Born in Kilwinning, McGavin studied for the church until poor health prompted a move into business. He worked for George Gardner, a Glasgow grain merchant, until 1838. He then established the grain-milling firm of Harvie and McGavin with his brother-in-law.
McGavin supported temperance, and for 20 years was a member and ultimately chairman of the Scottish Temperance League. He served on several railway committees and was chairman of the Forth and Clyde Junction Company at the time of his death. He was a patron of the arts and provided substantial funding when the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts moved to new premises in 1880.
He died while strolling along the banks of the Garnock on 12 July 1881, and left £21,700 to religious and charitable causes. A further £7,000 was given to form a public park in Kilwinning, this being handed over to the townspeople on 20 September 1884.
TO be treated with perfect deference without arrogating any claim to it, and to obtain the esteem of even casual acquaintances without making any apparent effort to win it, was the enviable lot of John McGavin. His evenly balanced nature, combining a cheerful affability and benevolence with keen, shrewd, firmness, might be discerned from his personal appearance and demeanour, which were such as belong to those only who are "nature's gentlemen," and the effect was enhanced by a voice whose earnest, placid tones expressed and accentuated the meaning without ever rising to the pitch of violent emphasis.
One can fancy him now, seated in the private room of the office at 4 West Nile Street, which, during his later years, was his house of call. Having been ushered into the inner sanctum by a faithful old clerk who stood Cerberus in the little outer office, the visitor would find Mr. McGavin busy reading or writing; for he was a busy man up till the last day of his life, although he had long ago done that which, by a figure of speech, is called "retiring from business." The first thing that would strike the observer would be the fact that the walls of the room, like the walls of every room in Mr. McGavin's private residence at 19 Elmbank Crescent, were crowded with pictures,(1) and if the visitor expressed an intelligent appreciation of what he saw, he found a ready road to the heart of the owner. For while many collect pictures from motives which have but little connection with a true love for it or a just appreciation of its products, Mr. McGavin surrounded himself with pictures because they were the solace and delight of his life. They occupied the place of children and grandchildren to a man who never had any, for by some anomalous decree of nature, he who seemed the very paradigm of a kind and gentle parent never entered into the bonds of wedlock.
Born in 1816 in the little town of Kilwinning in Ayrshire, John McGavin was destined for the Church, and was being educated accordingly when his constitution, never robust, gave signs of breaking down. The chosen career was, therefore, abandoned, and, about the year 1832, he was sent into Glasgow, where he entered the service of Mr. George Gardner, grain merchant, Washington Street, who had been one of the partners of the firm of Gardner & Brook, dissolved during the previous year. Young McGavin remained with Mr. Gardner as his assistant until about the year 1838, when he joined his brother-in-law, Mr. Alex. Harvie, in establishing the afterwards well-known firm of Harvie & McGavin, grain millers, Washington Street. Some twenty-eight years after this Mr. Harvie retired; McGavin then assumed as partners two sons of Mr. Gardner, and about five or six years later also retired.
In 1846 Mr. McGavin actively espoused the cause of temperance, and instituted the "Commercial Abstinence Society." For twenty years he was an active member of the Scottish Temperance League, and he was ultimately made chairman of its board of directors.
It was about 1848 that he began to take a lively interest in railways. Upon matters connected with these he ultimately became a highly competent authority. There were few systems in Scotland which had not his name on their registers, and for thirty years his voice was heard to good purpose at almost every half-yearly meeting of the North British and Caledonian Companies. Regarding railway finance he was often a severe and just critic, and he acted on several committees of investigation; yet the only office which he ever accepted in connection with the active management of a railway was in the directorate of the Forth and Clyde Junction Co., of which he was chairman at the time of his death. At that time he was also a director of the Chamber of Commerce.
In politics Mr. McGavin was a Liberal, but although he took a keen interest in public questions and always worked zealously for his favourite, he could not be persuaded to assume the role of Parliamentary candidate himself. At the general election in 1868 he was earnestly pressed to stand for Glasgow, and his election would have been almost certain, had he not steadfastly refused to be put in nomination. Minor honours in connection with our civic Chamber were likewise offered to him in vain. Thus did he manifest that singularly modest disposition which led him to "do good by stealth and blush to find it fame."
