Only a very small percentage of women were listed as artists on the census in the 1920s, but there are several artists among WPH’s early tenants. These women were from relatively wealthy backgrounds, which allowed them to pursue what was often a precarious and badly paid career; however, the fact that WPH’s homes were affordable would’ve also been a huge help.

Sadly, not much of the WPH artists’ work survives today. This is all too often the case for women artists, who very rarely achieved anything like the same success and status of their male peers. This also means they leave behind little biographical information, so we have to piece together their stories from fragments. Despite this, our research has revealed insights into the lives and work of a fascinating mixture of women artists – from suffragette protest prints to devotional church paintings.

Dorothy Mullock (1888-1973)

Dorothy was perhaps one of the most successful of WPH’s artist tenants. In the 1920s, she designed advertising posters for London Underground – some of which can still be seen in the collection of the London Transport Museum. Her work had a distinctly modern style and she created many fashionable illustrations – from capturing the performances of legendary Ballet Russes dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, to creating costume designs for Clifford Bax’s plays.

Dorothy was a WPH tenant through much of the 1930s, living with her sister Nellie first 4 Gliddon Road (1933-1934) and then at flat 8, 12 Colinette Road (1935-1944).

Jessie Lloyd Walters (1877-1954)

Jessie grew up in a progressive family, one of five daughters who were all well-educated and active in the suffrage movement. The Walters family took part in the suffragette boycott of the 1911 census, while Jessie was presumably living at home with her three other unmarried sisters. The fourth, medical practitioner Blanche, was married by that time.

In 1895 Jessie studied art, drawing and design at the Bristol School of Art, gaining a first-class pass in design and second class passes in the other subjects. She won several prizes during her student years, including medals for drawing and being the year’s best student; in 1899, she won a national book prize in the National Competition of Schools of Art. Between 1905 and 1908, Jessie studied in Paris and she exhibited work at the progressive Salon de Automne in 1906, alongside artists like Henri Matisse and Paul Cezanne.

Jessie was a member of the Suffrage Atelier, formed in 1909 as an ‘Arts and Crafts Society composed of suffragists, whose object [was] to help any and every Suffrage Society through their arts’, via training in printmaking. During her time with the Atelier, Jessie designed several striking woodblock print political posters, including Eliza comes to stay and Asquith, traitor to liberal principles (both in the Museum of London) and Asquith with suffragette prisoners (in the Women’s Library).

Alongside making political prints, Jessie painted portrait and landscapes; she was an exhibiting artist between 1905 and 1939, including at the Cooling Gallery (London), the Wertheim Gallery and the London Salon. The latter (otherwise known as the Allied Artists’ Association) was founded in 1908 to provide a platform for the exhibition and promotion of modernist art in Britain.

Jessie lived at the family home in Bristol until her mother’s death in 1917. She moved to London to live with her sister Ida, and the pair resided at 14 Ladbroke Gardens from 1924 - 1929. After this point, she moved to Bristol and remained there until her death in May 1954.

Nina Somerset

Nina came from an aristocratic family and she was a direct descendant of King Edward III through Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester, Baron Herbert of Raglan. Relatively little is known about her early life and studies. In 1917, Nina was working as a nurse at Christchurch Red Cross Hospital but, in the 1920s, she trained as a manuscript writer and illustrator in Bournemouth.

In 1923 Nina moved to London, to a WPH property at 65 West Cromwell Road. Her sister Amelia lived with Nina, and so did Sophie Mackey – Sophie had been employed as the cook for the Somerset family, but we don’t know if she remained with Nina and Amelie in the capacity of employers/employee, or as friends (in some aristocratic families, the children were closer to the servants than to their parents).

Nina was a devout Christian and, whilst living at 65 West Cromwell Road, she worshipped at St. Silas the Martyr church in Kentish Town. It was here that she created some stunning religious paintings that can still be viewed at the church today. She was artist-in-residence at The Ascension of the Lord, Lavender Hill in the 1930s; the Stations of the Cross she painted alongside Hilda Price are also still on show in the church.

Nina and Sophie moved to Bournemouth in 1928, where Nina continued to paint religious scenes for a number of churches in the area, including St Francis of Assisi and St Alban’s, both in Bournemouth, and the chapel at Elmhurst Ballet School, then in Camberley.

Nina died in Bournemouth on 17th July 1980. More images of her work can be viewed on the website of St Silas the Martyr, courtesy of John Salmon.