Brenda Pye - Early Life

Early Life

She was born on 29 November 1907, and died in London at the age of 97 on 26 April 2005.

She was the youngest child of a barrister called Walter Capron who was himself the youngest son of a landed gentry family seated at Southwick Hall in Northamptonshire. Her mother’s maiden name was Whistler, and through her she was a distant cousin of the English artist Rex Whistler and his brother the glass engraver Sir Laurence Whistler; she was also more distantly related to the Anglo-American artist James McNeill Whistler.

Her earliest years were spent at her birthplace: Shortwood House, Litton, in Somerset, to which her father had retired from his London practice. A three-quarter length portrait of her in the gardens of Shortwood House in the summer of 1914, was painted by Henry Strachey, at that time the art critic of the Spectator, who lived nearby. However, from 1916 until her death, she lived in London and Sussex.

Read more about this topic:  Brenda Pye

Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:

    “The conviction that the best way to prepare children for a harsh, rapidly changing world is to introduce formal instruction at an early age is wrong. There is simply no evidence to support it, and considerable evidence against it. Starting children early academically has not worked in the past and is not working now.”
    —David Elkind (20th century)

    “... life cannot be administered by definite rules and regulations; that wisdom to deal with a man’s difficulties comes only through some knowledge of his life and habits as a whole ...”
    —Jane Addams (1860–1935)