Alfred Edward Goodey
1878–1945 · collector and benefactor of Derby views
Alfred Edward Goodey (Derby, 3 April 1878 – Derby, 1945) was an English collector whose work preserved a visual record of his native town in the English Midlands. He was not a painter. He gathered oils, watercolours, prints and photographs connected with Derby, and his significance rests on that archive.
The son of William Henry Goodey and Rhoda Strutt, he was educated at home and at the Whitworth School before attending the Derby School of Art. From 1886 he began collecting, searching as far afield as America for anything related to the town. He also commissioned artists to paint contemporary views of Derby, anxious to record whatever might be demolished or changed. He became president of the Derby Sketching Club, and his shrewd eye for pictures that documented local history is what made his name.
His interests included natural history and walking in Derbyshire. He was an amateur Shakespearean actor and founded a local society, rehearsing at The Loft near his home on Ashbourne Road. He has been described as a man about town, with a full beard and moustache, who frequented a pub on Sadler Gate. His partner was Robert Gould Shaw III, known as Bobby Shaw. These social aspects, however, sit behind his work as a collector.
In 1936 he gave more than 500 paintings to the Derby Museum and Art Gallery, and he bequeathed further works along with £13,000 towards an extension to the museum. His collection included paintings by Alfred John Keene, a member of the Keene family of Derby, and by Ernest Townsend. Three of the paintings he gave were by Ernest Ellis Clark, and another was by C. T. Moore. The museum now also holds the largest collection of paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby. The Loft was almost completely demolished in September 2014.
He died in Derby on 7 April 1945 and was cremated at Wilford Hill Crematorium, Nottingham. His ashes were taken to Derby for burial, but the location is unknown. His legacy survives in the museum and in the book Goodey's Derby, published by Derby City Council with images from his collection.