No one in Glasgow was better known as a patron of the fine arts than was Mr. McGavin during the later years of his life. He had a true appreciation for artistic work of the purest kind, and a just estimate of the high function of the artist as a member of society. Yet it is worthy of remark that it was probably the kindliness of his disposition which originally influenced him in becoming a patron. Some, certainly, of his earnest purchases were made with the characteristic object of assisting poor artists. One he thus helped was John Kelso Hunter,(2) who narrates how Mr. McGavin, having sat for his portrait, mentioned, after the work was done, that he had forgotten to arrange as to the price. "That is just as well," replied Hunter; "I have two prices, one for gentlemen, and one for those who are not. I am going to treat you as a gentleman and take the highest price, which is five pounds." Mr. McGavin asked him to come to his office and be paid, and Hunter concludes the narrative as follows:- "I sat opposite to him at the desk, and with a very serious face he said, 'Do you really mean to charge me five pounds?' I said, 'Yes.' 'Well,' said he, 'if you are determined to have that, I have determined to give you twice that sum, so there are two five pound notes for you."' A good example this of Mr. McGavin's quiet humour as well as of his generosity.
Mr. McGavin so thoroughly and effectively identified himself with the propagation of the fine arts that some notice of the rise and progress of an appreciation for them in Glasgow may appropriately be made to form part of these notes. The arts of painting, sculpture, and engraving had for a long time a hard struggle for existence amongst the people of Glasgow, and the seed sown by the Brothers Foulis during the seventeen or eighteen years which elapsed between the establishment of their "Glasgow Academy of the Fine Arts"(3) and its closing in 1770, came near being choked by the more robust and matter-of-fact growths of commerce and manufacture. When George III. was crowned in the autumn of 1761, the Brothers Foulis were instrumental in having the fore court of the old College decorated with pictures, which were hung on the walls under no canopy but the sky; and the mention of that region calls to mind the fact that, according to a contemporary print, one of the pictures was veritably "skied" by being hung above the bust of Zachary Boyd well up on the steeple.(4)
There can be little doubt that the losses and disappointments suffered by the Brothers Foulis deeply affected them, and contributed to shorten their lives. At all events their failure repressed the growth of local art culture during the next thirty or forty years, during which Glasgow historians have no indication of the formation in the city of any artistic associations of importance.
It was not till the year 1820 or 1821 that there was any serious renewal of the attempt to revive public interest in the fine arts by means of exhibitions of paintings. The credit of initiating that revival is due to Alexander Finlay,(5) printseller, who having removed to 2 South Maxwell Street from a shop at the corner of Argyle and Miller Streets, inaugurated the opening of his new premises by hanging out a card inviting subscriptions and the loan of pictures towards the formation of an exhibition. The appeal met with a reception so favourable that a number of gentlemen formed themselves into a society called "The Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Glasgow," which on Monday, 6th August, 1821, opened an exhibition of 250 modern paintings in Finlay's Maxwell Street shop. A second exhibition was opened on 23rd May of the next year, under the same auspices, but it was held "in the gallery of the Institution, 622 Argyle Street," not in Finlay's shop.(6) This time there were only 165 pictures hung, and amongst them one, a lady's portrait, was by a youthful artist named Daniel Macnee who then lived at 40 Dunlop Street.(7) The directors were not encouraged to open a third exhibition, and six years elapsed before any one had the boldness to renew the enterprise.
In September, 1828, the directors of the Glasgow Dilettanti Society opened "in their exhibition rooms, Argyle Arcade," their first exhibition of works by living artists. This society, which existed after this for many years, was "an association of artists, amateurs, and connoisseurs" prompted by a love for art. The members were drawn from what was then a very cultivated coterie of citizens.(8) The annual exhibitions were held in the Argyle Arcade rooms till 1832, when premises up two stairs were taken at 51 Buchanan Street. Going up stairs proved to be a false step, and in 1838 the eleventh and last exhibition was held.(9) Some time about 1839, in answer to the petition of a body of art students, the society granted to them the use of its library and its small but fine collection of casts from the antique. These reliques are still in the museum of Anderson's College. The last expiring public work of the Dilettanti Society was made in April, 1843, when for charitable purposes it brought together an exhibition of old masters and of some modern works which had appeared at former Dilettanti exhibitions. There were on this occasion 353 works upon the walls lent by some 53 owners.
