Coronation Street Blog: Corrie’s most famous artwork

Guest blog post from Mark Llewllin

Fancy writing a guest blog post for us?

All details here!

Mark Llewellin is a friend of us all here on the Coronation Street Blog. He's a man who knows a thing or two about life behind the scenes at our favourite soap. You can find out more about him here.

Mark has very kindly offered to share some of those memories with us here on the Blog. We'll be running a blog post from Mark each day with some of Mark's memories.

And so, here we go with the fifth of many wonderful blogs from Mark!

THE PATHFINDER

Corrie’s most famous artwork

For as long as most people can remember, behind the front door of the Barlow’s home, has hung a distinctive print. It’s of a boy (Percy Greaves) in full scouting uniform with the ghostly apparition of Christ with his hand on the boy’s shoulder. It is in fact called The Pathfinder and the original is by British painter Ernest Stafford Carlos.

Carlos was born on 4th June 1883 and was educated in Kennington, South London. He later studied at the Lambeth Art School and then at the Royal Academy for three years on a scholarship.

His first studio was at 42 Foxley Road, North Brixton, which he set up in 1904 setting himself up as a portrait artist. During the next few years Carlos took an interest in youth poverty and became involved in a number of projects in London’s East End. With the formation of the Boy Scout movement in 1908 he saw an opportunity to aid underprivileged children and together with his brother, the Rev. JB Carlos, he founded the 107th South London Scout Troop.

With his interest in scouting came a new direction for his work – he began to produce more and more paintings with a scouting theme, many of which were used on greetings cards to raise money and awareness for the movement. In 1914 Carlos volunteered for the army but was rejected on medical grounds however, when he presented himself again in 1916 he was accepted and joined the Royal East Kent Regiment. He was posted to France where he was killed on 14th or 15th June 1917 during the Battle of Messines. He is buried at Chester Farm Cemetery, Zillebeke, Belgium.

The Pathfinder, perhaps his most famous work, was used as the design of a stained glass window to commemorate him at Holy Cross Church in Hornchurch. There are also a number of other Pathfinder stained glass windows including at St Gabriel’s in Middleton, Manchester (very close to the brewery which doubled as Newton and Ridley’s for many years). The original painting is still owned by the Scout Association.

Stay tuned for more from Mark!

Glenda Young

Author of gritty, family saga novels with Headline