LACEY, Constance Mary
Constance Mary Lacey was born at Cotes, Leicestershire on 4 June 1884 and baptised at Hoton on 14 July 1884, eldest child of George Lacey (1 June 1852-29 March 1943), a farmer, and his wife Fanny Sterland née Horner (1855-1921), who married at Loughborough Parish Church on 20 June 1883. In 1891, Constance was a 6-year-old, living at Lacey’s Farm House, Cotes, with her parents, 38-year-old George and 36-year-old Hannah, and her three younger sisters, Kathleen 3, Dora 2 and newly born Ethel. Constance exhibited from Cotes at Loughborough Industrial Art Exhibition in 1906 and in 1908 was successful in the examinations of the Board of Education at Ipswich School of Art passing her teaching examinations the following year. She studied at Sir Arthur Cope’s (1857–1940) School of Painting, Kensington and at the Royal College of Art and in 1911, a 26-year-old art teacher, living at 54 Lamont Road, Chelsea and later was a painter, designer, illuminator and embroiderer and an assistant at Ipswich School of Art followed by as an assistant at Derby School of Art and examiner in embroidery for the Union of Lancashire & Cheshire Institutes. She exhibited at Derby Art Gallery in 1922 'Portrait of an Old Man' and at Nottingham Museum and Art Gallery in 1935 from 72 St Chad’s Road, Derby. In 1939, an assistant art mistress, living at 72 St Chads Road, Derby and in 1950 assisted Sybil Francis with the gold thread work for the altar frontal at Chellaston Parish Church. Constance Mary Lacey was of 34 Kingston Road, Derby when she died at Middlesex House, Pitsford, Daventry, Northamptonshire on 27 December 1961, aged 77, she was unmarried.