Fernlea Cottage at Cookham

Image: © Sean Davis Taken: 16 May 2008

Sir Stanley Spencer was born on 30th June 1891 in Cookham into a large family. A blue plaque on Fernlea Cottage on the High Street remembers his birthplace. As a child he worshipped with his mother at the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and also at the local Holy Trinity Parish Church. His father was a music teacher and an organist. This religious upbringing would influence many of his paintings, and his home at Cookham was where he felt most happy and was the setting of much of his work. His early education was at a local school run by his sisters. He then went onto study at Maidenhead Technical College. At 17 he entered Slade School of Fine Art at University College London where he won the Composition Prize for his portrayal of "The Nativity" in 1912. With the outbreak of World War I, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving at the Beaufort Hospital in Bristol and then at Salonika in Macedonia. In August 1917 he transferred to an infantry unit. After the war he moved back to Cookham to continue his work, the main themes now being war and religion with most of the background still Cookham. Although he moved away a few times he always returned to his home town. He was knighted in 1958 and died the following year at the Canadian War Memorial Hospital in Cliveden on 14th December 1959. Much of his work is splendidly exhibited in the once old Wesleyan Chapel where he worshiped as a child, now the Stanley Spencer Gallery.

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