DOWNING, Phyllis Grace
Phyllis Grace Downing was born at Wangford, Suffolk on 25 October 1899, daughter of Alfred Ernest Robert Downing (1872-1926), a hairdresser, and his wife Edith Jane née Smith (1872-1958), who married at Saffron Walden, Essex in 1898. In 1911, Phyllis was an 11-year-old, living at 9 The Walk, Beccles, Suffolk with her parents, 38-year-old Alfred and 38-year-old Edith, and two sibling brothers, Wilton William 9 and Ralph Ernest 1, both born at The Walk, Beccles and she was still living there in 1929. In 1931, when of Eltham, London, she registered as a teacher with the Teachers' Registration Council, stating that she had been a teacher since 1920. As Miss 'R' Downing, she exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool in 1928-1929 from The Walk, Beccles, Suffolk and in 1931 she was exhibiting at the Battersea Polytechnic Institute. In 1939, Phyllis Grace Downing was an unmarried elementary teacher, living at The Vicarage, Battle, Sussex, and she died at 29 Babylon Way, Bournemouth on 28 June 1980, she was unmarried.