Garroway, Abel

Introduction:

ABEL GARROWAY, or more commonly GARRAWAY, is known solely for 3 likenesses painted on paper. Recorded but unseen by McKechnie, they are in the collection of the WORTHING MUSEUM & ART GALLERY. All are housed within the same frame and "Drawn by Abel Garraway in 1803" is inscribed on the mount. Recent research indicates he was never a commercial profilist.

However he apparently had artistic pretentions. The MUSEUM of CROYDON holds a small soft-covered volume used initially in 1794 to draw up shop accounts. It was later reversed and given an ornate title page "Abel Garraway October 25, 1795" , then filled with "miscellaneous pencil, pen and ink or watercolour sketches of varying standard including a pencil and watercolour sketch of Croydon Corn Market and Town Hall dated 1798".

Baptised in January 1782, he was the only child of Yorkshire-born Elizabeth Bibrough (1755-1848) and Londoner Daniel Garraway (1750-1839). A wealthy tea dealer and grocer of London's Strand, by 1798 Garraway had relocated to Croydon. It's possible but not proved that he was descended from Thomas Garraway, said to be the first man to sell tea in London, who, in 1657, established the famous GARRAWAY'S COFFEE HOUSE in Exchange Alley.

In 1798, aged 16, Abel Garraway was apprenticed for 7 years to a London 'paper stainer'. It appears therefore, the 3 known profiles were painted during the term of his apprenticeship. However, his later career as a paper stainer must have been extremely brief.

In 1806 he married Amelia Patteson (1786-1854) at St.Clement Danes. Between 1807 and 1827 she gave birth to 4 sons and 4 daughters, and baptismal records list Garraway's occupation variously as 'Grocer' or 'Gent'. From 1807 to 1820 he lived in Reigate, Surrey, then relocated to London until 1839, when he occupied his deceased father's 6-bedroom mansion Durham House in Mitcham, Surrey. The 1851 Census records him a "Landed Proprietor" and he appears in Post Office Directories as a member of Mitcham's 'gentry'. His wife dies in December 1854.

It appears he was equally as memorable as his flamboyant signature. The CROYDON ADVERTISER of the 21st of March 1891 records him, 31 years after his death, as "...quite of the old school, always wearing a frilled shirt front and dress coat, and carrying a silver-knobbed cane".

Abel Garraway died aged 78 on the 11th of January 1860 at Glebe Villa, Mitcham, and was buried 8 days later at St. Peter & St. Paul Church in the town.

Revised 24 February 2023 (Brian Wellings)

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