Ed Draws History: Characterisation of Charley and Ann

[Looks like I'd started writing this in 2021, and only now I am getting round to posting it. Hang about, we've got the word "sublimity" in the title - in future work, I want to build some aspects of my favourite concept into Charley, but if you want more of that, go here or here.]

Yep, I’d been reading Burke and Gilpin and all that when I was building these two as characters.

We have no idea what Charles and Ann Mackay might’ve looked like. As part of my experimentation with exploring the potential power balance within William Shaw’s schoolroom, I wanted to make Charley physically impressive in contrast to the small but authoritative William. Likewise, when Charley's at home, I wanted a decent contrast between him and Ann, but for more harmonious reasons than conflicting ones.

Charles Hopkins Mackay (who I constantly refer to as Charley because I feel like it suits him, your own interpretations may vary) was born around 1791, probably somewhere in or near Teesdale, and is of mysterious parentage. Ann Wade was also born in 1791, in the less mysterious village of Headlam, to John and Elizabeth Wade. Charley and Ann got married twice - first, illicitly, on Barnard Castle bridge on 22 February 1809 - and second, legally and by banns, in Gainford Church on 15th November 1809 (and Ann was Very Very Pregnant, and the village gossips had probably been enjoying some most diverting cups of tea recently).

When I was designing them, and some of the other characters, I was reading a lot about Romanticism. It was contemporary with my case study, and has useful strategies to communicate abstract things that are sometimes difficult to say, and I love the emotional intensity of it. (I’ve got a suspicion that Charley might’ve been into it, especially if we look at his adverts.) Two concepts associated with it are Beauty and Sublimity, and these had a huge influence on how I designed Charley and Ann.

Anyway, let’s start drawing them!

So I’d already decided, in a way, that I wanted Charley to be big and impressive and a bit scary-looking. I constructed my initial concepts of these characters all at the same time - quite often, the development of one would help provoke development of another.

Early planning (2019) for body shapes for William, Charley, Bridget, and Ann. The shapes I gave to Bridget and Ann changed over time, while those I gave to their husbands remained the same

I read some things by William Gilpin and Edmund Burke and that introduced me to the contemporary concepts of the Picturesque, and then to Beauty and the Sublime. This was going to be my basis for my characterisation of Charley and Ann as a couple.

From 2019

Basically, Beauty is everything that makes you experience feelings like love - something beautiful might have harmonious colours, or soft textures, or smooth lines - it’s generally very pleasant. If Beauty was personified, you’d want to hang out with them. They’re nice and chill and they make you feel good.

Meanwhile, the Sublime is terror-inducing, but in the best possible way. You feel awe-struck. You’re petrified, but you’re secretly enjoying the fear. This is what Romantics would go in search of, dashing about the place, scaling mountains and nearly falling off cliffs and looking at the sea in a dreadful storm - y’know, that sort of thing.

Ann has a certain amount of Botticelli's Venus in her

Having a brain full of Romanticism myself at the time, I thought it’d be a good idea to apply these concepts to these two characters. As I mentioned, my interpretation of Charley presents him as a great big brawny chap, so he’d take on aspects of the Sublime, whereas Ann would take on aspects of the Beautiful.

These are all from 2019 or thereabouts. Their dancing is based on this, drawn by Woodward/ George Moutard and etched by Isaac Cruikshank - also available at the top of this post

(I suppose, adding to this, is my ideas about their relationship - I like to think that they were very excited about each other, what with them running off together and having an illegal wedding. Charley himself, in his adverts, seems like a very passionate and excitable chap, at least in my interpretation. He also describes himself in his adverts for his school as a “family man” and claims that he’s very protective of any kids who end up in his care… Anyway.)

Charley at work; Charley at home (still obsessed by work, according to some of the stuff in his adverts); Charley and Ann based on a couple I saw under a bridge on a damp grey summer day (he was leaning against a wall so she'd have something warm to lean again, don't worry I didn't immediately stop and whip my sketchbook out at them, I just kept them in my head until I got home). These drawings are from 2019-2020.

