Olive Hockin (1881–1936) – British artist, suffragette, author

With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for this post

Olive was born early in 1881 in Bude, Cornwall, UK.  Her parents were Edward Hockin and his wife, Margaret Sarah Hockin, nee Floyer.   Edward died in June 1880, shortly before Olive was born.  Olive had a brother, Arthur, b. 1878

Olive studied art at The Slade School of Art.  By 1911, she was living in Berkshire and described her occupation as “artist".

She was imprisoned for four months in 1913 for bomb attacks at the home of Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. Papers with Olive's address were found at the scene of the attack and wire cutters and paraffin were later discovered at her home. While she was in prison, Olive agreed not to go on hunger strike providing she could continue to create art.  Olive continued exhibiting at the Society of Women Artists, at the Walker Gallery and until 1915, at the Royal Academy.


During the First World War, Olive  joined the Women’s Land Army and worked on a farm in Dartmoor, Devon. She wrote a book describing her experience as a Land-girl entitled “Two Girls on the Land: Wartime on a Dartmoor Farm”, published by E. Arnold, London, 1918.   Here is a quote from the book:

“In those early days of the War it was not common for a young woman to go about seeking situations as a farm-hand.  In the West Country especially, such a thing was almost unknown and long after the sight of lady farm-workers had become a commonplace in the home counties, th idea would be greeted with sceptical and derisive laughter by the slow-moving old farmers of Devon.” (Chapter 1 – “Arrival”, p. 8).

"Moorland View" watercolour by Olive Hockin

In 1922, Olive married John H. Leared who trained polo ponies in Cheltenham. They had two sons.

The National Portrait Gallery has a picture of her by the Criminal Record Office, and two pages of picture called "Surveillance Photograph of Militant Suffragettes", also by the Criminal Record Office, which includes her.

Illustrations:
Cover of the Summer edition of the Suffragette publication "Votes for Women" designed by Olive Hockin. Date: June 26th 1914
And “Moorland View” watercolour

Olive Hockin cover design for "Votes for Women"

Sources:

http://www.rammuseum.org.uk/…/olive-hockin-suffragette-art…/

https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/olive-hockin/

https://www.mediastorehouse.com/…/votes-women-summer-1914-1…
Find my Past and
Free BMD
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89034614867&view=1up&seq=7

Gilbert Rogers (1881 – 1956) – British Artist

With thanks to Sally Enzer for use of her research material from 'Gilbert Rogers - A Life'.

Gilbert Rogers was born on 9th November 1881 in Freshfield, Lancashire, then a small
village some fourteen miles north of Liverpool. His father, William Rogers, was a watch
and clockmaker, whose family had migrated to Liverpool from North Wales in the 1840s.
Gilbert’s schooling began at the Liverpool Institute, a short distant from the family
home at 14 Falkner Street. Displaying early artistic talent he went on to study art at the
Liverpool City School of Art where he later became a tutor as well as working as a
professional portrait painter. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1909, 1910, 1912
and 1914.

He enlisted into the ranks of the Royal Army Medical Corps on 9th November 1915 (Army
No. 78529) for Home Service and was sent to Eastbourne for his military and medical
training. He eventually became an instructor at the RAMC officer training school at
Blackpool.

In 1918 he was called upon to manage a small group of RAMC soldier-artists who had
been commissioned by the Committee for the Medical History of the War to record the
war work of the military and civilian medical services (including the British Red Cross
Society & Order of St John of Jerusalem & the Voluntary Aid Detachment) both at home
and abroad. Rogers travelled to the Western Front in July 1918. The artists worked from
the Avenue Studios, located off Fulham Road in London, and were provided with art
materials, props and staff to assist them. In total they produced some six hundred pieces
of work which included paintings, models and bronzes. He was commissioned as a
Temporary Lieutenant for this role and received the Military MBE in the Peace Gazette of
June 1919. These artworks formed the Medical Section of the Great War Exhibition
which opened on the 9th June 1920 at the newly-established Imperial War Museum at
Crystal Palace, Sydenham Hill. The art works were later distributed to various military
establishments and can now be found at both the Imperial War Museum and the
Wellcome Collection in London.

