CHESTERTON, Maurice

1882 - 1962

Maurice Chesterton was born at Kensington, London on 4 August 1882, fifth son of Sidney Rawlins Chesterton (1851-11 September 1929), an estate agent & auctioneer, and his wife Catherine (Kate) Eleanor née Smith (1853-April 1915), eldest daughter of James Burrell Smith, of Kensington and late of Alnwick, who married at St Philip's Church, Kensington on 4 March 1876, Maurice was a cousin of writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936). Maurice was educated at St Paul's School and apprenticed to the building industry and in 1891, was living at 31 Pembroke Road, Kensington with his parents and five brothers, Frank Sidney 14, Sidney James 12, Frederick 10, John Arthur 3 and Hugh 1, all born at Kensington, and ten years later a builder's clerk living at the same address with an additional brother Ralph, born in 1893. In 1911, Maurice was a building contractor living on his own account at Bath Road, Chippenham, Wiltshire being elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and for many years a member of the Art Workers' Guild and was also a model maker, exhibiting at the Alpine Club Gallery in 1925, a model of a Sheltered Water-Garden. He married at St George's Hanover Square, London in 1914, Suffolk born Dorothy Deck (7 May 1888-1982) and in 1939, they were living at The Caravan, Chichester, Sussex with their daughter (Dame) Elizabeth Ursula Chesterman (12 October 1915–18 August 2002), also an architect. One of Chesterton's best-known works was that of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre with which he worked on with the designer Elisabeth Whitworth Scott (1898–1972). From about 1940 the Chesterton's lived at Melton, Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Chesterton was responsible for several large housing schemes in the then Samford District of Suffolk. Chesterton's second interest after architecture, was as a watercolour artist and he attended St John's Wood School of Art in the 1920s and exhibited at the Suffolk Street Gallery of the Royal Society of British Artists also at the Royal Academy, the Paris Salon and was a member and exhibitor at the Ipswich Art Club 1942-1961 and in 1941 exhibited two watercolours, 'Autumn Leaves' and 'Snow on the Deben', in 1942 'The Quarry, New Quay, Cardigan' and 'Dirty Weather', in 1943 'Ken Wood in November', 'Ladies of the Wood' and 'While the Earth Remaineth', in 1944 'Cardigan Bay', 'Cold Comfort' and 'Lone Hill'. His watercolour 'From the Yacht Club, Jersey' was exhibited at the Club's centenary in 1974. Maurice Chesterton died at Holly Cottage, 12 The Mount, Hampstead, London on 7 June 1962 and his gravestone is in Melton churchyard with that of his wife Dorothy and daughter Elizabeth.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from 28 Willifield Way, London NW 11
1921 645 An Inland Port - watercolour
1926 691 The River below Woodbridge - watercolour

---

Works by This Artist