CADBY, Walter Frederick

1857 - 1938

Walter Frederic[k] Cadby was born at 38 Liquor Pond Street, London on 4 February 1857, son of Charles Cadby (11 July 1811-22 October 1884), a pianoforte manufacturer, and his first wife Valentia Mary née Cooke (1819-2 February 1864), who married at Albany Chapel, Regent's Park, London on 3 August 1843, Charles married secondly at Margate on 1 February 1870, Harriet Mary Lewis (1826-1913). In 1861, Walter was a 4-year-old living at Lawn Cottage, John Street, Hampstead, London with his parents, 49-year-old Charles and 38-year-old Valentia, with five of his many siblings, Charles Henry (1846-1925), Ambrose John (1849-1902), Clara (1852-1925), Jessie (1853-1878) and Ernest Edward (1859-1923). In 1871, Walter was a pupil at Amersham Hall School and then went to Cornwall as an artist, and in 1881, a 24-year-old artist/painter, lodging at Dunheved Road, Little Evoburn, Lauceston and his watercolour 'Overlooking the Logan Rock, Penberth Cover, Cornwall' was painted in 1882. He married at Kensington, London in 1891, Clara Vaughan (1870-1901) and in that year was 34-year-old artist, living at Ormond Studio, Notting Hill Grove, Kensington with his 21-year-old wife Clara. Clara died in early 1901, aged 31, and later that year Walter was a 44-year-old widower living at 10 Aubrey Walk, Kensington. Walter was a close friend of artists Philip Wilson Steer and the eccentric Philip William May (1864-1903) and spent time in Walberswick before his second marriage at Bradfield, Berkshire in 1902, to 19 year old Emma Ada Brown (28 September 1882-17 December 1968), a child model, who was born at Walberswick, the daughter of Jonah Brown, a local fisherman; her sister Dolly Brown, married portrait painter Frank Morley Fletcher (1866-1950), and helped him to run an art school in California. In 1911, Walter was a 54-year-old on private means, living at Ormond House, Westleton, Suffolk with his 28-year-old wife Emma and their four-year-old son Charles, who was born at Westleton and in 1921 at the same address with the addition of two more children Valentia Mary (1911-1995) and Kathleen Frances (1915-2002). Walter was a member of the New English Art Club when his 1895 exhibit at the Dudley Gallery, 'The Dead Thistle' was noted as 'the less said the better', his works were also on show at the Royal Institute of Painters In Water Colours in 1899; the Berkshire Art Society in 1901 and in the English section of the International Society of Sculptors Painters at Dusseldorf in 1904, but he did little exhibiting and today his work is largely unnoticed. Walter Frederick Cadby died at Ormond House, Westleton, Saxmundham, Suffolk on 13 March 1938, aged 82 and was interred in the Cadby family vault at Highgate Cemetery, London. Emma continued to live at Westleton until her death at Ormond House on 17 December 1968.

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Works by This Artist