Clifford Dobell 1886-1949 / [Cecil Arthur Hoare and Doris L. Mackinnon].

  • Cecil Hoare
Date:
1950
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Clifford Dobell 1886-1949 / [Cecil Arthur Hoare and Doris L. Mackinnon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    was a more distant relative. His own sister, Hope, married Professor P. G. H. Boswell, F.R.S. In his early childhood Clifford was sent to a kindergarten school, but after a few terms there he was withdrawn and put in the charge of a governess at home. When he was six years old, the family left Birkenhead and settled in Llandebie, in South Wales, where his father had bought a colliery. The children keenly appreciated the change, for the new surroundings were beautiful, and they had all sorts of animals to amuse them, including a pony to ride and drive. Young Clifford also took a great interest in the wild flowers and birds in which the country abounded. He could read at an early age and devoured any book he could get hold of. He was extremely clever with his hands and spent much time in the workshop learning carpentry, a craft of which he made full use later in life. Life in the country, however, was not so idyllic as it might have been, for, as in many middle-class Victorian families, the young Dobells were very strictly—even severely—brought up, and suffered much from being denied the freedom of less sheltered children. B*at their stay in pleasant rural surround¬ ings did not last long, for after four years in South Wales things went wrong at the colliery and the family had to move to Southport, where they lived for some years in rooms. Here young Clifford took French lessons and also went to the Southport School of Art, where he attended classes in drawing and painting, working with great enthusiasm in and out of school hours. At that time he was determined to become an artist—and above all a painter of animals: his paintings were shown to his distant relative, Briton Riviere, R.x\., who praised the work but commented that there was no money to be made fn art. When Clifford was thirteen his parents decided once more to live in the country and they went to Great Sutton, Cheshire, leaving him behind in South- port as a boarder at Sandringham School, where Mr R. A. Chadwick was headmaster. Until then he had been taught only by an inefficient governess, and knew nothing of systematic lessons, apart from those at the School of Art; nevertheless, his general knowledge, picked up from books, was wide and varied for his age. At first he had some difficulty in adapting himself to school life, which he disliked intensely; but his extraordinarily retentive memory and strong will standing him in good stead, he soon had no difficulty in master¬ ing all the subjects that were taught and could always keep his place at the top of his class. He was fortunate in getting at Sandringham School an excellent grounding in the classics and in acquiring a real taste for the Greek and Latin languages that he never lost. More by natural bent, one supposes, he became a great admirer of Shakespeare, and learnt The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam from beginning to end, so that he could quote from memory many passages from these and other poets. He also became interested in comparative religion and refused to be confirmed, thereby asserting the agnostic attitude which he retained for the rest of his life. By the age of sixteen he was more and more eager to adopt a scientific career, in which resolve he was encouraged and aided by Mr Chadwick, who had a very high opinion of his pupil’s abilities and personally prepared him for his entrance examination to Cambridge University.
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