GOULDEN, Muriel Olive Cecile
As Muriel Olive Cecile Gant, she was born at Redhill, Surrey on 21 December 1882, and baptised at Reigate St Mary on 19 March 1885, when her birth year is given incorrectly as 1883, daughter of Arthur John Gant (1854-1899), an army officer, and his wife Louisa Edith née Chamberlain (31 March 1859-1944), who married in the City of London in 1880 and divorced in 1888, when her mother was given custody of their two daughters. In 1891, Muriel was an 8-year-old visitor at Park Gardens, Fulham, the home of 58-year-old retired hosier Henry Gardner and his family. Muriel married at Chelsea, London in 1908, sculptor Richard Reginald Goulden (30 August 1876–6 August 1932) and in 1911, a 28-year-old painter, designer and visiting art teacher, living at 426 London Road, Fulham, London with her 34-year-old husband Richard and their newly born daughter Wilma Ruth (1910-1983), they also had a son Richard Michael, born in 1921. A water colourist and illustrator, who founded the Chelsea Illustrators in the summer of 1914, when twenty or so women graduated from the Westminster School of Art and resolved to make art their careers. They elected their teacher, Muriel Goulden as president and their members included as hon. secretary Margaret Mary Tempest, the creator of the 'Little Grey Rabbit' series of children's books and they found suitable premises in an old a barn located at 59a Park Walk, Chelsea, from where they taught, worked, and sold their work, it was disbanded in 1939 owing to the war. In 1939, Muriel was a widowed artist, still living at 426 Fulham Road, Fulham and she exhibited at the Ipswich Art Club in 1941, one painting 'Pine Tree Hill' and her work may also be seen on Dover Town Memorial, she designed the panel of seventy further names, which was erected and dedicated in 1934. Muriel Olive Cecile Goulden was of 11 Guthrie Street, Chelsea when she died at Acland Nursing Home, Banbury Road, Oxford on 10 October 1955.