Helensburgh Heritage
Helensburgh Heritage Trust
AN EARLY visiting artist who came to Helensburgh to paint taught both Queen Victoria and her daughter Princess Louise.
William Leighton Leitch, who was born on November 22 1804 in Glasgow, near the Royal Infirmary, liked the open aspect of Helensburgh seafront and captured it in watercolour sketches.
THE REMARKABLE career of a former child acting star from Helensburgh took another step forward in September 2018.
It was the launch of the BBC newspaper drama series ‘Press’, directed by the highly regarded Tom Vaughan, and it came the day after his 49th birthday.
A HELENSBURGH man who was a champion of the arts had many connections with Charles Rennie Mackintosh — and was a huge fan of the famous architect’s Hill House mansion in Upper Colquhoun Street.
Sir Harry Jefferson Barnes, himself a talented artist, lived in the burgh from 1947-70 and spent most of his career at Glasgow School of Art — tragically gutted by fire overnight on June 15-16 for the second time in four years.
ONE of the hugely talented ‘Glasgow Boys’ artists who taught and worked in Helensburgh and District in his youth became a major figure in the London art world.
John Lavery, later Sir John, was given a two-page spread in the February 24 1912 edition of The Sphere, An illustrated Newspaper for the Home.
A TRIDENT submarine from Faslane seemed an unlikely subject for a painter in watercolour.
But Rhu artist and architect Robert Barbour, who died on January 31 2012, was up for the challenge.
A FAMOUS ‘play with tunes’ about the legendary music hall star Sir Harry Lauder by Helensburgh actor and comedian Jimmy Logan was revived for two nights at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal in December 2017.
Jimmy, who died in the Golden Jubilee National Hospital at Clydebank on April 13 2001 from cancer, would have been delighted, because Lauder was one of his two great heroes.
THE WORK of one of Helensburgh’s outstanding architects of years gone by can still be admired around the town.
Robert Wemyss FI Arch (Scot), LRIBA, is not as well-known as his contemporaries Charles Rennie Mackintosh and William Leiper, but he contributed a great deal to the look of the town centre and other areas.