An original framed and mounted dry-point engraving by the artist engraver Frances Dodd RA showing Poplar Old Town hall on Newby Place in 1930.

Hand signed in pencil by the artist.

Built between 1870 and 1871, Poplar Old Town Hall on Newby Place was the site of local governance in the London Borough of for a number of years before being replaced by larger premises on Poplar High Street. It later played a cherished role in the world of Music Hall and boxing.

It was set alight on September 7th 1940 by German incendiary bombs and, as noone could be found to unlock the doors, it burned to the ground. It was demolished and replaced by flats after the war.

Frances Dodd was an British portrait painter, landscape artist and printmaker who achieved his greatest acclaim between the wars. He trained at the Glasgow School of Art, alongside Muirhead Bone, where he won the Haldane Prize before travelling widely in Europe. After settling for a period in Manchester a friendship formed with Charles Holden (of London Underground Map fame) drew him south to the Capital. In London he earned his living through portrait commissions and on the strength of his work for the War Propaganda Bureau during the Great War,

He was appointed a trustee of the Tate Gallery in 1929, a position he held for six years, and was elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1927 and a full Member in 1935.

Dodd lived at Arundel House (51 Blackheath Park) in Blackheath, London SE3 from 1911 until his suicide in 1949.