I like to imagine Charley as one of those dads who's always (or most often) ready for whatever games his and Ann's kids want to play. These drawings are from 2020 and 2021

[And that was as far as I got with the writing on the original version of this post. Here's my 2024 additions:]

This arrangement of sketchbook extracts nearly ended up in my thesis. Primarily costume design. Ann is a bit high-fashion in these (not sure she'd be able to afford some of this kit, which I'd referenced from a trip to Bath Fashion Museum in January 2020). Charley's nearly bursting out of his clothes, which I thought might communicate something about status/ power, makes him look a bit more wild, and also suggests he's a stereotypical cheapskate Yorkshireman (like me). These drawings are from 2019 and 2020.

Ann appears once in Disorder (drawn 2020-2021). In this panel, she's met an ophthalmia-infected woman in Bowes - apparently the disease was in the village, not just in the school.

In 2021, I had a great time with Beverley Pilcher's book Barnard Castle and the Cholera Outbreak, 1849 (I bought a copy from St Mary's Church in Barnard Castle in 2019 and I don't know where you can get your own, but here's an article about it). I should probably have been working on Disorder but it's more fun drawing comics in response to terrible cholera stories. Charley caught the disease towards the end of the outbreak, and I wondered what he and Ann might have experienced.

Charley is buried (unmarked) in the mass grave round the side of the church. (Ann's grave, which might be in the same churchyard but I'll have to find out, also doesn't have a marker.) In one of the comics on this spread, Rev. Dugard (another person I have no idea what he looks like) looks slightly too much like William. Also a bit on the right-hand page where I break from the comic to pass comment on some of the contemporary recommendations about fruit and veg.

These ones focussed more on how Ann might've been after Charley's death. These are all preparation for a comic I want to do (heck knows when) in the future, about Ann and Charley. On this spread, Ann gets annoyed about some of the potential treatments, feels deep frustration over the idea that cholera had been sent for a purpose, and has a philosophical conundrum that turns into a weird dream. Lower right-hand page: if I'd just read about cholera, I'd be like "that's grim", but having characters I can visualise in awful situations makes it much more intense.

This whole thing, combined with Ann Mackay listed in the Barnard Castle census of 1861 as "schoolmaster's widow", gave me Ideas about how to build more aspects into her and make her more interesting as a character. Might she be more respectable than her husband? What about the kids? It's easy to describe them as a list of names and dates, and more fun if you start imagining what they might've been like.

Charley and Ann both feature in (Un)Known Associates, which I drew the final illustrations for in early 2022.

These ones are from the cast list, introducing (U)KA's users to the characters.

They appear together on these three cards, which can be read as a narrative (or rearranged to make different narratives, which fits with my overall aims, wanting to encourage people to create their own histories)

Ann appears with Bridget on a couple of the cards, and Charley appears (more frequently) with William. I suppose this reflects how we've got more information about William and Charley than we have about Bridget and Ann, which will help me work out what I need to add for (U)KA2 or subsequent expansion packs. The middle card shows both couples (and me), and also indicates how I ended up associating them with the four classical elements

Another thing I involved in some of my character designs: stealing symbolism/ associations from certain aspects of Western occultism (such as the four elements, the seven classical planets, various ancient deities, etc), adding further levels of interpretive fun.

In my interpretation, I made Bridget align with earth (practical and good with money), Ann align with water (good with relationships and emotions), William align with air (intellectual and precise), and Charley align with fire (energetic and creative).

But then, when I was doing my thesis, I noticed something incredibly unfortunate about some of this: an apparent reliance/ tolerance for binaries! So I'm going to rework some of this stuff in future projects on this same case study. I'm also redesigning Ann slightly: my work is about encouraging people to (re)imagine their own histories, to see themselves or aspects of themselves in their versions of the past, not to rely on conventional/ traditional/ outdated understandings of what the past was 'really' like (I'm not gonna start) - the past belongs to everyone.

Here's some newer bits from the second half of 2023.