Pictorial legacy of the city’s genial little man

March 23, 2005

NINHAM’S COURT
(Bethel Street)

This “genial little man” died more than 130 years ago, but he left a legacy that paints a vivid portrait of life in old Norwich.

His name was Henry Ninham (1793-1874) who lived at 12 Chapel Field and this court is named in his honour.

Henry Ninham’s watercolour of St James Fyebridge and Whitefriars, Norwich.

Henry was an artist and also a fine architectural and topographical draughtsman. His accurate work is a valuable record of some magnificent old buildings now long gone.

His father, John Ninham (1754-1817), was a heraldic painter and engraver who ran his business from Chapel Field.

He specialised in painting panels for coaches belonging to the aristocracy. He was also a copperplate engraver and his best-known work was the Gates of Norwich published in 1861 from his original ink and wash drawings. John was said to have had little formal education, but a great thirst for knowledge that he shared with his son.

Henry was one of the eight children left when his mother died in 1817. He inherited his father’s aptitude for drawing, but had a greater natural talent. He took over the family business after his father’s death and soon gained a reputation for being a stylish artist concentrating on Norwich, the city he loved.

Another great painter John Sell Cotman described him as “a very clever painter”. His work included river scenes and many of the more unusual city buildings, often old and decrepit.

Writing in the book Art and Artists of the Norwich School, Josephine Walpole says: “Ninham deserves to be more widely known, but his subject matter and his lifelong ties with Norwich may have naturally limited his reputation.

He is said to have been a genial little man, kind and friendly to everyone, who died aged 81 in Chapel Field Road where he was born, a Norwich man and a man of Norwich through and through.”

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