Sybil Barham (1877-1950) was an illustrator of children books, prints, postcards, including several featuring scenes from Peter Pan, greetings cards, and calendars. She also contributed to children’s annuals and magazines.
Born in Birmingham, she joined Herkomer’s Art School in 1899, the same year as miniaturist painter Kate Cowderoy (1875–1972), and they became lifelong friends. Her portrait of Kate is in the collection at Bushey Museum & Art Gallery. After college, she lived at Rowlands Castle near Havant, Hampshire with Bessy Barnard (1877-1950), another Herkomer student and fellow commercial illustrator of children’s annuals and magazines.
Barham started designing postcards around 1905, often depicting children in twilight settings for C W Faulkner. Her commercial work also included prints, postcards greetings cards and calendars. She was a member of the Portsmouth and Hampshire Art Society, and her art was the subject of exhibitions in Portsmouth and Southsea in the 1920s and 1930s, her water colour work art noted for its “vivid colour.”
She was, possibly, a member of the Theosophical Society, an esoteric new religious movement founded in the United States in 1875 which also has a British iteration. She was certainly a guest of the organisation, giving a talk on “Beauty in Life” at one event held in West Bromwich in 1915.
Her known book illustration work includes The Story of Angelina Wacks, written by Mrs. Clayton Palmer, the tale of a wax doll, published by Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. London in 1913; Supposin’ written by Mrs. Clayton Palmer, published by Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. London in 1914; Stories from Robert Browning, by Verney Cameron Turnbull, published by Harrap & Co. London in 1914, which retells his stories for children; the Peter Pan Post Card Painting Book, published by CW Faulkner in 1915, and The Elf of The Orchard by Alice P. Moss, illustrated by Sybil and Elizabeth Peacock, published by Wells Gardner, Darton & Co, Ltd, London, dedicated to Hugh Nowell, his little brother, “and all children who love flowers and fairies”, first published in 1913, but apparently reprinted in 1918.
In 1925, Sybil provided new altar panels for Redhill Parish Church in Hampshire, in memory of Mr. V. H. Brown, who was Sacristan and People’s Warden. “In the central panel a dove, the emblem of the Holy Spirit, is represented thing with outstretched wings in resplendent light over the sea,” a contemporary report for the Portsmouth Evening News notes, “while each of the side panels present an angel, one expressing meditation and the other the rapturous element of worship. The design is strikingly executed, and the blending of the colours provides a powerful and beautiful effect.”
Some of her work features in Postcards from the Nursery: The Illustrators of Children’s Books And Postcards written by Dawn Cope, published in 1999.
Head downthetubes for…
• Bushey Museum & Art Gallery: Sybil Barham Profile
• Bushey Museum & Art Gallery: Kate Ethel Cowderoy Profile
• Abe Books: Postcards and Books featuring art attributed to Sybil Barham
• Millstone Postcards: Postcards by Sybil Barham
Book links in this post include AmazonUK Affiliate Links
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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