Colin Unwin Gill (1892 –1940) – British artist – WW1 war artist

Colin Unwin Gill was born at Bexleyheath in Kent, UK on 12th May 1892.  His parents were George Joseph Gill, who worked for the Metropolitan Water Board, and his wife, Sarah Sharey Gill, nee Driver.  Colin’s siblings were Alan Streatfield Gill, b. 1896 and David Ashdown Gill, b. 1904. By 1911, the family were living in Sevenoaks, Kent.  Colin was a cousin of Eric Gill (1882 – 1940), who became a sculptor

Colin studied art at the Slade School of Art, and in 1913 became the first recipient of the Rome Scholarship in Decorative Painting to the British School in Rome.

When war broke out in 1914, Colin was commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery and was posted to the Western Front as a Second Lieutenant with the 17th Heavy Battery.  In 1916, he was seconded to the Royal Engineers in order to work as a camouflage officer.  In March 1918, Colin was sent back to Britain, suffering from exposure to poison gas, where he recuperated in the Hospital for Officers on the Isle of Wight.

In May 1918, Colin volunteered to work as a war artist but was turned down and continued to work as a camouflage instructor.  He returned to France on 7th November 1918 visiting Mons hours after it had been retaken by the Allies.

In 1919, Colin married Phyllis Seyler Andrews.

After the war, Colin  returned to the British School in Rome. In 1939, he received a commission to paint murals at the Johannesburg Magistrates' Courts and died  in South Africa on 16th November November 1940.

WW1 Paintings: Portrait of a Gunner and Heavy Artillery.

Will Dyson (1880 – 1938) - Australian artist, writer and poet

Known to friends and family as Bill, William Henry Dyson was born in Alfredton, now in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, on 3rd September 1880. His father was George Dyson, a hawker who became a mining engineer, and his mother was Jane Dyson, née Mayall.  Educated at state schools in Ballarat and South Melbourne, Will became an artist like his brother, Ambrose (1876 – 1913), and went to work for the “Adelaide Critic”.

In 1910, Will married Ruby Lindsay.  Ruby came from a well-known family of artists. The couple went to live in London and Will found work with the “Weekly Despatch”. He also drew some coloured cartoons for "Vanity Fair" magazine, which he signed with the pen-name "Emu". Some time later, he began to contribute to the British newspaper “The Daily Herald” (1912 – 1964). His work soon became popular and in 1914, Will published some of his work in a publication entitled “Cartoons”.   In 1915, he was made an official Australian War Artist on the Western Front.

Will was not concerned with his personal safety and was wounded twice while sketching on the Western Front.  Exhibitions of his work were held in London.  In November 1918, Will published a book of his work entitled “Australia at War”.

Ruby died in March 1919 and Will was overcome with grief. Not long after his wife's death, Will drew a cartoon, entitled "Peace and Future Cannon Fodder", which was remarkable in its uncanny foresight.  Published in “The Daily Herald” on 13th May 1919, the cartoon depicted David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando and Georges Clemenceau (the Prime Ministers respectively of Britain, Italy and France), together with Woodrow Wilson, (the President of the United States), emerging after a meeting at Versailles to discuss the Peace Treaty. Clemenceau, who was identified by his nickname "The Tiger", is saying to the others: "Curious! I seem to hear a child weeping!" A child in tears stands behind a pillar and a poster proclaims "1940 Class".

In 1920, Will published some of Ruby’s work – “Drawings of Ruby Lind (London, Cecil Palmer 1920) and he also published a volume of his poems – “Poems in Memory of a Wife”.

Will then took up dry pointing and he quickly mastered the possibilities of that medium. In 1925, he returned to Australia for five years and worked for th “Melbourne Herald” and “Punch”.  After a successful exhibition of his dry point creations in New York, Will held an exhibition in London.  He worked again for "The Daily Herald" while there.  Will died on 21st January 1938.  He and his wife are buried together in Section D10 of Hendon Cemetery in London NW7.

“Surrender” a poem by Will Dyson

Now wrap you in such armour as you may,
And make your tardy peace with suffering,
Since grief must be your housemate to the end ...
Nor is it meet that in these bloody years
Such traffic you should make of common wounds.
What is your grief above our mortal lot
That in a world where all must carry scars,
You clamour to the skies as though were fall’n
A prodigy to earth in this your woe.
Now make your peace, and go as you have gone:
The world was so before this grief befell,
But you, the broken, have in breaking learned
A wisdom that you lacked when you were whole.
... in your veins no flavoured stuff doth flow
That fate should beat upon your head in vain.
... Now bend thee to the yoke,
And teach thy heart no longer to rebel.

