Albert Paxton Chadwick (4 September 1903 - 6 September 1961) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

artist, art teacher and politician. Paxton was born at

Fallowfield Fallowfield is a suburb of Manchester, England, with a population at the 2011 census of 15,211. Historically in Lancashire, it lies south of Manchester city centre and is bisected east–west by Wilmslow Road and north–south by Wil ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, the son of George Harry Chadwick, and Helen Wrigley née Renton. Paxton attended

Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a Grammar school#free tuition, free grammar school next to Manchester C ...

followed by

Manchester School of Art Manchester School of Art in Manchester, England, was established in 1838 as the Manchester School of Design. It is the second oldest art school in the United Kingdom after the Royal College of Art which was founded the year before. It is now par ...

. He then started out on a career as a

commercial artist Commercial art is the art of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. Commercial art uses a variety of platforms (magazines, websites, apps, television, etc.) for viewers with the intent of promo ...

, first in Manchester, then

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

followed by

Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

. However A. S. Neill offered him a job as art teacher at

Summerhill School Summerhill School is an independent (i.e. fee-paying) boarding school in Leiston, Suffolk, England. It was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other wa ...

, which Chadwick accepted. Here he soon fitted in with a group of

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

activists. When the

Leiston Communist Party Leiston ( ) is an English town in the East Suffolk non-metropolitan district of Suffolk, near Saxmundham and Aldeburgh, about from the North Sea coast, north-east of Ipswich and north-east of London. The town had a population of 5,508 at th ...

was founded in 1934, Chadwick became a member by 1935. Chad, as he was known, became a prominent local councillor and secretary of the Leiston Communist Party. He raised safety concerns when the

Central Electricity Generating Board The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in England and Wales from 1958 until privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s. It was established on 1 Janua ...

started to consider building a

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many p ...

Sizewell Sizewell is an English fishing hamlet in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It belongs to the civil parish of Leiston and lies on the North Sea coast just north of the larger holiday village of Thorpeness, between the coastal town ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chadwick, Paxton 1903 births 1961 deaths English artists English communists Artists from Manchester