Major Guy Constable and the Artist Ralph Ellis
Major Guy Constable and the Artist Ralph Ellis by Pat Saunders
Another member of the Constable family to join the firm as a director at the time of the amalgamation in 1921, was Major Guy Constable. He remained with the company until his death in 1936, aged 56. His career had started in military service in the Boer War. He also served during the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross. Apart from business, he took an interest in the affairs of Arundel, since he lived at Warningcamp. He was a councillor and served a term as Mayor in 1913, plus being a magistrate. His other interests were in horticulture. More particularly he continued a family interest in art.
His great-grandfather, George, had become a friend of John Constable the painter (the same surname but no relation). In the 1830s, the artist was invited to stay in Arundel, probably in the Bridge Hotel, which the Constable family owned. In fact, the last painting to be completed by John Constable shortly before his death in 1837, was of the mill at Arundel, along the river from the castle.
Ralph Ellis was a local artist whom Major Guy engaged on behalf of Henty & Constable. He commissioned Ralph Ellis to paint new inn signs for their pubs. First one or two signs were painted as an experiment. They were so favourably received that the firm decided to have new signs for all the pubs. By 1930, the pub signs were receiving a wider recognition, and the firm had already spent several thousands pounds on the task.
Amongst the inns whose signs were being discussed at this time were, the New Inn whose name had been changed to the Gnu. Its sign depicted “that exotic beast” inviting “the thirsty wayfarer to sample its horns”. For the Labour in Vain, Ellis painted a white woman scrubbing a black child in a tub of soapy water.
The story of this particular public house was featured by the Daily Mirror in November 1937, in an article entitled ‘It’s a Dark Story’. The inn had once been a private house, whose owner went out to the tropics. He took his wife with him for awhile. She arrived home again to give birth, but the baby was Black! Day after day, she scrubbed the child endeavouring to make it white. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners who had been the ground landlords had objected to the inn being called the Labour in Vain because of the dark associations. They also objected to the sign being shown at an exhibition of the artist’s work.
Ralph Ellis, like Guy Constable, had also been an officer in the military during the First World War. He had been wounded, but was able to take advantage of special facilities to pursue an art course after he had been demobbed. It served him well since he acquired many admirers of his work, including the Duchess of Norfolk. Over the next thirty years or so he painted some 800 inn signs. The idea of having pictorial inn signs, especially on pubs in rural areas quickly caught on. He occasionally held exhibitions of his work. In 1953, an exhibition of his, included an immense pictorial map of West Sussex, which measured 7ft x 5ft and took a year to complete. Henty & Constable commissioned it with the intention of having it reproduced for display in their houses.