Source:
https://www.aph.gov.au/~/~/link.aspx?_id=811A1C57DBF74CFD96552241F3ED363A&_z=z

Francis Edgar Dodd RA (1874 – 1949) was a British artist and printmaker

A post by Chris Dubbs on the Facebook Page Artists of the First World War led me to research Francis Edgar Dodd.

Francis Edgar Dodd was born on 29th November 1874 in Holyhead, Anglesey, Wales. His parents were Benjamin Dodd, a Wesleyan Church Minister, and his wife, Jane Frances Dodd, nee Shaw. Francis had the following siblings:  Benjamin Herbert, Frederick R., Gertrude Helena, Walter Stanley and Elsie Lilian.   In 1881 the family lived in Bolton, Lancashire and in 1891 they lived in Barony, Kelvin, Lanarkshire, Scotland.

Francis studied art at the Glasgow School of Art, where a fellow student was Muirhead Bone, who married Francis’s sister Gertrude Helena. In 1893, while studying in Glasgow, Francis won the Haldane Scholarship, awarded by the Trustees at the School  for travel. That enabled  him to study art in France, Italy and later Spain.  Francis returned to Britain in 1895, where he lived in Manchester, before moving to Blackheath in London in 1904. While in Manchester, Francis became friendly with Charles Holden, the architect.

In 1911, Francis married Mary A. Ingle. The couple lived at Arundel House, Blackheath Park, in Blackheath, London SE3.

In 1916, Francis was appointed official war artist by Charles Masterman, the Head of the War Propaganda Bureau (WPB), replacing Muirhead Bone.    He served on the Western Front and painted over thirty portraits of senior military personnel.  On 5th June 1918, Francis joined the Royal Navy.

Surrendered U-boat under British flag 20 Nov 1918 by Francis Dodd. IWM image

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

After the death of his first wife, Francis married Ellen Margaret Tanner in March 1949.  Ellen was the model for his painting “Lady in Black”.  Francis died at his home in Blackheath on 7th March 1949.

Portrait of Francis Dodd painted by his nephew Stephen Bone (13 November 1904 – 15 September 1958) – son of Muirhead Bone and Francis’s sister Gertrude.

Charles Henry Holden Litt.D, FRIBA, MRTPI, RDI (12 May 1875 – 1 May 1960) – architect

Charles Henry Holden Litt.D, FRIBA, MRTPI, RDI (12 May 1875 – 1 May 1960) – architect - and his wife, Margaret Steadman (née Macdonald, 1865–1954), a nurse and midwife, rushed to help in WW1.

During the First World War, Margaret Holden joined the "Friends' Emergency Committee for the Assistance of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians in distress" which helped refugees of those countries stranded in London by the conflict. Charles Holden served with the Red Cross's London Ambulance Column as a stretcher-bearer transferring wounded troops from London's stations to its hospitals. Holden also served on the fire watch at St Paul's Cathedral between 1915 and 1917.

On 3 October 1917, Holden was appointed a temporary lieutenant with the army's Directorate of Graves Registration and Enquiries. He travelled to the Western Front for the first time later that month and began planning new cemeteries and expanding existing ones.

Charles described what he saw: “The country is one vast wilderness, blasted out of recognition where once villages & orchards & fertile land, now tossed about & churned in hopeless disorder with never a landmark as far as the eye can reach & dotted about in the scrub and untidiness of it all are to be seen here & there singly & in groups little white crosses marking the place where men have fallen and been buried.”

In September 1918, Charles transferred to the Imperial War Graves Commission (now called the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) with the rank of Major. From 1918 until 1928 he worked on 69 Commission cemeteries, initially, managing the drawing office and working as the senior design architect under the three principal architects in France and Belgium - Edwin Lutyens, Reginald Blomfield and Herbert Baker

In 1920, he was promoted to be the fourth principal architect. His work for the Commission included memorials to the New Zealand missing dead at Messines Ridge British Cemetery, and the Buttes New British Cemetery at Zonnebeke.

In 1922, Holden designed the War Memorial Gateway for Clifton College, Bristol, using a combination of limestone and gritstone to match the Gothic style of the school's buildings.

Portrait of Charles Holden by his friend the artist Francis Edgar Dodd.

Philip Connard, CVO, RA, (1875 - 1958) - British artist

Philip Connard was born in Southport, Lancashire, UK, on 24th March 1875.  He left school to go out to work as a house decorator, enrolling to study art at evening classes.  Philip won a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art in London.   After a brief period in France, he returned to London and worked as an illustrator, before taking  up a teaching post at Lambeth School of Art.

