People

Explore the people, families and organisations of Stoke on Trent and Staffordshire through the ages. We will be adding more content to this page over the coming months.

The following Staffordshire residents all feature in the Staffordshire History Centre’s curated wall represented by different items from our collections.

Izaak Walton

Izaak Walton (1593 – 1683) is best known as the author of “The Compleat Angler” one of the most reprinted books in the English language. More than just a practical guide to fishing his writing is a celebration of time spent in the English countryside.

Walton’s birthplace is located on Eastgate Street, opposite the William Salt Library building, on the site that is now home to Stafford. He is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

Walton left his cottage to the people of Stafford in his will and that legacy endures; today it is cared for by Historic Stafford and open to the public on selected days. Find out more here: Izaak Walton’s cottage.

Mabel Layng

Mabel Layng (1881-1937), born in Macclesfield, moved to Stafford early in her life. She was around two years old when her father took up the post of Headmaster at Kind Edward VI school in Stafford after the death of his wife (Mabel and her sister’s mother). She remained in Staffordshire until 1902, when she left to study at St John’s Wood Art School in North London, and later the London School of Art in Kensington. Layng’s work was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art in 1916, and she would continue to exhibit at the RAA until 1928. Her works were also exhibited at the Paris Salon, Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and Women’s International Art Club, to name a selection. A number of her paintings are housed in Staffordshire Archives and Heritage’s fine art collection.

There is no record of Layng marrying, something relatively unique for her time, and supported herself through her career as an artist. It must be acknowledged her middle-class status went some way to facilitating her career, and thereby her ability to live as a single woman. She lived with her sister in Ealing from 1914 until the closing years of her life when she resided at Camberwell House, a private psychiatric facility, passing away aged 56.

Layng’s portraits show her commitment to the female subject: capturing, embracing, and celebrating female existence. Though men feature in the artwork, they are often on the periphery, in the background and, almost without fail, outnumbered by female subjects. Yet, these are not ‘remarkable’ women: women of remarkable status, of remarkable beauty, of remarkable acclaim. They are the quotidian woman and there in, for Layng and viewers alike, lies their intrigue. Read more in our Staffordshire women blog post.