One of several Scottish watercolours by the artist I have listed.
Walter F Parker ARCA, MSIDA, FIAL, FRSA, LAS 1914 - 2010
Walter Parker was born in Carlisle in 1914 and attended
Carlisle Grammar School from 1922 to 1930. Won a scholarship to Carlisle School
of Art in 1930 and spent 5 years studying Drawing and Industrial Design,
passing the Board of Education Drawing Examination in 1933 and their
examination in Industrial Design Parts I and II in 1934, specialising in
Graphic Design and Lithography.
In 1935 he won a major Award to attend the Royal College of
Art obtaining the diploma of the College (ARCA) in 1938, specializing in
Illustration and Textile Design. After a period as a free-lance designer, he
attended London University and the Courtauld Institute of Fine Art 1938/39
obtaining the Art Teacher's Diploma (A.T.D).
He was appointed Art Master at Rutherford College of Art,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1940 prior to volunteering for the R.A.F in 1941.
Commissioned in 1942 in the Intelligence Branch and later transferred to the
Education Branch of Bomber Command, serving in Lincolnshire and the Middle Est.
On demobilisation he was appointed Head of Design at Preston College of Art in
1946, followed by a similar post at Hastings School of Art until 1953. In 1953
became Head of Design Department at Hartlepool College of Art and was appointed
Principal of the College in 1954, a position he held until his retirement in
1978.
Elected a Member of the Society of Industrial Art and Design
in 1947. (MSIAD). Fellow of the Institute of Arts and Letters, Geneva. (FIAL)
in 1959. Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) in 1954 and a Life Member
of this Society in 1977. Walter Parker was elected a Member of the Lake
Artists' Society in 1964 and Vice President in 1983. His work covered
Watercolour painting, printmaking and woodcuts and he has work in several
public and private collections both in the UK and overseas.
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Caerlaverock, Eastpark
Farm, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
WWT Caerlaverock is wetland nature reserve in southwest
Scotland, one of ten reserves in Britain operated by the Wildfowl and Wetlands
Trust, founded by Sir Peter Scott.
It covers a 587 hectares site at Eastpark Farm, on the north
shore of the Solway Firth to the south of Dumfries. It is a wild nature reserve
with a network of screened approaches and several observation towers.
Almost the entire Svalbard population of barnacle geese
overwinter in the Solway Firth area, with many of the birds often at
Caerlaverock for part or all of the winter; their protection by the reserve has
enabled the population to recover from just 500 birds in the 1940s, to over
25,000 now.