During the First World War, Philip volunteered and joined the Royal Field Artillery as a Gunner (Private).  He was posted to France, where he took part in several actions before being sent home suffering from Shell Shock.  By then, he had attained the rank of Captain.

Appointed as an official war artist by the Royal Navy, Philip painted the surrender of the German ship SMS “Goeben” and “St George's Day: Bridge of HMS 'Canterbury', on Patrol Work when the Great Naval Raid on Zeebrugge and Ostend Took Place” on 23rd April 1918.

Elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1918, Philip became a full Academician in 1925. He was Keeper of the Royal Academy school - the principal tutor - from 1945 to 1949. He was member of the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours. In 1950, Philip was appointed a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.

Philip never forgot his roots, founding The Southport Palette Club in 1921 in order to hold annual exhibitions of the work of local artists. He was President of the Club until his death on 8th December 1958.

With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for posting this painting on Artists of the First World War Facebook Group Page.

Gertrude Leese (1870-1963) – British VAD, artist and illustrator

Clare Walters, writer, has researched Gertrude. Clare says:

“During the First World War, Leese volunteered in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) at Etaples, in an Allied military camp that had many hospitals on site. The Imperial War Museum holds five sketches Leese made while there, which she donated to the museum in 1954. These delicate, dynamic ink-on-paper illustrations give us a glimpse into life on a busy wartime base.

During the first decade of the twentieth century she illustrated a number of books for George Bell and Sons, including George Sand’s La Mare au Diable and François le Champi in 1908, and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe in 1909. Her name is credited in substantial type on the covers and title pages of these books, and each includes a generous mix of black-and-white line illustrations and coloured plates. She had studied with Max Bohm (1868-1923) at the international art colony in the fishing port of Etaples, and her work was shown at the ‘Salon des Artistes Français’ in Paris in 1902.

Leese was friends with many artists of the time, including Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957), co-founder of the Vorticist movement, and Helen Saunders (1885-1963) and Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939). Along with Lewis and others, Saunders and Dismorr both signed the original Vorticist manifesto in 1914 and they are depicted in William Roberts’ 1961 painting, held in the Tate, The Vorticists at the Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel: Spring 1915 (the restaurant was in Percy Street, London). Leese was also close friends with her second cousin, Catherina Dawson Giles (1878-1955), known as Kathie, another painter who knew this group.

In 1924 Leese, then in her fifties, studied at the Académie de la Palette in Paris, where Dismorr had studied earlier in 1910-13. Subsequently she sketched and painted many other European scenes, including a number of the French Riviera and the Mediterranean. But it is the immediacy of these simple wartime sketches that are particularly poignant, as they are such a clear and vivid reminder of the people involved in that challenging and harrowing time of more than 100 years ago.”

Clare Walters
http://www.eyemagazine.com/blog/post/unofficial-war-artist?fbclid=IwAR3BUsiPRIUj5v19M4LnYLxf_w3Y7a-rkf6qj2HRsb18EZwnAXM3ModjDDs

If anyone has a photograph of Gertrude, please get in touch.

Walter E. Spradbery, DCM (1889 – 1969) British Artist

With thanks to Historian Debbie Cameron for telling me about Walter and thanks to Walter’s cousin, Philip Spradbery, who has a lifelong passion for painting, who kindly supplied additional information and to Sergio Sbalchiero for finding paintings by Walter.

Walter Ermest Spradbery was born on 29th March 1889 in East Dulwich, London, UK. His parents were Joseph Spradbery and his wife Emily Spradbery, nee Feltham.  Walter had a brother, Charles V., b. 1879.

Walter studied at Walthamstow Art School, then worked as an art teacher. He regularly exhibited his work at the Royal Academy. His main artistic media were water colour, linocuts and poster design. Walter designed posters for London transport companies and for British Rail.

During the First World War, Walter, who was a pacifist, joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served as a medical orderly and stretcher-bearer on the Western Front. He served with 36 Field Ambulance during the Somme Offensive in 1916 and was Mentioned in Despatches several times for bravery rescuing wounded men under fire.   He was awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal.

On 11th November 1918, Walter wrote to his Mother:

"Hostilities ceased on all fronts at 11 o’clock today. Oh happy mothers, happy sweethearts, happy wives, whose loved ones will come safely back... and those lone souls who have lost their very own; today is too unkind to them - how can they face our joy? 'Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards men' - an unseen choir sings it in our breasts - prompting men to evolve a better world more worthy of our ideals and aspirations. Let us begin."

