Nick Simpson

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Size Framed: 860mm x 740mm

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Lord Darlington was a wealthy industrialist and Philanthropist, owning both coal mines and industrial engineering companies in the North East of England.

In 1900 he designed a magnificent walking machine in order to advertise the expertise of his engineering company and foundry.

In 1902 Samuel Heracles Gascoigne-Simpson was invited to County Durham 

to witness and record the spectacle of the first steaming and maiden run of Lord 

Darlington's magnificent folly, ‘The Astonishing Steam Rhinomotive’. 

A low bass rumble deep from within its bowels threatens to dislodge the very 

windows from the surrounding houses; boilers gurgle, gears clank and steam jets

 forth; filling the street with clouds of ungodly vaporous mist. Then - in a deafening 

crescendo of protesting shuddering metal - gears reluctantly engage and the 

magnificent iron beast  lurches forward, its master at the helm the only thing 

preventing total destruction of everything in its path.

(Eye witness account, Durham Chronicle October 1902)

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 870mm x 715mm

Additional notes:

This picture depicts the sitter reliving the moment of missed glory when perhaps 30 years earlier during the Crimean War, he was responsible for delivering the infamously vague order at the Battle of Balaclava for the British cavalry to charge the Russian guns, resulting in one of the most dramatic disasters in British Military history.

Lord Lucan received the order and asked our eponymous hero as to which guns were meant, our 'hero' replied "'There are your guns sir," and further added to the confusion by gesticulating vaguely in the direction of the bedded in Russian artillery, which was not the intended target.  

Although  almost certain death was inevitable, British honour would not allow the orders to be questioned further, and the British cavalry led by Lord Cardigan charged irregardless resulting in huge casualties and the failure to gain any military advantage whatsoever.

It should be noted that our hero took no part in the ensuing battle, and after delivering those ill fated lines, rode off in the opposite direction to the safety of the rear of the British lines...

The title of the picture comes from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 345mm x 395mm

Additional notes:

Miss Victoria Hopkins, a former darling of the music hall, enjoyed even greater fame as a female boxer touring England in the latter part of 19th century as part of the ‘Sidney Simpkins Slideshow Extravaganza’.

Billed as ‘The Petticoat Pugilist’, Hopkins was enormously popular on the British boxing scene of the 1890s, opening her bouts with a terrifying tirade of abuse at anyone foolhardy enough to challenge her. 

Women’s boxing was completely unregulated at the time and allowed kicking, gouging and biting during matches - and Hopkins thrilled fans by fighting both women and men. Taking on all-comers, challengers would rarely make it to the second round, Miss Hopkins only losing the 30 shilling purse twice in an illustrious 12 year career.

Despite Hopkins popularity with the public, women’s boxing remained completely underground until The British Boxing Board of Control finally issued the first licences to women boxers in 1998.

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 345mm x 395mm

Additional notes:

In his youth Gascoigne–Simpson was a keen Nadgerer, and participated in both disciplines up to county level. However in 1863 an injury sustained against the ’Birmingham Boilers’ curtailed a promising career.


Despite being unable to participate, he continued to document Nadgerering, even after the practice was outlawed and consequently forced underground by an act of Parliament in 1872.

Fans of both Spot and Goose Nadgering will be glad to hear there are a number of as yet un-restored plates of Nadgering in the collection, including the infamous ‘Grantham Grobbellers’ team of 1867. 

We hope to be able to exhibit these in the near future. From the ‘Bumforth Manor Collection’, the recently rediscovered archive of photographic work by the Victorian eccentric and photographic pioneer, Samuel Heracles Gascoigne-Simpson.

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 390mm x 360mm

Additional notes:

'Madam there’s a gentleman at the door with a big shiny horn asking if we want saving?…

‘Really? Well don’t keep the poor man waiting, show him through immediately!’

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 345mm x 395mm

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 10

Size Framed: 1005mm x 865mm

As this is a large piece, please contact us for shipping costs.

Additional notes:

The notes regarding this picture have unfortunately been lost over time, but I’m sure the discerning viewer will have little difficulty in unravelling exactly what is going on here.

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 345mm x 395mm

Additional notes:

The Honourable Theodore Duckworth-Lewis 

Duckworth-Lewis famously scored a century for 'The Gentleman' against 'The Players' at the Oval in 1885, and was a founding member of the Lincolnshire Cupboard Society.

