Amy Katherine Browning (1881-1978)

Born at Great Bramingham Hall Farm, near Luton, Bedfordshire on 31 March 1881, the second daughter of eight children of James Day Browning (1858-1933), bailiff and later tenant farmer, and his wife, Katherine Lucy née Saunderson (1857-1946). Educated at a small private school in Luton and attended weekly drawing lessons. In September 1899, Amy, nicknamed 'Brownie', entered the Royal College of Art to study painting and to gain a diploma in the teaching of art. In 1901 Browning had to leave college to run the household when her mother, at the age of forty-four, became pregnant again.

A year later she applied to the London county council and won two outside scholarships...