On 21st August 1929, Walter married opera singer Dorothy D’Orsay (maiden name Horsey) and the couple lived in Epping Forest.   They had two children.

Walter died in Epping, Essex in 1969. An exhibition of the work of WW1 artist Walter Spradbery was held in 2018 at The Epping Forest District Museum.

A biography of Walter Spradbery’s life and times, "My Dear Jim", has been compiled and published by his son, John Spradbery (Mail order from Elizabeth Spradbery: el.malet@gmail.com)

Sources:  http://www.xcsconsulting.com.au/walter-e-spradbery.html
https://theatricalia.com/person/k2t/dorothy-d-orsay
https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/people/item/1996-5125

A poem by Walter Spradbery written in 1915 and kindly supplied by his cousin, Philip Spradbery.

THE BALLAD OF BARNHAM COMMON

“Eyes Have They, But See Not”

The flowers that grow on Barnham’s plain
Are beautiful to see;
The bugloss and the speedwell’s blue
Fair as a summer’s sea,
Blue as a summer’s sky are they
As a child’s eyes may be:

And the tender little pansy’s
Uplifted cherub face,
With golden eye, and purple wings
And unpretentious grace,
Peeps shyly from amid the grass
In every shady place.

But wearily we drag our feet
Over the jeweled sods,
And discipline, it weighs us down
With the curse of an iron rod;
And ‘iron rods’ we carry
To kill the sons of God.

The cranebill’s starry floweret
Is scattered o’er the plain;
Its pale magenta blossoms
We trample in our pain,
And dully long for peace, and love
And our dear homes again.

With iron heels we tread them down,
We tread them in the sand;
We crush their beauty ’neath our feet
Too tired to understand
The ugly ruthless thing we do.
Now war is on the land.

The golden gorse, across the heath
Is a mass of yellow flame;
Its unconsuming fires praise
The Sun God’s glorious name.
But war it burns things black and dead,
And fills men’s hearts with shame.

And scarlet is the pimpernel
And bright the poppy’s red
But brighter still is the blood we’ll spill
Ere we ourselves are dead:
No flower so rich, in the deep dug ditch,
As the blood our guns may shed.

The grass is worn with the ceaseless tread
Of our marching to and fro,
And where we drill on the mossy hill
Great bare patches show;
For ’neath the heel of the War God’s foot
No fair thing may grow. 

But time revenges the patient weak
Whom the Ruthless crush and kill,
And delicate things that droop and die,
Like the flowers on the grassy hill,
Will bloom again on another plain
Fairer and sweeter still.

The barren stretch of Flander’s plains
Is desolate and bare,
And the shriek of shell, and stench and smell
Float on the morning air
And splintered stumps are all that speak
Of what once blossomed there.

Yet the flowers our feet have trodden down
Will be born again,
And rich and fine, on Flander’s fields,
Will dance in the gentle rain
Will dance on the dead that feed their roots
The countless, ghastly slain.

The little flowers we’ve trodden down
Will scent each ugly grave,
Will hide the ghastly torn limbs
O the coward and the brave
And gaily smile at the morning sun,
O’er the foolish and the knave.

Oh, the river runs o’er Barnham’s plains
This where our horses drink –
And a thousand fair and charming things
Blossom on its brink.
But we have trod them in the mud
Nor paused to praise or think.

The pinkish purple loose-strife
Bows on the river’s edge,
Forget-me-not and orchids,
The flowering rush and sedge
While briar rose and bryony
Entangle in the hedge.

And crowsfoot gleams on the river,
Like snowflakes in the sun
And sways in the moving waters
That over the pebbles run.
But we cannot pause for such a thing,
Who’re crossing the stream with a gun.

But the rivers which flow in Flanders
Are rivers of blood methinks
And will, one day, colour the roses
Whose roots from that soil drink,
And a thousand flowers will blossom
Where a corpse now rots and stinks.

And we who train at Thetford
Parade on Barnham Hill
And prod coarse sack with bayonets
To gain the skill to kill
To disembowel and mutilate
Men who are brothers still.

While all around is beauty
And overhead the sky,
Where fleecy clouds in freedom float
Over the men that die;
And nature laughs at our folly
As we pass her treasures by.

With a garland of peaceful beauty
She tempts us to lay down our arms;
With a myriad of fearless blossoms
She mocks at our childish alarms,
With a tangle of wonderful flowerets
She seeks to ensnare us with charms.

Oh, he who sees God in a daisy,
Can see more clearly in man,
The light of the Glorious Eternal
That through all Living Things ran,
When the wheels of time first started,
And the Song of Life began.

Walter E. Spradbery (1915)