Wellington, Irene

Irene Wellington was born Irene Bass in Lydd, Kent in 1904, where her father was a farmer. She studied art at Maidstone School of Art 1921-1925, and first learnt lettering there under Arthur Sharp. She was introduced to Edward Johnston's Writing, Illuminating and Lettering and in 1925 won a Royal Exhibition scholarship to the Royal College of Art 1925-1930, where Johnston was teaching one day a week. She covered a wide range of subjects, including textile design, embroidery, architecture and printmaking, although she specialised in calligraphy.

In 1929 she was elected a Craft Member of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators. Her first major commission was The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Roll of Honour for the First World War that took almost a year to complete. In 1930 she married Jack Sutton and moved to Edinburgh where he was teaching. In 1932 she began teaching writing and illuminating part-time at Edinburgh College of Art. She moved from Edinburgh to London in 1943, leaving her husband Jack Sutton. She then married the painter Hubert Wellington who she had met while he was the Bursar at the RCA almost twenty years previously and they moved into The White House in Henley on Thames. During the next fifteen years she received many commissions, including the Wykehamist Roll of Honour, The Accession and Coronation Addresses presented by the London County Council to Queen Elizabeth II. She contributed towards Alfred Fairbank's A Book of Scripts .

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