An early exponent of healthy eating, Duckworth-Lewis was credited with popularising kale (until then considered merely cattle food). He was also the very first person to 'activate' an almond and was the inventor of 'The Duckworth-Lewis Balancing Syphon Coffee Maker'. Perhaps the very first Hipster?

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 345mm x 395mm

Additional notes:

The Dowager Duchess FitzGibbon-Fyne with a ‘nephew’. receiving ‘The Order of The Grebe’ at the Lincolnshire Cupboard Society, by Samuel Heracles Gascoigne-Simpson c.1879.

The little known Lincolnshire Cupboard Society was said to have had members that included a bishop, two members of parliament and a stuffed ostrich. Gascoigne-Simpson was believed to have been a member of this secret society, where, following the confiscation of the club’s diary during a Lincolnshire constabulary investigation into the practice of molly laundering in 1890, it was revealed that at society meetings, members were required to adopt the demeanour and dress of another - not present...

Historians have speculated that this may refer to the practice of ‘cross dressing’, however no evidence has so far come to light that proves this to be the case.

Prior to its loss during an air raid in 1941, the diary was on display (alongside a stuffed ostrich) at Lincoln Museum. As a small boy, I would visit the museum every Saturday morning whilst my mother did the weekly shop. Wandering enthralled amongst the rows of suits of armour and displays of pikes and swords, I was somewhat puzzled by the incongruous presence of a rather moth-eaten stuffed ostrich, complete with wheels where its feet should have been. Had this large flightless bird evolved in such a manner to enable it’s speedy escape from predators? Little did I know at the time, that my great grandfather Samuel Heracles Gascoigne-Simpson, the Victorian eccentric and photographic pioneer, may well have sat next to this very bird whilst enjoying a sumptuous dinner as a member of The Lincolnshire Cupboard Society. Some pages of the afore mentioned diary did survive the attentions of the Luftwaffe, and disclose that on banqueting nights, the ostrich was wheeled out from its cupboard and placed at table in order to ensure an uneven number of people were always seated for dinner.

Another entry of particular interest, is from March 1879, and references the Dowager FitzGibbon-Fynes and her nephew Mary Redland performing a particularly captivating two-part fan dance before the Prince of Denmark. Whether this refers to the public house that stood until 1966 on Grantham High Road, or the actual Prince himself is unconfirmed. 

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 345mm x 395mm

Additional notes:

This steam powered self propulsion unit utilises an early form of roller skates, and it was the previously mentioned servant who was the unfortunate test pilot on the initial trial.

Apparently it didn't end well. Although the first 100yards were covered in a record time, failure to negotiate the first bend encountered resulted in the pilot hitting a stone wall at an estimated forty miles an hour.

Dr Crighton however considered this to be a great success and it should be noted that he and my great grandfather generously continued to pay the servant at half rate until his broken leg got better and he was able to return to duties. Unfortunately no amount of threats or bribery would convince the servant to don the apparatus again, and of course due to his permanent limp this meant that their correspondence travelled at a much slower rate than before. Eventually in frustration, Dr Crighton and my great grandfather agreed to buy him a horse, which he promptly fell off and this time broke his neck. Luckily for everyone concerned, a replacement servant was quickly found, who turned out to be both an excellent skater and an accomplished horseman. 

Limited Edition Signed and Numbered Giclee Print

Edition of 50

Size Framed: 345mm x 395mm

Additional notes:

Dr. Crighton was a fellow inventor and great friend of my great grandfather; the English eccentric and photographic pioneer Samuel Heracles Gascoigne-Simpson.

Dr. Crighton resided at the village of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth in Lincolnshire (close to the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton), and only a few miles from our family seat of Bumforth Manor.

They shared the cost of employing an athletic servant whose exhausting job it was to run back and forth between their two houses with letters bearing notes and detailed diagrams of their respective ideas and inventions. In addition to the apparatus depicted here, Dr. Crighton was the originator of a number of ingenious and labour saving devices of the time, including ‘A Recreational Perambulation device’ (steam powered self propulsion unit utilising an early form of roller skates), the infamous ‘Anti Drowning Hat’, and the somewhat ungainly ‘Crighton’s Automated Potato Peeler’...with which two servants, with practice, could successfully peel a single large potato in under an hour.