Forty years of 'Spy'

by Sir Leslie Ward

DR WARRE CORNISH (Vice Provost of Eton) 1901.

DR GOODFORD (Provost of Eton) 1876.

I took the opportunity of informing him that I sketched him in 1874, whilst studying the game of football at "the wall" at Eton, for a full-page drawing which the Graphic had commissioned me to execute. Mr. Frank Tarver refreshed my memory on all the points to enable me to be accurate, and afterwards at his request the team posed and Welldon was one of the group. Mr. Frank Tarver also wrote the letterpress which accompanied the picture.

While Dr. Walker, Headmaster of St. Paul's, was posing to me in cap and gown, he puffed a huge cigar, and I asked him if he smoked when he was interviewing his boys.

"Oh yes," he replied, "not in class of course, but always in my study, even when the boys are there. I smoke when the boys happen to come in; as you see, a good big one, too!"

For many years, most of my time was employed either in making portraits, stalking a possible caricature, or travelling to the most likely or unlikely places to pursue a "wanted" subject for Vanity Fair. My work greatly extended my list of acquaintances, and often I found business and pleasure strangely bound together in one's daily life and occupation, and sometimes a little incongruously.

On one occasion I was due to stay with my old friends Mr. and Mrs. George Fox (now Mrs. Dashwood) in order to study the Bishop of Lichfield with a view to making a drawing of him. The night before I was the guest at the never-to-be-forgotten supper given in honour of Jan Van Beers, the Belgian artist, an exhibition of whose remarkable work at one of the Bond Street galleries was just then arousing great interest. Van Beers was a delightful man and a clever artist, but although he could originate and portray the most extraordinary ideas, it is not by the weird and eccentric creations, but by his light and humorous work, that he is still remembered. When I was talking of him with Sir Alma Tadema, he remarked that it was a pity such unusual talent should be thrown away on such frivolous and unworthy subjects.

The suggestion of the supper came in the first place, from Sir John Aird, a patron of Van Beers'; and, as Sir John wished it to be a unique entertainment, he felt he could not do better than leave its arrangement to the originality of Van Beers himself.