Obituary - Ben Perkins Ben Perkins, artist and countryman, died in December 2022 aged 90.
Born in Turkey, but educated at Sherbourne School in England, Ben served in The Queen’s Bays during his National Service. He subsequently spent a year at Trinity College, Oxford, where he read History, before deciding on a career in Land Management. Following a year’s practical farming on a traditional, mixed farm in Oxfordshire, he entered the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester.
After qualifying, he spent twenty years at Great Maplestead, managing the Dynes Hall Estate. With the latter’s sale in the mid-1970s, Ben became a fulltime artist, specialising in painting wildlife subjects. In addition to numerous botanical and ornithological commissions, Ben also undertook paintings of pets and favourite views.
He also wrote a monthly nature column and in the 1980s wrote and illustrated three books: Trees; A Secret Landscape: Diary of Lapwing Meadows (based on wildlife -rich meadows in Foxearth); A Fisherman’s Progress Around Britain.
A true gentleman, who by his own confession might have fitted more easily into the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, Ben will be remembered for his encyclopaedic knowledge of wildlife, his love of the countryside, his dogs, literature, history and classical music.
A genuine countryman, Ben was also a cultural polymath. He enriched our lives through his artistic skills, knowledge of rural life, gift for wide-ranging conversation and friendship.
A collection for SNS at his funeral raised £657 for which the Society is very grateful.
My thanks to Ashley Cooper and Ben’s nephew Nicholas Treadwell for providing the picture and help in compiling these notes.