Edgar Owen Jennings – London Trader, Hastings

Edgar Owen Jennings was born in Skipton, Yorkshire in 1899. He was a painter, etcher, engraver, and illustrator and attended Skipton School of Art, where, under the guidance of headmaster W T Shuttleworth, he studied bookbinding, textile design and crafts. This was followed by Leeds College of Art and the Royal College of Art, where he was a silver medallist. He became principal of the School of Art at Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, 1934–65, after appointments at Doncaster School of Art, 1926–8, and Leeds College of Art, 1928–34. Jennings was elected RWS in 1950 and RE in 1970 and exhibited at the Paris Salon, in New York, Melbourne and Chicago and participated in British Council shows in Belgium, Poland, China and the Soviet Union. Official purchases were made by the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, and many other British and foreign collections. He also lived in Tunbridge Wells, where a retrospective was held in 1973.