J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscriptions by Turner: Banknote Numbers Annotated with West Country Place Names 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: Banknote Numbers Annotated with West Country Place Names’ 1811 (Inside back cover of sketchbook)
Inside back cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Back Cover:
Inscriptions by Turner: Banknote Numbers Annotated with West Country Place Names 1811
D40906
Inscribed by Turner in ink and pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white laid paper, 117 x 75 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following notes:
 9690     Andover          3     June     11 
 1946     [?Murrell G]     3     June     11 
 1951                      3     June     11 
19505                      3     Jun 
25956                      5     Jun 
69186     Andover          3 
58196     Iframomb [sic]   3 
      }   Andover                21833     5 
 5366                            47950     5 
52600                      3     48802 
                                  ...1     5 
52598}    Lostwithiel      3     61648     Covelly 
52599}                           38024     June 
21832                      5         5     Redruth [‘?St...’ above]  
                                     6     Penzance 
41483     Salisbury        3         9     [...] 
21834     Amesbury         5         7 
   33     Salisbury        5         8     St Mich Mt 
                                    30     [?Horton]  
67950     Salisbury        5      4085     5 
48802                      5         6     Falmouth 
    1     Minehead         3    39682      3 Bodmin 
61048                            28805     3 
38024                      3 
21832     Froom            5 
41483     Salisbury        1 
21834 
As Finberg suggests,1 and as Hanley and Holland concur and discuss in detail,2 the numbers and dates appear to be those of Bank of England £1 notes, acquired before Turner set out for the West Country in the summer of 1811 (see the introduction to the tour), and annotated with the places at which they were broken or spent. There is a similar list on folio 253 verso opposite (D40905); both inscriptions are inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation.
A few of the lines cancelling the numbers are in pencil, with one or two reinforced with ink. The first three ‘Salisbury’s in the first column are in pencil; some places in the second column remain in pencil alone, while others have been gone over again in ink. Turner made identifiable drawings at most of these places, as set out below in the order in which he would have visited them:
‘Lostwithiel’, Cornwall: see under folio 7 recto (D08374) for nearby Restormel Castle
‘Falmouth’, Cornwall: see under folio 7 verso (D08375)
‘St Mich Mt’: St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall: see under folio 193 verso (D08715; CXXIII 190a)
‘Penzance’, Cornwall: see under Tate D41281 (Turner Bequest CXXV a 6) in the contemporary Cornwall and Devon sketchbook
‘Redruth’, Cornwall: see under folio 236 verso (D08780; CXXIII 233a)
‘Bodmin’, Cornwall: no identified sketches
‘Covelly’: Clovelly, Devon: see under folio 226 recto (D08766; CXXIII 223)
‘Ilframomb’: Ilfracombe, Devon: see under folio 216 verso (D08753; CXXIII 213a)
‘Minehead’, Somerset: see under folio 4 recto (D08368)
There are no identified sketches of ‘Froom’ (Frome), Somerset or ‘Amesbury’, Wiltshire; the latter is near Stonehenge, for which see under folio 214 verso (D08749; CXXIII 211a). Nor are there views of ‘Salisbury’, Wiltshire or ‘Andover’, Hampshire, which Turner may have passed through on both the outward and return legs of his tour. ‘Murrell G’ and ‘Horton’ are Finberg’s readings, although both are unclear, as is their significance.
1
Finberg 1961, p.182.
2
Hanley and Holland 1997, pp.14–15.
Technical notes:
There is an adventitious splash of what may be blue watercolour at the top right.

Matthew Imms
June 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscriptions by Turner: Banknote Numbers Annotated with West Country Place Names 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscriptions-by-turner-banknote-numbers-annotated-with-west-r1137287, accessed 11 May 2025.