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Regular contributor Alan Crooks has sent in an addendum to an item we put up back in 2018. So that it all makes sense, we are reproducing the original here (the addition is at the end):
As a person with a long-standing interest in aviation, my favourite pieces in this exhibition (Henry Lamb: Out of the Shadows Saturday, May 26, 2018 to Sunday, September 30, 2018) are those created when Lamb was attached to the School of Army Co-operation at Old Sarum.
I was particularly struck by the oil on canvas painting entitled ‘An Instructor of the Royal Air Force Co-operation School, 1941’ .
A check of the Imperial War Museum’s website (from whom the painting has been loaned) describes the painting as a “portrait of a young man in RAF uniform and a sheepskin jacket” and identifies the sitter to be Flight Lieutenant Caradoc Bowen-Davies who was killed aged 24 in a flying accident at R.A.F. Old Sarum on 22nd September, 1941. Henry Lamb subsequently wrote to the War Artists Advisory Committee, “I am terribly dashed by the death this week of that delightful airman […] C. Bowen-Davies. He was night flying. I had palled up with him considerably: he used to come often with his charming young wife”.
An online Bowen-Davies family tree shows that Caradoc’s wife was Betty Nash, and they had a daughter, Cara Patricia, who was born in 1942, i.e. after Caradoc’s death. His parents were Elystan (1883-1947) and Katie Guinlan.
Caradoc Bowen-Davies had been a pupil at Oundle School, an independent school in Peterborough, as he features in the Old Oundelian Memorials on the school heritage website.
Flight Lieutenant Caradoc Bowen-Davies’ name is recorded in Flight Magazine (November 13, 1941) under the heading, ‘Killed on Active Service’. This was Air Ministry Casualty Communique 89.
It appears that Flight Lieutenant Bowen-Davies (Service No. 33302) may also have been involved in an earlier incident as a thread on a Royal Air Force Commands website (thread concerning ‘Unaccounted Airmen’) states:
“F/Lt (Pilot) Caradoc BOWEN-DAVIES – 33302 – the Graves Registration Report Form gives his unit as 41 O.T.U.
The Western Mail of June 7th 1940 had reported the following:
“Reported Missing: Now in Hospital
Flight Lieut. Caradoc Bowen-Davies, Cardiff, who a few days ago was reported missing, is in a South of England hospital suffering from wounds to both arms and legs.”
Flight Lieutenant Caradoc Bowen-Davies is recorded as being Buried/Commemorated in St Andrews Churchyard, Laverstock, as listed on CWGC (the Commonwealth War Graves Commission).
Alan adds:
Since writing my blog, ‘Henry Lamb’s Painting, An Instructor at the RAF School of Cooperation’ on 26th June, 2018, I have traced and made contact with Cara, Caradoc Bowen-Davies’ daughter by his wife Betty. Cara says that Henry Lamb painted a portrait of her mother at the same time as he painted Caradoc, and this is shown here.
Figure: Betty Patricia Bowen-Davies by Henry Lamb, 1941.
Thank you Alan. This is a nice connection and an excuse to reproduce a moving story and two of Lamb’s great paintings.
And a lovely further comment on this dated 30 Sept 2020:
“Cara’s Mother told her [Cara] how much she had enjoyed meeting and visiting with Henry Lamb. As he was going to paint Caradoc, he told Betty that he got tired of painting war pictures. What he really liked to do was paint beautiful women, and might he paint her. Of course she said “Yes”. Hence we have this lovely portrait of Cara’s Mother. He also said he was going to do the portrait as she might look in 20 years. And she was a beautiful woman all her life.
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