S.W.Mobbs - 'Mouth of the River Oulton Broad'

'Mouth of the River - Oulton Broad' - S.W. Mobbs pencil and colour stick on paper - undated but before 1961

Toot and I had our eyes taken by this rather nice painting of the Broad near our home. It was residing in a very tatty frame in the Lowestoft Barnardos Charity Shop. Clearly the artist Mr S. W. Mobbs had received some formal training in graphic art and composition. Whilst I got on with reframing it - Toot did a bit of research on the Internet as to who S. W. Mobbs might be.  Mobbs is a fairly common local name and after Toot's detective work, our best guess is that this tinted drawing is the work of the late Lowestoft Borough Engineer and Architect - Mr. S.W, Mobbs.

Mr Mobbs was quite a polymath being attributed as architect for the old Notley Road Senior School -1934 and the now demolished Sparrows Nest Theatre - 1913.  I believe he also made significant contributions to water resource management and sea defence installations on the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts.

Link:S.W Mobbs

We have one very nice memory of the Sparrow's Nest Theatre. Our youngest son Chrissy performed his first and last 'song' and 'tap' dance routine when 3 years old at this then crumbling venue. The late Mrs. Tindle's Dance Troup - 'Pit-Pat' routine literally brought the house down. Quite humbling to remember that the great Paul Robeson once performed at the Sparrow's Nest Theatre.

As a 'once upon a time' architect myself, I am pleased to give the excellent work of this old time civic engineer and architect a place on a wall in our home and a marker on a blog page.  Keeping names alive is one of the many gifts of the 'Internet' .  Mr. Mobbs was presumably dead before the NET became the library of our lives, hopefully I've done a kind deed of resurrection for his memory.

If anyone knows more about S. W . Mobbs or believes the author of the art work to be someone else please let us know via the comments button.