Randolph Schwabe
Artist, Slade professor (1930-48),. Member of New English Art Club and London Group. ‘His drawings and prints beautifully precise and reasonable statements of fact’ ‘DNB’.
Leonard Leslie Brooke
Artist and illustrator. Created the popular Johnny Crow books for children and illustrated many nursery rhyme books. He married Sybil (1890-1957), daughter of Stopford Brooke. Their son Henry was MP for Hampstead and Home Secretary, and they moved to 28 Hollycroft Avenue in 1934 to be near him. An exhibition ‘Leslie Brooke and Johny Crow’was held…
Valentina Aksarova-Sturtz
Russian Opera singer. Studied singing at St Petersberg Conservatory (1914-19),. Debuted was Margarita in Faust Gunod (1918), in Mariinsky Theatre. Worked in the theatre until 1922, when she moved abroad. Made some recordings (1948-1949),. Died at 12 Strathray Gardens.
Mary (nee Shepard), Knox
Mary Shepard was the daughter of E H Shepard, the illustrator of the ‘Winnie the Pooh’ books and ‘The Wind in the Willows’. Mary was also an artist and, as the result of a chance encounter with Pamela Travers, the author of ‘Mary Poppins’, she became the illustrator of the ‘Mary Poppins’ books. Personal…
William Henry James Boot
RBA. Landscape painter and illustrator, exhibited at RA (1874-84),. He was Art Editor of Strand Magazine (1891-1910),. He died at 1 Cannon Place. His wife Emily died 1929.
John Spencer Curwen
FRAM. Musician. Eldest son of John Curwen, inventor of the Tonic Sol-Fa system. Editor of Musical Herald from 1866.
Margaret Dionys Temple Moore
Daughter of Mary Temple Moore (writer and illustrator), and Temple Lushingtom Moore (church architect and artist),. Lived in Church Row all her life.
William Charles May
Sculptor and painter, exhibited at RA. Sculpture included Armada Memorial on Plymouth Hoe and busts of George V, Walter Besant (C 064),. He painted a fresco for St Peter’s Belsize Park.
Sir Matthew William Thompson
3rd Baronet, FRAS. Painter. Grave bears the family crest and motto: ‘Where virtue lys, love never dys’.
Constance Dorothea Sharp
Daughter of Priestley Birch. Married (1893), Cecil Sharp the folk music champion. Their last home was at 4 Maresfield Gardens which bears his plaque. He died in 1924 and was cremated at Golders Green.
Gerald Du Maurier
Actor manager, who managed Wyndham’s Theatre (1910-25),. Younger son of George du Maurier. Gerald was born in Church Row and inherited his father’s love of Hampstead. From 1916 until his death he lived at Cannon Hall where his daughter, the novelist Daphne, grew up (she is buried in Cornwall),.
Anton Walbrook
Stage and film actor. Born in Vienna, he was the son of Adolph Waohlbruck, a famous clown. Walbrook abandoned a successful stage career in Germany because of the Nazi regime and settled in England as a refugee (1936). He helped many of his countrymen to escape from Europe. His first London stage production was Design…
Sir John Hare
Actor-manager. Manager of the Court Theatre (from 1875),, the St James (from 1879),, and he opened and managed the Garrick Theatre (1889-94),. He ‘helped to mould and develop the modern English acting tradition’ ‘DNB’.
Charles Lutwyche Shout
Sculptor, from a family of sculptors who lived at Treherne House, West End. His father, Robert (1764 -1843),, is commeorated in the church but buried at Kensal Green.Shelley, writing about Leigh Hunt, says that his studio ‘no doubt. Is still adorned with many a cast by Shout’.
Matthew Maris
Painter and etcher. Born The Hague, exhibited frequently in Britain, as did his two brothers. He and his local artist friends Ernest Fridlander (1870-1960), and Beatrix Martin (1876-1964), are commemorated in a series of linked plaques.
William George Haines
Songwriter and publisher. Wrote the lyrics of some of Gracie Fields’ hits. Lived 40 years at 13 Elsworthy Road
George Arthur Thomas Carney
Actor and music-hall comedian. His films included The Stars Looked Down. Buried with his wife, Dorothy (died 1948),. The motto on their gravestone is the mysterious ‘Buckling and Skung’.
Arthur George Watts
Cartoonist. With Punch from 1911 and illustrated Both Sides of the Microphone for Radio Times from 1928. His studio was the attic of 1 Holly Place (1911-1935),. He married Marjorie Dawson Scott, daughter of the founder of the PEN Club, as his second wife. He was killed in a civil air crash, July 1935.
Julian Marshall
A notable collector of engravings, musical autographs and portraits, and of bookplates. He is also know for his Annals of Tennis (1878), – ‘a work of minute and exhaustive research’ ‘DNB’. His wife, Florence (1843-1922), was a composer and conductor.
William King
Professor of Music, a pious and respected inhabitant of this village’.
Constance Phillott
Artist. Associate of Royal Water Colour Society
Catherine Taylor
Wife successively of two West Hampstead painters – Frank Craig (1874 – 1918), and Leonard Campbell Taylor, R A (1874 – 1969),. Both are widely represented in national galleries, including the Tate.
James Redfern
Sculptor. His work included 60 statues for west front of Salisbury Cathedral, 8 Christian virtues in pinnacle of Albert Memorial, Christ in Majesty at Westminster Chapter House, and St George and Dragon on Crimea memorial outside Westminster Abbey.
Kay Kendall Harrison
Film actress, notably in the 1953 film Geneveive. Wife of Rex Harrison. Her head stone has fine lettering and decoration by Reynolds Stone.