Lucy Marguerite Frobisher, 1891–1974
Marguerite Frobisher came to Bushey in about 1911 from Leeds. Like the majority of Herkomer students, she was very young, leaving the safety and security of home to travel and live the life of an artist. She joined the Kemp-Welch School of Painting, then situated in Rudolph Road, previously the Bushey School of Painting situated in Herkomer's school premises, which he had demolished to landscape a rose garden.
Once having completed the course, Marguerite returned home to Yorkshire, where, as an unmarried woman with a private allowance from her father, she sat on her hands, longing to travel back to London. On her mother's suggestion she wrote to Lucy Kemp-Welch, asking her if she needed help as a secretary. Lucy Kemp-Welch's
reply was immediate and within three weeks Marguerite Frobisher was back in Bushey, acting as secretary, helping with commissions and teaching at the school. She proved to be a natural teacher and, unlike Lucy, happy to be so.
In 1927 Marguerite purchased a studio in Glencoe Road from Hilda Cholmondeley, another of Lucy's pupils. This later was named the Frobisher Studio where, when Lucy, because of failing eyesight, could no longer paint, Marguerite opened her Frobisher School of Art, carrying on the tradition of practiced art in Bushey from the time before Herkomer.
Marguerite moved in to Lucy's cottage, Kingsley, as her companion, until Lucy died in 1958.
Marguerite Frobisher was bequeathed Lucy's paintings, her house and eight cottages. After due consideration she decided to build an art gallery in memory of
her friend and in 1967 the Lucy Kemp-Welch Memorial Art Gallery was built as the upper storey of the new Church House in Bushey. This Gallery contained 28 pictures by Lucy Kemp-Welch, one by her sister, Edith, and several by Marguerite Frobisher, who placed the care of these artworks in the hands of a Trust, who later placed them in storage in case of damage.
Some years later, when Bushey Museum and Art Gallery was able to demonstrate to theTrustees that a gallery would be entirely devoted to Lucy Kemp-Welch's paintings with art gallery conditions, they arrived in Rudolph Road in 2007, the same year as did the Frobisher Studio from Glencoe Road.
Bushey has so much to be grateful to Marguerite Frobisher for. Her legacy has helped to keep Lucy Kemp-Welch's art in Bushey and her studio enables the artwork in Bushey to continue.
Pat Woollard, Art Curator