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A self-portrait of Helen Allingham painted in 1885 when she was thirty-seven

A typical example of the artist's idealised portrayal of the 'rural idyll'

The artist photographed in her later years

Helen Allingham - Derbyshire's Artistic Heritage

HELEN ALLINGHAM (1848-1926) was a popular British artist best-known for her watercolour depictions of rural life, cottage gardens and idealised scenes of domestic bliss. She often included children, cats or birds in her pictures. Her original works now fetch very high prices and many of her paintings have been reproduced on greeting cards.

She was born Helen Mary Elizabeth Paterson on 26 September 1848 in the South Derbyshire town of Swadlincote, where her father ran a small medical practice from his home in High Street. The property still stands today, on the corner where High Street meets Belmont Street.

Her mother Mary Chance Paterson (formerly Herford) did not care for her South Derbyshire surroundings. She became very depressed there and in letters to friends described Swadlincote as 'a dirty and miserable village' and its inhabitants as 'very changeable and uncivil.' It was therefore not surprising that the Allingham family left Swadlincote when Helen was only one year old.

For that reason her origins have been generally forgotten, but Helen Allingham is unquestionably of Derbyshire birth. Throughout her life she produced hundreds of paintings but is not thought to have even once depicted the county of her origin. Her two books - Happy England (1903) and The Cottage Homes of England (1909) are now highly collectable.

She died of a sudden illness on 28 September 1926, aged seventy-eight. Her Derbyshire origins have never been widely acknowledged, so perhaps a plaque should be erected at her birthplace to commemorate the remarkable life and work of 'HELEN ALLINGHAM OF SWADLINCOTE'.

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County:  Derbyshire

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