In 1839 a new association was originated called the "Artists' and Amateurs' Conversazione Society." It was wound up ultimately, and its library was sold to "The West of Scotland Academy of the Fine Arts," an institution which came into existence in 1841. On the 22nd of March of that year the Glasgow artists issued a circular in which they expressed their desire to form an academy on the model of those of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Several meetings were held in consequence, and an academy was formed under the presidency of John Graham Gilbert.(10) This was to be a school of art, giving periodical exhibitions, but latterly the teaching idea was abandoned, and the work was restricted to the holding of annual exhibitions,(11) the first eleven of which were held in rooms at No. 43 Argyle Arcade, now occupied by a shop where walking-sticks and toys are sold. But in 1852 the Society (like the Dilettanti twenty years before) was compelled to shift its quarters, and it then took the old ill-fated Dilettanti Rooms. There the two last exhibitions of the Academy were held. In Buchanan Street the rent rose in proportion to the number of stairs up, while the drawings dwindled in the inverse ratio. The double strain proved fatal, and the exhibitions ceased with the thirteenth upon 18th January, 1854.(12)
The Academy nevertheless continued to exist and to enrol members till 1864, and in 1857 it had sufficient vitality to project an exhibition - which, however, did not come off. Up till 1879 the members of the Academy met occasionally, but on 6th November of that year a resolution was passed which practically brought the institution to an end. Its library was deposited in the Mechanics' Institution. At one time Mr. Graham Gilbert volunteered to take the personal responsibility of buying for the Academy at a very low price the block of buildings at the south-west corner of Buchanan and St. Vincent Streets. He was overruled, although plans were actually drawn up, and the Academy thus missed the chance of making itself rich and prosperous.
On 3rd October, 1853, five days before the West of Scotland Academy opened its last exhibition, a rival exhibition was opened in what was then called the St. Enoch's Hall, Dixon Street. It was intimated that this exhibition was to inaugurate an annual series, and that the profits were to become the nucleus of a fund for the formation of a permanent free gallery of modern art in Glasgow. The collection of pictures brought together with this laudable object was a splendid one,(13) but, in spite of the excellence of its ostensible motive, the enterprise had to be abandoned after one or two annual exhibitions had been held, and although thirty years have since elapsed the nucleus of the desired fund is yet to form. The deus ex machina who originated the scheme, and who afterwards earned notoriety in connection with the management of the Glasgow Art Union, was not so economical as he might have been, hence the collapse.
Such were the early struggles which those who were interested in art made to obtain for it a permanent footing in Glasgow. The dawn of better times came with the establishment of the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts about a quarter of a century ago. It was in 1861 that a public meeting was convened, and it was resolved to form an Institute. A general committee was appointed, and an executive with Daniel Macnee as chairman. He retained the post till 1877, and hardly ever missed attending a meeting.
The first exhibition of the Institute was opened in the Corporation Galleries, Sauchiehall Street, in the autumn of 1861.(14) It consisted of 853 pictures and 44 pieces of sculpture, and resulted in a net gain of about £55. The Society prospered from its commencement under good management, and has now so thoroughly established a love for art in Glasgow, that during the year ending 31st August, 1883, no less than £2,886 was received for admission money, catalogues, and commission in connection with an autumn and a spring exhibition held in the galleries. In 1870 the Institute became a regularly incorporated association. Mr. McGavin then became a member, and, from that time onwards, the Institute was one of his pet schemes. In 1879 it was registered as a company limited by guarantee, and a movement took definite shape for the erection of galleries of its own. In this movement Mr. McGavin took a deep interest, and it is not too much to say that but for his enterprise and handsome generosity it would never have been carried to a definite issue. In 1877 the Corporation of Glasgow gave unmistakable indications that they did not mean longer to let the Corporation Galleries to the Institute, which therefore, in the spring of 1878, acquired ground and began building operations, half of the finance being undertaken by Mr. McGavin.(15) The new galleries (16) were opened on 2nd February, 1880, and since then the ordinary exhibitions have been held there annually, besides occasional exhibitions of works in black and white, and latterly the annual exhibitions of the Scottish Society of Water-Colour Painters, established in 1878. There is now abundance of opportunity afforded to local artists for exhibiting their pictures, there being, besides the Institute's and the Water-Colour Society's annual exhibitions, those also of the Glasgow Art Club and the St. Mungo Club. It would be well if as much energy were directed in Glasgow towards providing scholastic means of learning how to paint.
