Description:
Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth. Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today. Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'.
This house is officially known as 'Newdigate House' but it is so associated with the great French general who lived here after his defeat by Marlborough at Blenheim in 1704 that it is generally spoken of as 'Marshall Tallard's House'. The dispatch in which Marlborough announced to the government the news of his victory read 'Tallard and the other generals are in my coach', which is a marvel of brevity. To Marshal Tallard we owe much, he introduced something of French courtesy into our rough behaviour, he taught our housewives how to make salads and rolls and, above all, he cultivated celery (a hitherto unknown luxury) in his garden behind the high wall shown in Mr. Hammond's picture. The house was erected in the middle of the eighteenth century almost at the same time as the Castle, and it is a joy to the student of architecture. Its interior and fillings are as beautiful as its exterior, while its front is guarded by the venerable remains of a beautiful wrought iron paling which is one of the best left to us. Image and descriptive text taken from 'Nottingham Past and Present', published in 1926.
See NTGM013320 for a coloured version of this drawing.