Alfred Ackrill - 1907 - 1988

Alf Ackrill was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, one of nine children. When he was three years old his family moved to Oldham, Lancashire where he was to spend the majority of his life. The exceptions were a short period pre-war when he laboured on the railways in Surrey, and the war years when he served with the Royal Signals Corps in North Africa and Italy.

His early life was one of abject poverty like many others of that time.  Even so he couldn't remember a time when he didn't sketch and paint. Any scrap of paper would be his sketchpad in those early days.

His wife Florence, who knew him as a child, recalled how he would sit on the kerb sketching when the other children were playing, even as young as six or seven. At the age of 14 his obvious talents won him a scholarship to the Oldham College of Art

Unfortunately, Alf's dreams of becoming a professional artist were not to be.  Family poverty forced him to leave college after only several months and find a job to help support the home. He worked first on the railways and then on various building sites, wherever work was available in the tough times of the 1920's and 30's.

He was a builder's labourer for the rest of his life, working long hours outdoors, sketching his workmates in the lunch breaks and spending all of his spare time practising his craft with total dedication.

 Homemade sketchpads cobbled together with off-cuts of paper and held together with bits of chopped off board and string still exist. They contain many expressive sketches of the workers relaxing with a mug of tea, sitting around eating their sandwiches or even snatching a nap in a wheelbarrow, forever immortalised.  

He became a member of Oldham Art Society and exhibited at many venues throughout the north of England during their long association. Although he was often asked, he would rarely sell his paintings, preferring to give them away.

He was never totally happy with the finished product, always striving to do better, even though his expertise was respected and appreciated by his peers who accepted that his talent and effortless expression was beyond many of them.  His opinion would often be sought as a measure of the quality of their own work.