BROCK, William

1874 - c.1933

William Brock was born at St John's Wood, London on 7 April 1874, one of the several children of Sir Thomas Brock (1 March 1847-22 August 1922), R.A., sculptor, and his wife Mary Hannah Sumner (1853-27 August 1927), only child of Richard Sumner of Nottingham, who married at Cossington, Bridgewater on 10 August 1860, William's father Thomas was famous for his statue of Queen Victoria fronting Buckingham Palace. In 1881, William was a 6-year-old, living at 30 Osnaburgh Street, St Pancras, London with his parents, 34-year-old Thomas and 29-year-old Mary Hannah, with six siblings, Tom Gilbert 9, Jessie 8, Catherine Sumner 5, Hugh James 4, Harold 2 and newly born Frederick. William studied at the Royal Academy Schools and at the École Des Beaux Arts in Paris and where he married. A landscape and animal painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy also at the Paris Salon; the Fine Art Society and Walker Art Gallery from 1897. By 1901, the family had moved to 1 Mapesbury Road, Willesden, where William is noted as a 26-year-old 'artist painter' as was his brother, 20-year-old Charles, and in 1911 they were living at 'Merrie Weather', Mayfield, Sussex. William was a captain in the French Army, later in the Belgian Army during the First World War when his wife and children were forced to spend some time in the trenches in France. In 1921 William was a 47-year-old farmer, living at Vale Farm, Kersey, Hadleigh, Suffolk with his 41-year-old wife Gustavie, who was born in France and their five children, Rosalie Gustavie 17, Emileienne 13, Catherine Summer 12, Thomas William 9 and Jessie Marie 7 but by 1927 had moved to Waldringfield, Suffolk. A member of Ipswich Art Club 1927-1930 and exhibited in 1927 from Sea View, Waldringfield, Woodbridge, an oil 'The Deben, near Woodbridge' and two watercolours 'The Deben by Moonlight' and 'To Sin's Rebuke and my Creator's Praise'. He signed his works 'W. Brock' followed by a date and is noted in 'Contemporary British Artists 1929' as Capt. William Brock of Sea View, Waldringfield. His 57-year-old widow Mrs Gustavie Brock (1880-1938), a French subject, of Mildenhall Road, Bury St Edmund's committed suicide in January 1938 by throwing herself from a first-floor window of Colchester County Hospital, where she was a patient. It was stated that she had mental trouble from at least from the time that her husband, a former landscape painter who was a captain in the French Army, when her and her children were trapped in the trenches during the First World War and that she had been institutionalised at Ipswich Asylum in 1937.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from The Studio, 30 Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, Northwest London
1897 1132 An Orchard Corner in Somersetshire - watercolour
from Worcester Lodge, 1 Mapesbury Road, Brondesbury, Northwest London
1900 605 Monsieur A. H. Benoist
from The Studio, 30 Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, Northwest London
1907 454 Towards the Close of Day
1908 1015 Evening in Normandy - watercolour
from c/o C.H. West, 117 Finchley Road, Northwest London
1909 357 On the Seine, Normandy
         778 The Harvest Moon - watercolour
from The Studio, 30 Osnaburgh Street, Regent's Park, Northwest London
1912 122 Evening
1913 438 Folding the Flock: midwinter
1914 26 Evening Normandy

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Works by This Artist