Hester Wagstaff
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Hester Marion Wagstaff | |
|---|---|
| Born | 15 June 1892 Saffron Walden, England |
| Died | 27 January 1953 (aged 60) Petersfield, England |
| Other names | Waggles[1] |
| Education | St Marylebone Polytechnic Institute School of Art |
| Occupations | Author, illustrator |
| Family | J Archibald Allen (uncle)[2] |
Hester Marion Wagstaff [a] (15 June 1892 – 27 January 1953) was an English writer, illustrator, artist, jeweller and mapmaker.[4] In 1913, a card-table top that she made while studying at the St Marylebone Polytechnic Institute School of Art was presented to Queen Elizabeth on behalf of the school.[5] She wrote and illustrated several children's books between the 1930s and 1950s, [6] including Doings of Dicky Daw (1940)[7] and three books about a Jolly Robin.[8] She was an accomplished jeweller and co-founded the Petersfield Workshops and Bookshop.[9]
Hester Marion Wagstaff was born to Jane Pearson and Ernest Hamilton Wagstaff in Leighton Buzzard, England. She had an older sister.[10]
In 1910 Wagstaff won first prize in memory drawing in a Midland Counties Union examination.[11] She attended Leighton Buzzard Evening School[12] and the St Marylebone Polytechnic Institute School of Art,[13] where she became friends with Flora Twort and Cecily Peele.[14]
Wagstaff lived in Petersfield from 1918 until her death. She lived at Oakshott Hanger, a hamlet just outside Petersfield, with Twort, Winifred Stamp and Maria Brahms.[15] She was on the committee of the Group for the Preservation and Improvement of Petersfield from 1945,[16] and was a founding member of the Petersfield Arts and Crafts Society.[17] When Stamp died in 1948, she left her effects to Wagstaff.[18]
