Henry
Lamb, the son of the mathematician, Horace Lamb,
was born in Manchester in 1885. After
attending Manchester Grammar School
he starting medical training at Owen's College
(later to become Manchester University).
In 1905 he left his medical studies and went to London
where he entered the Chelsea
School of Art.
Over the next few years several of his paintings received good reviews,
including Death
of a Peasant
and Fisherfolk.
He also became close friends with Augustus John
and Lytton Strachey. For a time, Lamb
and John lived together with Dorelia
McNeill
at Alderney Manor near Poole. In 1913 Lamb met Stanley
Spencer and was immediately impressed by his visionary paintings.
On the outbreak of the First
World War, Lamb thought it was his patriotic duty to return to
medicine. After a spell at Guy's
Hospital, Lamb and Stanley Spencer joined
the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). Lamb was sent to France where
he worked at the Hospital du Casino. In November 1915 he returned
to England where he finished off his medical studies in order to qualify
for a commission in the RAMC. In September, 1916, Lamb was sent as
a member of the Northumbrian Field Ambulance Unit to Salonika.
In March 1917
Lamb was promoted to captain and transferred to the Fifth Battalion
of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. By the time Lamb arrived this
part of the front-line was extremely quiet and for the next seven
months he spent most his time building roads and defences.
The Fifth Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers were sent
in September 1917 to join General Edmund
Allenby and his campaign to drive the Turks out of Palestine.
On 3rd May, 1918, Lamb witnessed a bombardment of the Fifth Inniskilling
Fusiliers at the village of Jiljila in Palestine. The incident killed
four soldiers and injured eight more. When later in the same year
he was asked to paint a large commemorative painting for the national
record of war, the Hall of Remembrance, Lamb chose the Jiljila incident.
Lamb's painting, Irish
Troops in the Judaen Hills was
finished in 1919. Many critics have pointed out the similarities between
this painting and Stanley Spencer's Travoys
Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing Station that had also
been commissioned for the
Hall
of Remembrance.
After the First World War Lamb became a much
sought-after portrait painter. In the Second World
War Henry
Lamb
became an official war artist and tended to concentrate on portraits
of soldiers and airmen stationed in England.
Henry
Lamb, Irish
Troops in the Judaen Hills
(1919)
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