After demobilisation in April 1920 Gilbert Rogers returned to Liverpool and became a
director of his younger brother’s furniture manufacturing and upholstery company, Guy
Rogers, Ltd. It was a popular local employer and the brothers were a respected and
successful partnership.

In 1922 Rogers became President of the Artists’ Club, a long-established gentlemen’s
business and social club, and maintained close links with the Liverpool artists community,
although there is no evidence that he continued his work as a portrait painter.

In 1924 he married Gertrude Jane Iceton in 1924, the former wife of his friend and art
school tutor, Arthur Baxter. The couple moved out of Liverpool and set up home on the
Wirral Peninsula, where Gilbert Rogers died on 20th May 1956 at their home in Oxton.

A number of Gilbert Rogers’ war-time oil paintings have been included in exhibitions
across the country to commemorate the centenary of the Great War, which has brought
renewed interest in this previously largely uncelebrated.

Sally Enzer <enzersally@gmail.com>

Joyce Dennys (1893 – 1991) – British WW1 artist, VAD and nurse

Isabelle Dorothy Joyce Dennys was born in Simla, East Punjab State, India on 14th August 1893.  Her parents were Charles John Dennys, an officer in the British Army, and his wife, Lucy Wineward.

The Dennys family returned to Britain in 1886. Dennys enjoyed drawing lessons throughout her schooling and later enrolled at Exeter Art School.

Joyce was studying art when the First World War broke out. She volunteered to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment but, as she was too young to qualify as a VAD nurse, Joyce worked initially at General Duties at the Red Cross Auxiliary Hospital in Budleigh Salterton from December1914 - December 1915. Joyce said ‘All I ever did was to wash up plates and dishes, knives and forks. I had never done anything of the kind before because those were the days of servants, and in spite of being so poor, my parents had two.’

Sometime around 1915, Joyce drew the artwork for a VAD poster, used nationally to recruit women to Voluntary Aid Detachment work.

In early 1916, Joyce passed the Red Cross examinations to become a nurse and went to work at Hospital No. 2 in Exeter. Joyce’s friend Mary Tindall began composing humorous verses to accompany Joyce’s paintings. Joyce approached a publisher and their work was accepted and published. ‘Our Hospital ABC’ represents not only the alphabet but also the Australian (Anzac), British and Canadian soldiers who were treated at Hospital No.2 in Exeter.

“When we took it in turns to do night duty (…) I would get out my candle and my paint box and paint all night. The night surgeon said, “I really think that little nurse might wait ‘til I’ve finished my rounds.”’

In 1919 Dennys married Thomas Cann Evans, a young doctor who had been in Australia in 1914 and and who had been a major in the Australian Army Medical Corps.  Joyce and Tom moved to Australia. While living in New South Wales, Joyce's work was constantly in print and exhibited in many galleries. In 1922, the family moved back to Britain and settled in Budleigh Salterton, Devon. Joyce studied at the London Art School and continued to paint, draw and publish for the rest of her life. In 1926, painter Joyce Dennys (1893–1991) and writer Edmund George Valpy Knox, aka Evoe (1870 – 2 January) collaborated on A Winter Sports Alphabet.

Joyce died in London in 1991 and was cremated. Her ashes were scattered off the coast of Budleigh Salterton.

Sources:

https://flashbak.com/joyce-dennys-and-edmund-knoxs-winter-alphabet-1926-368910/

http://www.devonremembers.co.uk/content/ww1-stories/nurse-artist-and-author

http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2013/03/more-joyce-dennys-paintings-on-display.html

https://www.bloomsbury.com/author/joyce-dennys

https://www.modernbritishartgallery.com/works__A_722__.htm