Stroud Centre for Science and Arts portraits

I took Helena to the WEA AGM meeting in the town library this evening, but there was a delay in getting access. While we waited a walked a few yards along the street attracted by the evening light behind the building opposite.

As I was taking a picture of the sunset, my friend Alice C. walked towards me from her home a few yards further along Lansdown. She wondered what I was doing and I explained I needed to get a blip, which was a new concept to her.

She said I should take a picture of 'Kelvin' and when I said I didn't know what she meant she walked me back to the library and pointed out the series of six sculpted head reliefs in the stonework of the Centre for Science and Arts opposite.

This building used to be the Stroud art school before it was moved into the new Stroud college building beside Stratford Park. It was also used as a museum for a while and even now some of the Museum in the Park's archive of objects is stored in this rather amazing building.

Historically the centre was designed as an art and engineering college, and built in the 1890s incorporating the town museum and subsequently was given a Grade 11 listing.

I think the portraits are (from left to right): Michael Faraday,
Julian Huxley, Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), James Barry, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lord Frederic Leighton and Joseph Mallord William Turner. They all have their last name inscribed above their heads if you look closely and are a mix of scientists and artists, and some were even described as 'philosphers'.

I was pleased Alice mentioned them, and Kelvin, who was of course important to photography as the Kelvin scale was first described by him to measure the colour temperature of light.