Henry Payne (1868 - 1940)

Born at King's Heath, Birmingham, Henry Albert Payne studied at the Birmingham School of Art under E R Taylor. He was among the students who painted murals in the Town Hall (his panel exhibited 1890), and joined the staff in 1889. His main interest was in stained glass. Having taught the subject in the 1890, he himself underwent a course of instruction from Christopher WhaII in 1901, and by 1904, though still teaching, he was running a busy independent stained-glass prac¬tice. Meanwhile he was involved in a number of decorative schemes with the Bromsgrove Guild, and in 1902 was commissioned to decorate the chapel at Madresfield Court, a task which occupied him for twenty years and is one of the great achievements of the Arts and Crafts movement. It also led to his painting a mural in the Palace of Westminster. In 1901 Henry Payne had married Edith Gere, sister of Charles and Margaret and herself a talented artist, and in 1