Shields, On the River Tyne

The Tate's JMW Turner's paintings are on country-wide tour, with "The Fighting Temeraire" recently on display at the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle.   In support of this, JMW Turner's "Shields, on the River Tyne" is featured at TWAM's South Shields Museum.   The painting is interesting in showing coal handling & its transition from shovelling from keels to using waggons with bottom doors on drops (lowering waggons out over the hold) or spouts (chutes to aim coal around the hold).

Shields, on the River Tyne
This painting from the mid 1820s belongs to & is fully described by the Tate 

Detail from the painting shows keelmen using their triangular shovels

A chaldron waggon on a platform looms over the Tyne

I find pre-1900 paintings useful because before the Box Brownie there are few or no photos, especially of everyday or industrial subjects & workers.   However, an artist's work can show bias, compound images or other distortion from reality.   There are several artists who feature industrial subjects, since they were contemporary & would attract a wide audience.   But for example, while Newcastle's Carmichael produced some excellent detailed maritime scenes because he was a trained boatbuilder, London's Turner concentrated on shape, lighting & interaction in scenes for dramatic effect or perhaps social comment.

As part of his work on ports, Turner visited the Tyne over a few years, hence "Shields, On the River Tyne" shows the south bank at South Shields & features keelmen at work below coal drops, which they hated for removing their livelihoods.   I think that the area depicted is at the end of what became the NER / Metro line, ie the waggon would be on the alignment of a Stanhope & Tyne coal drop from the mid 1830s, but the painting is dated mid 1820s!   In the 1820s there would have been drops elsewhere on the Tyne.   It seems that Turner is demonstrating the demise of the centuries-old keels under the pressure of industrial developments.