Alice Hart | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Alice Marion Rowland 1848 |
| Died | 1931 |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Philanthropy and art |
Notable work | Donegal Industrial fund |
| Spouse(s) | Ernest Hart |
Alice Hart (born Alice Marion Rowland; 1848-1931) was a British philanthropist, artist, and businesswoman.
Hart was born Alice Marion Rowland to Alex William Rowland and his wife, Henrietta Maria Margeretta Ditges. He was part of the Rowland Macassar oil company family. The family lived in London at Lower Sydenham. Hart was educated at the Apothecaries Society in London and went on to further study medicine in Paris. [1] One of her sisters, Fanny, was badly brain-damaged. Another sister was Dame Henrietta Rowland Barnett who was also a philanthropist. Together these two sisters taught the poor at Toynbee Hall. [2] [3] [4]
In 1883 Hart went to Donegal with her husband where they discovered extreme poverty. Hart made an appeal publicly for money to deal with the acute issues but also saw the need to find a way to deal with the chronic unemployment in the area. [5] Sha also noticed and was impressed by the standard of local craftmanship. [6] She decided that the best option was to revive the local cottage industries, especially of weaving tweed. By the end of 1883 the Donegal Industrial Fund had been founded with £50 capital and contacts in London for a market for knits. In 1884 the Donegal tweed was shown at the London International Health exhibition and was so successful that Hart opened a shop at 31 New Cavendish St., London. Hart worked with the local weavers, sending designs and examples of Scottish tweeds to them and by experimenting with dyes from local plants. The result was dyes that won a Sanitary Institute of Great Britain medal. [2] [3] [4] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
In 1885 Hart expanded her ideas, appealing to Irish women for help in setting up embroidery schools which resulted in the ‘Kells embroidery’ schools. Classes were held all over the country teaching the embroidery of flax on linen using designs from Irish manuscripts and Japanese art. Hart may have created the Japanese designs herself as she and her husband owned an important collection of Japanese art and she was a noted watercolourist. She had paintings shown in both the Dudley and Dowdeswell galleries as well as being commended by the Magazine of Art in 1895 for her far east landscapes. [2] [3] [4] [7] [9] [12]
The Kells schools produced household items which were displayed at the London International Inventions Exhibition in 1885 where they won a gold medal. By 1886 the Donegal industrial fund moved to bigger premises into what became known as ‘Donegal House’ at 43 Wigmore St., London. They were given a grant to allow for further schools to be opened for instruction in weaving and embroidery. Hart also invested her own and her friends money into the business. In 1888 at the Irish Exhibition held in Olympia, London she set up the successful exhibit of the a ‘Donegal industrial village’. She followed the original crafts with investment in carpentry and woodcarving. Farm labourers from Donegal were brought to train in the Regent St. Polytechnic until the workshop was opened in Gweedore in October 1891. Apart from the more usual household goods the shop also got commissions from people like Lady Aberdeen. She initially assisted Hart in the creation of an industrial village at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, though a later falling out meant that there were two such villages present. [2] [3] [4] [13] [7] [9] [8] [14] [15] [16]
Throughout the work with the fund Hart painted. After a trip to Burma with her husband she wrote a book on the people and the country. [17] She became the editor of House Beautiful in 1904. [18] The Donegal Industrial Fund itself didn't survive long after Hart was no longer involved. But it had created huge support for the industries and trained large numbers of people in the area. [2] [4] [19]
She married Ernest Hart in 1872, becoming his second wife. He was a surgeon and editor of the British Medical Journal. Hart ended managing the Donegal Industrial fund in 1896. Her husband had become unwell and he died in January 1898. They had no children. Hart died in 1931. [2] [3] [12]
Dame Henrietta Octavia Weston Barnett, DBE was an English social reformer, educationist, and author. She and her husband, Samuel Augustus Barnett, founded the first "University Settlement" at Toynbee Hall in 1884. They also worked to establish the model Hampstead Garden Suburb in the early 20th century.
Dunfanaghy is a small town, former fishing port, and commercial centre on the north coast of County Donegal, Ireland. It lies on Donegal's North West coast, specifically the west side of Sheephaven Bay, on the N56 road.
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Tweed is a rough, woollen fabric, of a soft, open, flexible texture, resembling cheviot or homespun, but more closely woven. It is usually woven with a plain weave, twill or herringbone structure. Colour effects in the yarn may be obtained by mixing dyed wool before it is spun.
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Donegal tweed is a woven tweed manufactured in County Donegal, Ireland. Originally all handwoven, it is now mostly machine woven and has been since the introduction of mechanised looms in the 1950s-1960s. Donegal has for centuries been producing tweed from local materials in the making of caps, suits and vests. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, The Royal Linen Manufacturers of Ulster distributed approximately six thousand flax spinning wheels and sixty looms for weaving to various Donegal homesteads. These machines helped establish the homespun tweed industry in nineteenth-century Donegal. Although Donegal tweed has been manufactured for centuries it took on its modern form in the 1880s, largely due to the pioneering work of English philanthropist Alice Rowland Hart.
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