Madge Gill.

Untitled. Ink. 37.5 x 45cm

Madge Gill was born in the outskirts of London in 1882. She had a very difficult childhood and was eventually placed in an orphanage. She spent the greater part of her childhood in Canada working on a farm and eventually returned to England where she married a stockbroker. They had three sons together and one of them died during the Spanish Flu epidemic. A year after that Gill gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. Both these experiences effected he profoundly and via an earlier interest in Spiritualism, Gill began to make mediumistic drawings many of which were said to represent her lost daughter. She was guided in these drawings by a spirit she called 'Myrninerest'. Many hundreds of drawings were found after her death and are now in the possession of the London Borough of Newham which, scandalously, has no plans to display them.