Partner Mary Lowndes

Queer Places:
(1907) Brittany Studios, 259 King's Rd, London SW3 5EL, UK
(1929) 27 Trafalgar Studios, 25 Chelsea Square, London SW3 6LQ, UK

Barbara Geraldine Forbes (August 1871 - September 13, 1946) was born in Richmond, Surrey, in August 1871, the third of eight children born to magistrate Lachlan Forbes and Julia Wyndham. Growing up alongside her brothers Donald, Wyndham, Charles, and John, and her sisters Hilda, Julia Beatrice, and Florence, her early life was rooted in a traditional family structure. However, Forbes carved out an independent, pioneering path as an adult, becoming an accomplished stained glass artist, suffragette, and organizational secretary, though no formal records of her art education or public exhibitions survive.

By the 1911 census, Forbes was formally documented as a "Secretary Artists Suffrage League and Glass painter." In this capacity, she played a vital role in the women's suffrage movement, notably designing a prominent textile banner depicting Joan of Arc for the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). She created this significant piece alongside her lifelong partner and fellow suffragette, Mary Lowndes, with whom she shared both her domestic life and her professional stained glass enterprise. Lowndes and Forbes lived and worked together for decades, forming a deeply committed personal and creative partnership that defined much of Forbes's adult life.

Following Lowndes's death, the enduring nature of their bond was explicitly recognized in Lowndes's will, which left Forbes a sum of money alongside all her pictures, prints, cartoons, studio effects, and shares in the Englishwoman Ltd. Forbes spent her later years in Putney, west London, where she passed away on September 13, 1946, at the age of 75, leaving behind a legacy intertwined with the history of feminist art and the suffrage movement.

References:

The Women's Suffrage Movement (Women's and Gender History) 1st Edition by Elizabeth Crawford

Other references:

• Woman and Her Sphere (Research blog covering women's suffrage history and artists, featuring discussions on Mary Lowndes, Barbara Forbes, and the Artists' Suffrage League).
• Hazel Stainer Research & Arts Blog (Documenting biographical details on Mary Lowndes, the Artists' Suffrage League, and Barbara Forbes).
• Arts and Crafts Tours / Biographies on Pioneers of Women Stained Glass Artists (Detailing the foundational investments and studio work at Lowndes and Drury and The Glass House).
• The Spectacle of Women: Imagery of the Suffrage Campaign 1907–14 by Lisa Tickner (University of Chicago Press) – includes foundational references to the visual culture of the suffrage movement, banners, and primary appendices such as Banners and Banner-Making by Mary Lowndes.
• Art, Theatre and Women's Suffrage by Irene Cockroft and Susan Croft (Aurora Metro Books).
• Women in Graphic Design by Gerda Breuer and Julia Meer (Jovis / Berlin).
• The 1911 England Census: Official census documentation recording Barbara Forbes's occupation as 'Secretary Artists Suffrage League and Glass painter'.
• Last Will and Testament of Mary Lowndes: Historical probate and legal records detailing the distribution of pictures, prints, cartoons, studio effects, and shares in the Englishwoman Ltd. to Barbara Forbes.

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