Mr. McGavin, though much pressed to do so, would never accept the chairmanship of the Institute. The only posts which he would agree to take were those of hon. treasurer and hon. secretary. He held the latter appointment at the time of his death, which happened suddenly as he was taking his favourite walk by the banks of the Garnock on the evening of 12th July, 1881. How well one remembers the numbing shock which was communicated as the news spread through the city, many of his friends having seen him hale and hearty only a few hours before.
Of £21,700 which Mr. McGavin left in legacies for religious and charitable purposes, £7,000 was devoted to the purchase and formation of a public park in his native town of Kilwinning. This park was handed over to the townspeople on 20th September, 1884. Another of Mr. McGavin's bequests consisted of £5,000 left to the Institute of the Fine Arts.
Modest and unaspiring, gentle and generous during his life, munificent in the bequests which he made in anticipation of his death, the benign influence of such a man cannot be estimated, and it will never be known.
(1) Mr. McGavin's collection was superlatively select. It included choice examples by such men as Linnell, Orchardson, Pettie, Hugh Cameron, Israels, John and Matthew Maris, Corot, Dupre, and Troyon. Poor G. P. Chalmers was well represented. He was an especial favourite; and his picture of "The Legend," now in the National Gallery, Edinburgh, was commissioned by Mr. McGavin, who was much affected by the sudden accidental death which overtook the gifted artist in the prime of his life and full blossom of his powers. The McGavin collection was dispersed on the death of the owner, whose pictures being taken over by relatives, a large portion being sold, and one large picture by Linnell being bequeathed to the Corporation, in whose galleries it now hangs.
(2) "The Scientific Cobbler," as Hunter was called, by shoemaking supported a large family when "art" patronage was scanty. Hunter despised the proverb "ne sutor ultra crepidam," for his aspirations were as lofty as they were undisciplined. He published two books, both of which show that the eccentric author possessed powers of observation and of graphic description far above the average. The title of one was "Life Studies of Character," and of the other "The Retrospect of an Artist's Life." The narrative given above is from the "Retrospect." Thomas Carlyle expressed his admiration for the "Cobbler's" writings.
(3) There is reason to believe that Foulis' Glasgow Academy of the Fine Arts was established about 1751, two years before the establishment of the London Society of Arts. The gallery of the Foulis' Academy contained a collection of 553 pictures which in size averaged eight square feet each. The catalogue formed two 8vo volumes.
(4) On removing to Gilmorehill, the University authorities commissioned Mr. John Mossman to take down and clean Zachary's bust. On being examined it was found that its black colour was due to oil paint. Several coats of different tints were successively removed, and it was then seen that the material of the bust was pure Italian marble, the portrait being apparently a contemporary one of fine old Italian workmanship. The bust, however, has been thoroughly cleaned, and it may now be seen in the Hunterian Library at Gilmorehill. It is worth noting that the picture which was hung so high in what was probably the first picture exhibition in Glasgow belonged to the Duke of Hamilton and was none other than "Daniel in the Den of Lions," one of the few works which are known with certainty to have been entirely painted by the hand of Rubens himself. At the time it was thus ruthlessly exposed to the autumn breezes and the smoke of bonfires lighted by loyal lieges, it was considered to be the finest picture in all Scotland, and as to its value in modern eyes, it only remains to be said that on 17th June, 1882, the first day of the sale of the Hamilton Palace collection, it was sold for £5,145; in 1885 this picture was sold by auction and bought back by the Duke for less than half this sum. The first organized picture exhibition in London was held in 1760, the year before Foulis' Glasgow exhibition. The London exhibition was under the management of the Incorporated Society of Artists.
(5) His son John afterwards had a shop in Buchanan Street, the memory of which is yet fresh to those who used to delight in gazing into printshop windows at a time when prints and pictures were not so plentiful in Glasgow as they are now.
