Heather "Herry" Perry (16 October 1897–6 September 1962) was a graphic artist, illustrator, and printmaker best known for her prolific design work for Transport for London and London Underground throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
Biography
Herry Perry did not use her birth name, opting to use a shortened version of the first name "Heather" which came from her middle name, Erica, the Latin name of the heather plant. Her nickname likely followed naturally given the simplicity and rhyme of the name "Herry Perry," especially compared to the lengthy name she was given at birth. Her name occasionally appears as Herry-Perry.
Early life
Anne Erica Thackeray "Herry" Perry was born 16 October 1897, in Bolton, Manchester to Ottley Lane Perry and Viola Travers Perry. Her second middle name, Thackeray, was bestowed in honor of a family connection to Victorian novelist William Makepeace Thackeray. Herry was an only child until 1902 when the second of her parents' two daughters, Rosamund, was born. The girls' father, Major Ottley Lane Perry, was a prominent cotton merchant and councillor who eventually served as justice of the peace for the County of Middlesex and the Borough of Bolton. Additionally, he is credited with designing Bolton's first official coat of arms in 1890. His design remained the town's official coat of arms for several decades until 1958. The Perry family moved from Bolton to Kensington in 1900, and again to Roxwell in 1911. Throughout their childhoods, both Herry and her sister Rosamund were homeschooled by an educated governess.
Adulthood
Perry attended Central School of Arts and Crafts in London in the mid-to-late 1920s. Between 1924 and 1927, she studied alongside students like Joyce Clissold, John R. Biggs, Hilda Quick, and Frederica Graham. While studying in London Perry created numerous wood engravings that are still held by the school today, including Mrs. Budgett, Head of a Young Man, and Christmas Card Farm Scene. Her most notable work from this period is a large, 52 x 39 cm (20.5 x 15 in) wood engraving print of a cross-section of the Central School of Arts and Crafts building on Southampton Row, carved between 1925 and 1926. The witty print features the basement and all five stories of the school, filled with different artistic departments and many hidden jokes from the artist. Classrooms include jewelry and enameling, sculpture, writing and illuminating, typography, and costume; but no classroom is busier than the second room in the basement simply labeled "Women." Perry's Central School Print was reissued by Central St. Martins in 1990.
It is not clear when she began, but Herry briefly worked as a qualified Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) nurse. She remained on the official register of assistant nurses until 1945 and continued to work in the medical field during the post-war years.
Later life
In early 1950, Perry began renting an empty room in her home in Camden to a doctoral student at King's College named Bill Pearson. The pair were mostly friendly, though Pearson later said that Perry "really wanted someone who would occasionally take her out and share life with her friends," and he claimed he'd rather have been treated like a boarder. He rented the room for several years, the pair regularly having meals together for the length of his stay. Pearson was a closeted gay man and often brought married female friends to dinner at Perry's house in an attempt to stress his heterosexuality to his landlady, though there is no record of her suspicions of him nor disdain of such affairs. Notably, Bill Pearson was a student from New Zealand studying in the United Kingdom, and homosexuality was not decriminalized in either location until 1986 and 1967 respectively.
Herry Perry died in Hampstead on 6 September 1962, at the age of 64, leaving her younger sister as her only surviving relative.
Career
By the time she retired in the late 1950s, Herry Perry's artistic portfolio included dozens of posters, wood engravings, drawings, playing card designs, book illustrations, maps, signs, murals, and more. She even contributed to the popular humor magazine Punch. In 1939, Perry was given the opportunity to design the General Post Office's annual Valentine's Day greetings telegram. Her design was the last Valentine's Day telegram form offered by the General Post Office until 1951 due to the complications and shortages that resulted from WWII.