Full length portrait of a young girl in Victorian costume. *Obtained from a house in London Road, Bozeat, nearby to where Spencelayh lived. Charles Spencelayh was an English genre painter and portraitist in the Academic style. Born in Rochester in Kent, he attended The National Art Training School in South Kensington and trained and exhibited in Paris around the turn of the century. Between 1892 and 1958, he exhibited more than 70 paintings at the Royal Academy, including "Why War" (1939), which won the Royal Academy ‘Picture of the Year’. Spencelayh was a founder member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, where he exhibited 129 miniatures between 1896 and 1954. Spencelayh was a favourite of Queen Mary, who was an avid collector of his work. In 1924 he painted a miniature of King George V for the Queen's dolls house. In the early 1940’s, Charles and his wife settled in the Northamptonshire village of Bozeat, where they spent the rest of their lives as popular members of the community. The Bozeat years of his long career are characterised by some of his best-known works, typified by elderly Bozeat residents who cheerfully posed for the promise of a home cooked dinner. He was also a life long smoker and despite his work finding favour with Royalty he never lost ‘the common touch’. Visitors would leave with what he called ‘bread and butter pictures’ for cigarette money.