Penleigh

Theodore Penleigh, of Warrandyte, Victoria. Born August 15th, 1890 at Penleigh House, Wiltshire. He was known by the name Penleigh for the most of his life.

He was a noted artist and pictures by him hang in the Melbourne and Sydney National Galleries.

At the age of 15 he studied at the National Gallery Art School as his parents had. He won half a dozen prizes including awards for still life and landscape painting.

He had his first exhibtion and the Victorian Artists' Society when he was only eighteen.

At 19 he dated Doris Gough - the woman who was to later marry his brother Merric.

In 1909 he shared an exhibition with Frank Crozier which was reviewed in both the Argus and the Age.

He exhibited in the Royal Academy, London at the age of 21.

He married at the British Embassy, Paris, in 1921, Edith Susan Gerard Anderson, daughter of John Anderson Esquire, ISO Minister of Education in Queensland. She was also a painter and artist's model.

He won 2nd prize in the Federal Government's competition for a painting of the site of the new national capital, Canberra and also won the Wynne prize for landscape in 1914.

He and his wife bought land in Warrandyte and Penleigh designed and built his own home which they christened 'the Robins'

He served in the war of 1914-18, joining the AIF in November 1915, with the Australian Engineers. As a sargeant in the transport section of the Electrical and Mechanical Mining Company where he acted as a lorry driver and motor cyclist. His health was seriously debilitated when he was gassed at Ypres on 7 September, 1917 and invalided out of the AIF.

He was 33 years of age and had barely reached the height of his powers as an artist, when the car in which he was driving from Melbourne to Sydney was overturned and he was killed, November 27th 1923.

The Press of Australia was united in praise both of his work and personal character, while the "London Times" November 29, 1923, in a long obituary said:

"By the death of Penleigh Boyd, Australia has lost one of the most promising artists in this country and his own has lost a charming friend. He was a man of exceptional talents. He had already produced some brilliantly distinctive work . . . His artistic and sensitive nature allowed no illusions as to the reality of war, but like so many other young men of his type, he steeled himself to do what was his job, and never failing to do his job gallantly and thoroughly . . . One of the most attractive character was his extreme modesty . . . Australians will remember him gratefully as a fine artist, a gallant soldier, and a very charming personality."

He had children:

1. John a'Beckett Penleigh
2. Robin Gerard Penleigh
3. Pamela, born 1912, died the same year