Mary Vermuyden Wheelhouse ( – ) was a British painter, illustrator, toymaker and suffragette.

Early life and education

Mary Wheelhouse was born in Leeds, Yorkshire. She probably studied at the Scarborough School of Art around 1895 and then spent three years studying in Paris at the

Académie Delécluse The Académie Delécluse was an atelier-style art school in Paris, France, founded in the late 19th century by the painter Auguste Joseph Delécluse. It was exceptionally supportive of women artists, with more space being given to women students t ...

. The

Women's International Art Club The Women's International Art Club, briefly known as the Paris International Art Club, was founded in Paris in 1900. The club was intended to "promote contacts between women artists of all nations and to arrange exhibitions of their work", and ...

(WIAC) was founded by students at the Académie Delécluse and Wheelhouse was on the executive committee of the WIAC 1904–06 and 1908–1914.

Career

From 1900 Wheelhouse lived in Chelsea and for a time at the same address as the artist Louise Jacobs with whom she ran a shop, Pomona Toys, in

Cheyne Walk Cheyne Walk is an historic road in Chelsea, London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It runs parallel with the River Thames. Before the construction of Chelsea Embankment reduced the width of the Thames here, it fronted ...

, supplying children's toys to Fortnum's,

Liberty's Liberty, commonly known as Liberty's, is a luxury department store in London, England. It is located on Great Marlborough Street in the West End of London. The building spans from Carnaby Street on the East to Kingly Street on the West, where ...

and

Harrods Harrods Limited is a department store located on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. It is currently owned by the state of Qatar via its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority. The Harrods brand also applies to other ...

. They exhibited toys at the 1916

Arts and Crafts exhibition The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

. She illustrated a large number of books and children's books, primarily by women writers including

George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wro ...

Juliana Horatia Ewing Juliana Horatia Ewing (née Gatty, 3 August 1841 – 13 May 1885) was an English writer of children's stories. Her writings display a sympathetic insight into children's lives, an admiration for things military, and a strong religious faith. L ...

George Sand Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (; 1 July 1804 – 8 June 1876), best known by her pen name George Sand (), was a French novelist, memoirist and journalist. One of the most popular writers in Europe in her lifetime, bein ...

and

Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (''née'' Stevenson; 29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to as Mrs Gaskell, was an English novelist, biographer and short story writer. Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many st ...

Suffrage

Wheelhouse campaigned for

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

and was a board member of the

Artists' Suffrage League The Artists' Suffrage League (ASL) (1907–c.1918) was a suffrage society formed to change parliamentary opinion and engage in public demonstrations and other propaganda activities. Activities The ASL was established in Jan 1907 to assist with t ...

, founded in 1907.

Works illustrated include

* May Baldwin's ''Holly House and Ridges Row'', W. & R. Chambers, London, 1908 *

's novel ''Les Maîtres Sonneurs'' (The Bagpipers), London, 1908 * Louisa M Alcott's "Good Wives", G. Bell & Sons, London, 1911

Notes and references

Notes

References

External links

Mary Vermuyden Wheelhouse (1867-1947)
Chris Beetles Gallery, with gallery of Wheelhouse's works 1860s births 1947 deaths British women painters British women illustrators Toy inventors English suffragettes 20th-century British painters 20th-century British women artists Artists from Leeds {{UK-bio-stub