Paintings of old York that travelled half way round the world

The house was dripping with framed pictures on every wall and up the staircase.

They were mostly paintings and sketches showing views of York.

The ‘old lady’ – Jo never knew her name - actually gave five of the pictures to Jo's mum Alwina as a present.

They stayed in the Etty family home at Bootham Crescent until Jo's parents passed away.

Jo grew up and eventually moved away from York - first to London, then to Brazil and later California. And, after her parents died, she took the five paintings back with her.

She still didn’t know what they were, or who the artist whose name was scribbled in one corner – ER Tate – really was.

Old Ouse Bridge by ER Tate

But they were a connection with the city in which she’d grown up.

It was a city of which she still had many fond memories.

She’d been born in York in 1937. Her mother Alwina, a former schoolteacher, was herself the daughter of Joseph Holub, a Hungarian emigré and maker of scientific instruments.

Her father, John Etty, was a distant relation of the celebrated York artist William Etty, and a partner in Creer, Etty and Rank, a firm of chartered accountants in Coppergate.

They lived in Bootham Crescent throughout her childhood – apart for a time during the Second World War when the house was destroyed in a bombing raid.

Despite that wartime near brush with death, her mum ‘loved York with a passion’, she says.

“She would lead me around churches, old streets and buildings, and, of course, the Art Gallery.”

As she grew older, Jo went to York College for Girls and Queen Anne Grammar School, then did a degree in French at London University’s Queen Mary College.

In 1959, she married chartered accountant Eric Bradley.

Looking for work and travel opportunities, they moved to São Paulo in Brazil.

“Our initial contract was for four years though, delighted with our adopted country, we stayed for 11,” Jo says.

Jo Bradley née Etty with husband Eric on their 60th wedding anniversary

Three children and various jobs later – Jo taught English for the British Council and the Catholic University of Sao Paulo – Eric was transferred to California. It was 1971. The couple went to live in the San Francisco Bay area – and have been there ever since.

Jo got work as a teacher, in both elementary school and high school and, eventually, as a school head and curriculum planner.

All that time those five paintings of her native York stayed with her.

And then one day, out of the blue, she received an email from York.

It was from York local historian Peter Stanhope. And he was asking her about those paintings.

Peter, an expert on the Victorian artist and architect Edwin Ridsdale Tate, had heard about a woman living in California who had some original paintings by an artist named Tate.

The pair struck up an email correspondence, and Jo sent Peter photographs of her paintings.

An early ER Tate watercolour of Micklegate before the opening up of Priory Street, showing the Priory gateway

They were, indeed, by Edwin Ridsdale Tate, Peter confirmed – the Victorian York architect and amateur painter who, upon his death in 1922, left behind an extraordinary legacy of drawings, paintings and sketches of historic York.

Between them, Jo and Peter pieced together what must have happened.

The ‘big house’ in Bishopthorpe Road in which Jo, as a child, used to visit the ‘old lady’ may well have been 254 Bishopthorpe Road, Peter says.

And if that was the case, then the old lady herself would have been none other than Louisa ‘Lou’ Tate, the artist’s second wife and widow.

“Tate had died in 1922 and Louisa had later moved to Bishopthorpe Road after the Second World War from their previous home in Priory Street,” Peter says.

“She seems to have often been in the habit of giving away Tate's work to friends – I have found other examples of these gifts over the many years of my research.”

Jo’s paintings and sketches are particularly interesting as they are all signed 'ERT' originals, and cover a range of dates in Tate's career, from the 1880s to 1915.

“They also show views of York which no longer now exist, as his works so often do!” says Peter, who has spent 30 years researching the artist, and whose book about Tate - Quaint & Historic York Remembered – has been reprinted in time for Christmas.

Jo is just delighted that there is still interest in her home city in her paintings.

“I’m sure she (Lou Tate) would be delighted to know that there is interest today in the work of this artist whose paintings and drawings so eloquently capture the essence of the city’s history," she says.

• Peter Stanhope first published his book on Edwin Ridsdale Tate - Quaint & Historic York Remembered - in 2015. It went through three reprint editions and now, to satisfy recent requests for further copies, Peter has had printed a fourth limited 'Final Edition' printed, all signed by the author. The books are available at £30 post free direct from Peter on 01904 760467 or PJStanhope@aol.com

Who was Edwin Ridsdale Tate?

Tate was born in the Bootham area of York in 1862. After training as an architect, he worked for a while for local architectural firm R. Gould and C. Fisher. He spent some time working as an architect in London and Carlisle before returning to York.

As an architect, he is best known for an anchorage attached to All Saints' Church, North Street, York - and the Tempest Anderson Hall. Both were built of reinforced concrete.

But it is Tate's work as an artist that has most interested Peter Stanhope.

During his lifetime he produced a wealth of sketches, drawings and watercolours.

Some were of the contemporary York that he grew up and lived in. But many more were attempts - sometimes based on earlier sketches or paintings - to capture what York might have looked like long before Tate himself was born.

They include a wonderful panorama of York in the 15th century (drawn for the 20,000th edition of The Yorkshire Herald in May 1915) but also watercolours such as his view of Ouse Bridge as it might have looked in 1807 (which Tate painted in 1907) and a view of Clifford's Tower in 1831, the castle mound partly overgrown by trees.

In 1906, Tate even published a book - 'Quaint and Historic York' - in which he brought together reproductions of 15 of his historical pencil drawings.

The title of Peter Stanhope's own book is a reference to that earlier book by Tate himself.