"Three Friends."
During the Whitchurch days he had, as we have indicated, unusual advantages of leisure, and the opportunity of visiting many an old house and farm, driving sometimes on the business of the bank, in his favourite vehicle, a country gig, and "very eagerly," writes one of his fellow clerks and intimate friends, "were those advantages enjoyed. We who knew him, can well understand how welcome he must have been in many a cottage, farm, and hall. The handsome lad carried his own recommendation. With light brown hair falling with a ripple over his brow, blue-grey eyes shaded by long lashes, sweet and mobile mouth, tall and well-made, he joined to these physical advantages a gay good humour and a charming disposition. No wonder that he was a general favourite."
But soon he was transferred to Manchester, where a very different life awaited him—a life of more arduous duties—in the "Manchester and Salford Bank," but with opportunities for knowledge in other directions, of which he was not slow to avail himself. If in his early years his father discouraged his artistic leanings, he was now in a city which above all others encouraged the study of art—"as far as it was consistent with business." In the Brasenose Club, and at the houses of hospitable and artistic friends in Manchester, Caldecott had exceptional opportunities of seeing good work, and obtaining information on art matters.
One who knew him well at this time, writing in the Manchester Courier of Feb. 16th, 1886, says:—
"Caldecott used to wander about the bustling, murky streets of Manchester, sometimes finding himself in queer out-of-the-way quarters, often coming across an odd character, curious bits of antiquity and the like. Whenever the chance came, he made short excursions into the adjacent country, and long walks which were never purposeless. Then he joined an artists' club and made innumerable pen and ink sketches. Whilst in this city so close was his application to the art that he loved that on several occasions he spent the whole night in drawing."
For five years, from 1867 to 1872, Caldecott worked steadily at the desk in Manchester, studying from nature whenever he had the chance in summer; and at the school of art in the long evenings, sometimes working long and late at some water colour drawing. Caldecott owed much to Manchester, as he often said, and he never forgot or undervalued the good of his early training. The friends he made then he kept always, and they were amongst his dearest and best.