BONNY, John

1874 - 1948

John Bonny was born at Rose Cottage, Murston, Milton, Kent on 24 April 1874, eighth child of Henry Bonny (1833-15 May 1913), a publican, and his wife Eliza Hedgecock (1833-5 May 1874), daughter of John Hedgecock, who married at St Michael Church, Sittingbourne, Kent on 30 July 1855, his 40-year-old mother was buried at Murston on 8 May 1874, shortly after John's birth. In 1881, John was a 6-year-old living at 43 Camden Road, St Pancras, London with his 48-year-old widowed father Henry, with three sibling brothers, Harry 12, James S. 10 and Reginald 8, all born at Murston. John left school at the age of 14, starting his working career as a grocer's assistant taking up painting as a hobby and in 1891, was a grocer's assistant living with his brother Harry, a land surveyor's assistant, at Brighton Road, Hornsey, Edmonton, Middlesex. He decided to become a professional painter and is mostly known for his landscape paintings in oil and watercolours of Tottenham and in and around London including 'A Summer Landscape', 'A Sunlit River' and 'The Village Lane'. In 1911, a 36-year-old artist painter, boarding at 30 Wellington Road, Hackney, London, also boarding with him was 60-year-old George Rye Bonny, his cousin. He married at Newbury, Berkshire in 1919, Florence Elizabeth Balderston (15 April 1877-1929) and in 1921 they were living at 83 High Road, Tottenham, London. In 1939, John Bonny was a widower, and a landscape painter living at 'Rosetta', Cotton, Stowmarket, Suffolk and was still living there when he died at Stow Lodge, Stowmarket on 27 September 1948, and was buried in Cotton churchyard.

---

Works by This Artist