Edmund Blampied - Early Years

Early Years

Edmund Blampied was born on a farm in the Parish of Saint Martin, Jersey in the Channel Islands on 30 March 1886, five days after the death of his father, John Blampied. He was the last of four boys and was brought up by his mother, Elizabeth, a dressmaker and shopkeeper mostly in the Parish of Trinity, Jersey. His first language was Jèrriais. He finished parochial school at the age of 14 and went to work in the office of the town architect in Saint Helier, the capital of the island. Some of his pen and ink sketches of an agricultural show in May 1902 were noticed by Mlle Marie Josephine Klintz, a woman who ran a local private art school. She gave the young Blampied his first formal lessons in art and introduced him to watercolours. His caricatures of politicians such as the Constable of St. Helier, Philippe Baudains, during a local election brought Blampied to the attention of a businessman named Saumerez James Nicolle who offered to sponsor him at art school in London, provided he tried to get a scholarship.