Fairlynch gains its own Joyce Dennys artwork





A Friend of Fairlynch has generously donated this charming Joyce Dennys portrait to the Museum.

Regular readers of my scribblings will have noticed that the name of Joyce Dennys has cropped up frequently over the years on this blog, and many visitors to this year’s ‘Great War at Fairlynch’ exhibition will have admired the famous VAD recruitment poster that she designed in 1915. As an effective piece of propaganda it ranks alongside equally successful wartime appeals such as Kitchener’s ‘Your Country needs you.’

Most of Joyce Dennys’ artwork on display at Fairlynch is on loan from Budleigh Salterton Town Council; you can see some examples at     http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/more-joyce-dennys-paintings-on-display.html

Her paintings are among the favourite items at the Museum enjoyed by both visitors and volunteers. So the news of the latest donation by Friends of Fairlynch Michael and Valerie Jackaman has been received with great interest and pleasure.

The portrait, in pastel and gouache and dated 1918, shows Winifred Fanny Whitworth, a VAD nurse at the Royal Naval Auxiliary Hospital in Truro, who had been commended for “valuable service in connection with the war” in the London Gazette of 29 November 1918.















Image credit:  Pamela Dodds 


Born in Truro in 1891, Nurse Whitworth was the only daughter in a large family which included six brothers. The Royal Naval Auxiliary Hospital had been converted from the Truro Union Workhouse, pictured above, opening in November 1915. It closed in March 1919 after treating 4,000 patients.  Nurse Whitworth died at Truro in 1955.





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