THIS IS FINDON VILLAGE — created by Valerie Martin, contains scenes from her home village of Findon, West Sussex, U.K.

STANLEY ROY BADMIN RWS (1906-1989)

Touch of Spring... maybe a local wood?

Copyright Valerie Martin 2002

Stanley Roy Badmin executed some lovely watercolours of the Findon area and it has occurred to me that I should make a collection of any I come across....not only of this village but any others too.  Since running this website I have received many e-mails from all over the world concerning his work.

Some of these photographs are thumbnails to speed up download.  Please click on them if you wish to see the full version.

First a little about the man himself — Roy's family came from Somerset and their surname was originally Badman, which they changed to Badmin.  Roy was born in South London in 1906.  He first studied at the Camberwell School of Art (1922-24) and then at the R.C.A. (1924-1928). 

Roy went on to teach at Richmond Art School (1934), St John’s Wood Art School and at the Central School of Art in London from 1954.

His art was always associated with rural life, and his love of the countryside continuously comes through — with his trees in particular.  He worked most of the time in watercolour or pen and ink.

The first colour reproductions of his work were published in The Graphic (1927) and The Tatler (1928).

It was in 1935, that Fortune magazine had the foresight to give him his first major commission, a series of illustrations of various towns in the USA.

Roy illustrated many books, the first of these being The Highways and Byways of Essex in 1937.

During war torn Britain, Roy was employed by the Ministry of Information until he was called up into the RAF in 1942.  This is where he did operational model-making.  He also worked with other artists for the Pilgrim Trust on the "Recording Britain Scheme".  This project was later published in two volumes, as Recording Britain.

There were also three books for the Puffin Picture Book series for Penguin, including Village and Town (1942) and Trees in Britain (1943), for both he was the author as well as illustrator.  The latter was produced under extremely difficult Second World War conditions by Cowell’s of Ipswich and the illustrations were drawn directly on the plate by Roy.  In that era the public were lucky enough to be able to purchase the finished work for only a few pence.  It was subsequently described as "one of the most beautiful illustrated books of this century" (David Thomas, 1962). 

From 1945 onwards Roy worked on calendars and Christmas cards for the fine art publishers, Royle Fine Arts and produced over a hundred for them.  Greeting cards by "Badmin" can still be found to this day on the shelves of shops selling cards.

Later he carried out commissions for many other magazines, most notably the Radio Times (1951 onwards).  

Tony told me that his father-in-law, Roy Badmin, drew a figure sitting outside of the open window (bottom left of the above picture), listening to a radio perched on the windowsill.  However the powers to be thought this was not on and it might encourage the public to pursue such anti-social behaviour.   They promptly blanked it out (and in my opinion spoilt Roy's work).   "Those were the days", says Tony.

In 1963 Roy brought out the Book of Trees.

During his lifetime Roy produced a quantity of drawings for posters and advertisements, working for such giant organisations as London Transport, Shell, the Bowater Paper Corporation and the British Travel Authority.

The artist John Constable painted Bignor House and Park in West Sussex with a view of the South Downs and Chanctonbury in the distance and this scene also inspired Roy when he illustrated The Shell Guide to British Trees.

During the middle years of the twentieth century, the Railway Companies used beautiful landscape paintings commissioned from leading poster artists.  Roy was well known for his Railway Carriage Prints.  These incorporated Alnmouth in Northumberland; Berwick-on-Tweed in Northumberland; Croxdale Viaduct, near Durham;  Kelso, Roxburghshire; Welwyn Viaduct, Hertfordshire and Yarm in Yorkshire.  

There is occasionally a re-print by Collins with a limited availability of a book dating from December 1985 entitled S. R. Badmin and the English Landscape by Chris Beetles (Editor) if one is lucky enough to come across it. 

Roy lived at Bignor (to the west of Findon) for many years.  How lucky we are that he took some time off in Findon to capture the rural scenes and I am able to record just a few for posterity following his death in 1989.

Continue if you would like to see Stanley Roy Badmin's Findon Scenes.

This is Findon Village — www.findonvillage.com is a continually growing record created by Valerie Martin exclusively for documenting life in Findon.