William Joseph Mallory was one of the lesser known members of the East Kent School of Artists
He is mainly associated with seascapes painted in and around his home town of Deal but he also completed a large number of religious works and illustrated a number of books of poetry by his close friend and travelling companion Thomas Punney
Both Mallory and Punney visited the Holy Land on a number of occasions and the latter in his later years lived in the Pas-de-Calais which occasioned frequent visits from Mallory from 1860 onwards
A number of the Mallory’s most famous works were painted in the Outreau area and were as prized as much as his Deal and Walmer paintings at the time of completion
Although celebrated during his long life after his death in 1879 his reputation waned and today Mallory is chiefly remembered for the oddity of his signature or to be more specific that of his daughter Chistobel
Cristobel Mallory was born in 1850 and from a very young age was remembered as always being in her father’s studio which faced the sea front at Deal
It is said that in the autumn of 1853 that the young Cristobel touched one of her father’s drying oil paintings with her left thumb and this was not noticed by the artist until the work was completely dry
But far from being angry at his daughter for touching his work Mallory requested that she apply her left thumb print to all his paintings as a form of signature
From that day onwards Mallory never again signed a painting
When painting abroad he would take his daughter with him so that she could apply her strange signature as soon as the work was nearing completion
Cristobel is recorded as visiting the Holy Land on no less than five occasions between 1853 and 1865 and she often served as a model for some of the lesser biblical characters represented
In 1870 Mallory lost both his wife Jane and his closest friend Punney within months of each other
This caused a shift in his work and a number of his seascapes from this period were darker and quite often showed violent storms and shipwreck
Due to his failing health Mallory did not travel abroad after 1875 but frequently painted the Holy Land from memory and was often to be found on clear days painting the nearby coast of France from the Deal aspect
Cristobel, although a talented artist and a minor poet of some repute never married and lived with Mallory in the sea front house at Deal
Funded by her father she ran two very successful lace-making businesses in both Deal and Walmer
On the 22nd of July 1879 Mallory was found dead at his easel on the beach between Deal and Walmer whilst adding the finishing touches to his final painting Storm Clouds over the Goodwin Sands
His daughter who was visiting a cousin in Kettering at the time did not apply her famous signature to this work and Storm Clouds over the Goodwin Sands remains the only work by Mallory from 1853 onwards that did not bear his daughters thumbprint
It was thought lost after the bombing of Deal during World War Two but came up for auction in 1960 and is currently owned by the Museum of Kent
On hearing of her father’s death Cristobel wrote in her diary her most remembered line of poetry which is often quoted in anthologies and in books about Deal and the surrounding area
Oh death bringing breeze
Why did you not cancel
Your appointment with my dear father
For just a week and a day?
Cristobel inherited the whole of her father’s substantial estate and for the next seventy three years lived in her childhood home on the sea front at Deal where she became known in her later years as La Dentelliere de Kent