PAYNE, Edith
Harriet Edith Payne, known as Edith, was born at Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk on 20 February 1865 but not baptised at Bury St Edmunds until 15 June 1871, daughter of James Arthur Payne (1839-14 January 1876), a china & glass merchant, and his wife Harriett Chapman (1841-18 August 1897), eldest daughter of William Chapman of St Andrew's Terrace, Bury who married at St James's Church, Bury St Edmund's on 5 September 1861. Edith's father died in 1876 and in 1881, Edith was a 16-year-old artist painter, living at 84 Guildhall Street, Bury St Edmund's with her 40 year old widowed mother Harriett, now a china & glass dealer, with seven siblings, Arthur William 18, Edwin James 17, Charles Edward 14, Harry Chapman 13, Annie May 9, Ernest John 8 and Frederick George 6, her 63 year old grandmother Harriett Chapman, 72 year old aunt Mary Cooper, and a 65 year old boarder Johannes Ludwig Heinrich Moller, an artist painter from Germany, who was probably tutor to Edith, and they retained two general servants. Edith passed art examinations at the Bury St Edmund's Government Science & Art Class in 1885 and as Miss E. Payne, she exhibited at the Bury St Edmunds Fine Art Society at the Town Hall, Bury St Edmund's in 1886, an oil 'A View in the Wilderness, Bury St Edmund's' which was commended. In 1891, described as a 'photographic artist' and passed art examinations at South Kensington School of Art in 1896. By 1911 was a 'foreign missionary' boarding at 56 Drummond Road, Bournemouth and in 1921 a 'retired missionary' living at 45 Crown Street, Bury St Edmunds. In 1939, she was living at Dover, Kent but later that year returned to live at 'Sunny Croft', Beyton, near Bury St Edmund's. Harriet Edith Payne died in Bury St Edmund's in 1946, aged 80, she was unmarried.