in the St Louis Exhibition and Sympathy in the 1906 New Zealand Exhibition. Gore was also a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the Royal Institute of Oil Painters. Gore remained an active painter until he turned 70 in 1927. He died on 5 May 1942 Landscape and rural scenes paintings Many of W.H. Gore’s rural paintings display a nostalgic view of the nearby Kennet Valley and the surrounding Berkshire countryside. The influence of the French Barbizon School of realism and in particular the work of Jean-François Millet and François-Louis Français is evident in his work. The heyday of the Barbizon School was over by c 1870 but Gore incorporates some of the prominent features of the French school in the use of: colour, softness of form and in tonal qualities. Two works by Millet The Angelus a painting of two figures standing during a contemplative moment and The Gleaners the latter portraying the figures toiling in the landscape were well known to late Victorians and their symbolic content influenced Gore in his depiction of rural life. Paintings from the 1880s such as: Listed from the Guildhall collection in London and a watercolour In The Gloaming are intimate portrayals of Late Victorian romantic painting. Listed (sic) depicts two young lovers in sad reflection of the prospect of a young man joining up with his regiment. The ribbons in his cap refer to the custom of new recruits wearing their regimental colours to denote their willingness to be shot at for sixpence a day. The pathos of the idea expressed moved H. Stacy Marks, R.A., who was a member of the Council of the Royal Academy, to tears such was its effect on his sensibilities. Marks reaction provides an insight into the mind-set of many Victorians. In The Gloaming sees two lovers by the River Kennet in tender proximity to each other. These were themes that Gore returned to throughout his painting career. They provided him with a reasonable living but by the end of his life they were unfashionable and no longer in demand. They appealed to a late Victorian sensibility that the values of a Merrie England of bucolic contentment still existed. The reality was that the Berkshire countryside, along with the rest of the British countryside, was irrevocably changing. The 1880s were a time of an economic recession in the English countryside that