Artists at War

Gray was 46 in August 1914 at the outbreak of the First World War, and he writes in his memoirs ‘remembering that I was considered too old for the Boer War I hardly expected an active job in this, and besides, I was groggy in one leg.  Soon after my return I dined with Lady Agnew.  Temple Franks was there also, a tall good looking barrister who was at that time head of the Patent Office.  He told me that a corps was being formed to protect London from Zeppelin attacks.  It was to be a part time job for professional men, with pay.  Franks had been enrolled as chief petty officer, and said that he would try to get me into his crew as an A.B.  A few days later I took the oath and was enrolled as a member of his crew’.

Their first pitch was on the roof of Cannon Street Station, and Gray started making sketches from which he developed paintings of the action. Two of these are now in the Imperial War Museum. The Zeppelin raids were not very successful and they were later followed by aircraft raids.

The unit was moved to King’s Cross and H.P.Hansel, tutor to the Prince of Wales and his younger brother Albert, later George VI, joined the team. This led to a visit by the Princes who spent two hours with the gun crew. Gray had drawn a caricature of Hansel and this resulted in him being asked to paint a portrait of Prince Albert at Buckingham Palace which he greatly enjoyed doing.

During the latter part of the war anti-aircraft stations were taken over by the War Office, and regular soldiers took the place of the older men. Gray found another way of serving as he describes in his memoirs. ‘Some of us joined an organisation formed to plot the course of planes raiding London and the control room was in the old County Council building near Admiralty Arch. In this room were many telephones connected with observation posts in and around London. A large map covered an end wall, and another large-scale map was fastened to a table in the centre of the room. During raids all telephones were manned, and messages received were shouted to an officer seated in the middle of the room. This officer sifted important news, and the course of the planes was plotted on the maps.’

This resulted in another painting request by Rex Fry of the Observation Room in action which is reproduced later.

The memoirs finish with the Armistice on November 11th 1918. The last words capture his feelings perfectly. ‘And so the door slammed on an epoch in which it was my good fortune to have lived.’