Rose L. Lowe was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Stoke Newington, London. She served as a nurse at Liverpool St Station in the First World War and then as an ambulance driver based in Cannon St Row during the Second World War.
In 1916, Rose married Basil Henriques and together they established and ran the settlement in Berners Street (later known as Henriques Street), London, pursuing philanthropic work among the Jewish community in the East End for more than half a century.
Rose produced a stream of paintings that document the times she lived in , exhibiting her work at the Whitechapel Gallery from 1934 onwards.
A few years ago, Clive Bettinson of the Jewish East End Celebration Society rescued a series of watercolours from the basement of the Whitechapel Library in London where they were being walked upon and thankfully they were restored.
Information supplied by Stanley Kaye and Clive Bettinson.
