Biography

Born in 1923, Ted was brought up in south London, moving from Herne Hill to Rotherhithe when his father took over his grandparents’ bakery there. He used to cycle to the docks to sell bread rolls to the dockers, and out to Kent to vist his aunt and go hop picking. In 1939 he was sent to Exeter to escape the Blitz but returned in 1940 to work for the General Post Office (GPO) engineering department. He went to India in the army (Signals) in 1943, returning in 1947. He worked as a surveyor and cartographer for the Ordnance Survey from 1947 to 1949.

Ted studied art at Great Yarmouth School of Art (1949-50), the Sir John Cass College, London (1950-53) and Goldsmith College, London (1957-58). His work was exhibited by the National Society; the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours; the Royal Institute of Oil Painters; the Royal Society of British Artists; Cathay Gallery (South Kensington); Antique Corner (Mayfair); Richmond Hill Gallery; Gallery 5 (Reading); Art Exhibition Bureau (touring exhibition); Thames Valley Artists’ Exhibition (Henley); The Craftsman (Henley), The Century Gallery (Maidenhead).

From 1953 to 1955 Ted worked for ‘Preview’ in Kent, making BBC puppets, dioramas for the Science Museum; architectural models and exhibition displays; and from 1955 to 1957 he worked for Science Films Ltd in educational film making. He then had a number of teaching posts, in Swanley (where he met his wife, Gwen), Battersea, Berkshire (where his two children were born) and Herefordshire (where he moved with his family in 1969). Ted retired in 1983 and moved to Bonsall, and later Matlock, in the Derbyshire Dales, where he continued to paint until he became too ill to do so.