Bailey, Barbara Vernon (1910–2003)
Bailey, Barbara Vernon (1910–2003)
English nun and artist. Name variations: Sister Mary Barbara; Barbara Vernon. Born Barbara Vernon, 1910, at Bulkeley Hall, in Woore, Shropshire, England; died at her convent, May 4, 2003, in Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England; dau. of Cuthbert Bailey (general manager of Royal Doulton's factory at Burslem, in Stoke-on-Trent).
Nun whose whimsical watercolors inspired Royal Doulton's line of Bunnykins nursery dishes and were the model for Bunnykins figurines (now all collectors' items); trained as a nurse and teacher; at 19, went into the religious life in Sussex, an enclosed Roman Catholic order known as the Augustinian Canonesses of the Lateran (1929); at request of her father, began her rabbit drawings for use on cups, plates and other children's tableware (1934); working late at night, eventually rendered around 1,000 pictures.