(6) Finlay acted as secretary and superintendent, and the other office-bearers were Lord Provost Alston, Robert Hagart, Henry Monteith, Kirkman Finlay, James Ewing, Henry Houldsworth, Robert Findlay, James Lumsden, jun., R. Chapman, J. Haldane, and A. Templeton.
(7) Macnee was scarcely sixteen years of age at this time.
(8) Amongst the members of the society were Mr. Ewing of Strathleven, Archibald MacLellan, Mr. Smith of Jordanhill, Robert and William Towers, the latter of whom afterwards became W. Towers-Clark, Charles Hutchison, John Houldsworth, William Euing, J. Oswald Anderson, Dr. Drury, David Hamilton, the architect, D. C. Rait, Thomas Atkinson, the bookseller and politician, and James and Robert Hart, "the scientific brothers," both of whom were intimate friends of the founder of the Andersonian University. James modelled a sitting statue of Anderson which is now in the Museum.
(9) The rooms continued to be called "The Dilettanti Rooms" for many years after the society itself was extinct. The numbers of works of art annually exhibited varied from 280 to 400, including a few pieces of sculpture. In connection with the exhibition of 1835 a pamphlet was issued anonymously. In it Horatio McCulloch was accused of supplying hints for a favourable criticism which had appeared in a previous pamphlet with regard to his pictures. McCulloch must have taken this accusation sorely to heart, for no picture of his appears in the catalogue of any of the society's subsequent exhibitions.
(10) The idea originated with two Glasgow artists, one of whom, David Mackenzie, died, poor man, in the Old Man's Institution in the Rottenrow some seven years ago. The other, J. A. Hutchison, drawing master in the Old High School, has also passed away, having died at Rome about two years ago. The Society was christened the "West of Scotland Academy of the Fine Arts" at the suggestion of Mr. John Mossman, sculptor, who also suggested the name of our present Institute some twenty years later on. The birth of the Academy was celebrated in 1843 - two years after the event - by a banquet in the Glasgow Assembly Rooms. The Marquis of Douglas was in the chair, and Sheriff Alison was croupier. It was a brilliant gathering, and amongst the guests the author of the "Noctes Ambrosianae" contributed to the intellectual enjoyments.
(11) In these exhibitions the number of exhibits averaged about 350. On rare occasions there were 50 or 60 more. The gross receipts were from £210 to £420 per season, which generally ran from September or October to the following December or January. Evening promenades with military music were occasionally given.
(12) The second last exhibition was opened under the gloom of an appalling accident. One of the hanging committee, J. D. Gibson, the portrait painter, a prominent member of the Academy, fell down the well of the ill-omened stairs and was killed.
(13) The exhibition consisted of 378 works by such men as Blake, Constable, Corbould, Danby, Delaroche, Etty, Frith, Frost, Watson Gordon, Harvey, Harding, The Herrings, Hunt, Landseer, Raeburn, Roberts, Stanfield, Ary Scheffer, and Turner. Several of the examples were lent by the Queen and Prince Albert. At the head of the committee of promoters was Alex. Dennistoun of Golfhill, and amongst the members were James A. Campbell, y. of Stracathro, Alex. and John Graham of Lancefield, Arch. McLellan, and Robert Napier of Shandon.
(14) In the spring of 1878 the Corporation granted the free use of the three main galleries to a committee of gentlemen, who brought together a remarkably fine loan exhibition for the benefit of the Royal Infirmary. The net profits amounted to £3,500. Mr. McGavin was chairman of the acting committee, and worked day and night in the interests of the scheme. To him much of its success was due, but it was characteristic of his modesty that at the meeting which brought the exhibition to a close, and when Lord Rosebery handed over the proceeds to the Infirmary authorities, Mr. McGavin stood not on the platform, but on the steps leading up to it!
(15) The other half was undertaken by two gentlemen who had joined the council to fill places vacated by others who had thought proper to retire on its being determined to go on with the building scheme.
(16) The new galleries were built from the designs of Mr. John James Burnet, Architect, Glasgow. Mr. Burnet's designs were chosen from amongst the drawings sent in by eight competitors.
Back to Contents