Landscape Watercolour Ben Rhydding Yorkshire 1900 by William Joseph Boyes

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A beautifully detailed rural scene with lovely strong colours. A woman and her two children on the far bank, probably looking for tiddlers.

A most imposing painting, worthy of any fine collection, inscribed verso.

Size: Height: 51.9cm Length: 74.5cm

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William Joseph Boyes, believed born in 1847, was a watercolour painter who lived in the Bradford area all his life. He was a founder and active Council member of the Yorkshire Union of Artists (YUA) and taught art at a range of local institutions, including Bradford Technical College, the Bradford Church Institute, Batley Grammar School and at Thornton Grammar School.

He painted predominantly landscape, often local scenes, in a pastoral style popular in the late 19th & early 20th centuries. He exhibited work at YUA shows in the region, particularly between 1888-1909, and Cartwright Hall showed one of his works, ‘Old English Cottage’, in their 1951 Festival of Britain art exhibition. His work is mainly in private collections and still shows up in auction houses, where it still commands reasonable prices.

Ben Rhydding is a village in the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It is part of the IIkley urban area and civil parish.

The village is situated on a north-facing valley side beneath the Cow and Calf rocks and above and to the south of the River Wharfe. It was in the historic West Riding of Yorkshire.

The village's former name was Wheatley. In the 19th century it was noted for its hydropathic establishment that opened on 29 March 1844 at a cost of £30,000. It was the third major hydropathic establishment in England, "perhaps the most deeply respected and certainly the longest-lived". Ben Rhydding, the name given to the establishment, also given to the railway station built to serve it and by which the village subsequently became known, is allegedly the ancient name of the uplands above Wheatley. In a 1900 history of Upper Wharfedale, a footnote describes the circumstances, citing Collyer’s History of Ilkley:

Dr. Collyer writes that when Ben Rhydding was building, and the founders were casting about for a name, the matter came up in the "pint-pot parliament", which had sat at the Wheat Sheaf in Ilkley time out of mind. Mr. Hamer Stansfeld (the founder) wanted "a good an ancient name",and was particularly wishful to know what the upland was called in the old times on which Ben Rhydding is built. Nancy Wharton, our hostess, said she knew, and gave us the name Ben (not Bean) Rydding. It had passed out the common memory, but had survived by some good hap in Nancy's mind, and it was from this little seed the name sprang again which has become famous