Vivien Gribble
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Vivien Massie Gribble Doyle-Jones (1888 – 6 February 1932) was an English wood engraver who was active at the beginning of the 20th century. She was a pupil of Noel Rooke at the Central School of Arts and Crafts and exhibited regularly with the Society of Wood Engravers.[1]
Gribble was born in Chelsea, London, the third of six children of a wealthy family. The family grew up at Henlow Grange, Henlow, Bedfordshire, and at Kingston Russell, near Long Bredy in Dorset, with a large retinue of servants, according to her brother's biography.
Her father was George Gribble,[2] who in 1897 was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire.[3][4] Her mother was Norah Royds, a Slade-trained artist, whose murals still decorate Henlow Grange, notably the Peacock Room. Her mother's cousin was Mabel Allington Royds, an artist known for her woodcuts.
Her eldest sister was Phyllis Fordham of Ashwell Bury.[5] Other siblings included Lesley, mother of Frederic Seebohm, Baron Seebohm, and Major Phillip Gribble, a writer and adventurer who married the daughter of Ronald McNeill, 1st Baron Cushendun, and financed Anna Wolkoff.[6] The youngest of her siblings, Julian Royds Gribble, won the Victoria Cross at the end of World War I and died of influenza in a German prison of war camp; she designed a memorial window for him at Preston, Hertfordshire.[7][8]
Vivien studied first in Munich and then, following in her mother's footsteps, at the Slade School of Art. She studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts under Noel Rooke, and clearly made an early impression on her teachers. During the First World War she joined the Land Army.
In 1919, she married Douglas Doyle-Jones, a barrister from a similarly wealthy background, and they set up house at Higham in Suffolk. Doyle Jones soon gave up working as a barrister to look after his estate and dabble in painting. After several miscarriages the couple adopted a child.[7] Gribble, who had a restless temperament, tended to lose interest in projects when her initial wish was gratified. She died of cancer on 6 February 1932.
Higham
In 1926, the couple bought Valley Farm in Higham.[9] Doyle-Jones undertook much planting in the area, gaining the sobriquet, the "Old Man of the Trees". The couple also owned The Pound, which in 1929 became the home of Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines. On Gribbles' death in 1932, Morris inherited the cottage.[10]
