Obituaries
Trevor Stubley RP
(1932 - 2010, aged 77)
A great big barrel of a Yorkshire man, Trevor, made an Honorary Member in 2003, served the Society well as its Vice President from 1994 to 1999.
Impressed by his great common sense, very forthrightly expressed at our AGMs, I diffidently asked him to stand for election alongside me, only too aware that the time and distance involved may in fact have continued to keep our hierarchy Londoncentric. “But I ‘ate Southerners!” he said. Never have I been so glad that my parents were in York for my birth. In the event, Trevor gained more votes for his position than I did for mine (for which he was touchingly and modestly surprised and grateful), and proved a staunch support.
He would often drive down the A1 for the frequent meetings in his trusty transit van, in which he would spend the night, parked in some back street. For many years that same van provided a mobile studio for Trevor and his wife Valerie during their annual month abroad.
Within weeks of their return, the rich harvest of his sunny watercolours, efficiently framed and photographed for the invitation cards, would fill the walls of his eponymous gallery in Holmfirth.
Trevor was a prodigious producer of work. Besides 500 commissioned portraits, which included H.M. The Queen, he illustrated some 400 children’s books. That expertise he put to generous use in the improvement of our catalogue, bringing it into full colour for the first time and helping to make very substantial savings on its cost.
