. J. Lawrence listed some prominent English scene painting families – the Greenwoods, Grieves, Stanfields, Callcotts, Dansons, Fentons, Gordons, and Telbins. This installment looks at the Dansons (The Theatre Magazine, July 13, 1889).
George Danson Jr. (1799-1881) was the son of George Danson Sr., and Mary Ianson. His father was a prominent Liverpool maritime merchant and ship owner who died bankrupt. One of five children, George Jr. became apprenticed to T. & J. Shrigley, after his father’s death. The Shrigleys worked as decorative painters, wood grainers, and japanners. On the completion of his apprenticeship, he went to London. By the age of 24, the Royal Academy exhibited two of his paintings. Danson also exhibited occasionally for the British Institution and the Society for British Artists. In 1824, he married Ann Ireland and the couple had seven children. The two sons that survived to adulthood followed their father’s profession and also became scenic artists. By the late 1840s, the scenic art firm of Danson & Sons. Messrs appears in playbills and directories.
Danson created the Cyclorama of Lisbon with designs from Bradwell (Builder, v. 6, Dec. 30, 1848, pg. 627). He was also a popular scenic artist for Astley’s, where he worked with the famous showman, Andrew Ducrow. He was employed to paint for a variety of venues, including Covent Garden, Coburg Theater, Vauxhall Gardens, the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, the Surrey Gardens, the Coliseum at Regent’s Park and Drury Lane.
His obituary reported, “Early in his career, Mr. Danson was engaged with David Roberts. R.A., as a scene painter at the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. Subsequently he assisted in carrying out the constructive decoration of Vauxhall Gardens, and was employed under Macready, and with Clarkston Stanfield in the production of the scenery of the great master’s Shakespearean revivals. At the request of Mr. Braham he produced at the Coliseum in Regents’s Park the dioramas of “London” and “Paris by Moonlight,” and designed and erected various grottoes, Swiss chalets, and other scenic illusions which delighted a former generation. At the Surrey, the Adelphi, and other metropolitan theatres, he devised and produced the scenery of the Christmas pantomimes for m any years. All this long and varied experience Mr. Danson brought to bear in his vast outdoor pictures at Belle Vue, Manchester. But beyond his recognized power as a scenic artist, Mr. Danson possessed a singularly inventive capability for adapting all kinds of materials to his necessities. He was an admirable carpenter and joiner” (The Furniture Gazette, 5 February 1881, page 97).
Vauxhall was frequented by all classes and had remained one of London’s favorite pleasure gardens since the late seventeenth century. The 1823 Vauxhall Gardens in London incorporated an eighty-foot high picture of Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples used as the background to a nightly outdoor fireworks show. However, by the 1820s, Vauxhall had become somewhat rundown and other pleasure gardens began to compete with it. , such as the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens that opened in 1831. This amusement center was the idea of John Jefferson (1793-1869). The main attractions at the zoo, botanical gardens and the amusements included mazes, grottoes, an Italian garden and exotic plant house. Danson was employed to paint 30,000 square feet of canvas to create the background where performers were employed to act out a scenario of a major historic event, usually incorporating a battle. Fireworks were incorporated into this spectacle that catered to the public on an industrial scale.
In 1851, he was asked by John Jennison to be the scenic artist at Belle Vue Gardens in Manchester, a position he held until his death in 1881. Charles Dickens was among Danson’s many friends. Danson’s sons, Thomas (1829-1917) and Robert (1836-1917), each continued careers I scenic art. Thomas Danson later held an art appointment at Belle Vue Gardens. Thomas passed away in 1893. His obituary reported, “The death has occurred in London, in his sixty-fourth year, of Thomas Danson, one of the best known of contemporary scene-painters. He and his brother were well known in the North for the huge scenic “effects” produced by them at the Belle Vue Gardens, Manchester” (Birmingham Daily Post 22 December 1893).
The Belle Vue zoo closed September 11, 1977; the Belle Vue amusement park closed October 26, 1980; and the Belle Vue gardens closed during February 1982.
To be continued…
