Edward Bacon
Edward Bacon at the Old Rectory, Bradford Peverell, Dorset, ca. 1938 (detail) © Courtesy The Estate of Francis Bacon and the Knott family
Anthony Edward ‘Eddy’ Mortimer Bacon was born in Adelaide, South Australia to an English father and an Australian mother, Alice Lawrence. He was educated in Britain at Wellington Public School and was posted to Ireland after joining the Durham Light Infantry. In 1902 he fought in the last phase of the Boer War where he served as a Captain in the Fourth Militia Battalion. On his return to England he was stationed in Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he met Winnie Firth. Shortly before they married in London in 1903, he resigned from the army with the rank of Honorary Major. He died near Dorchester on 1 June 1940.
Ianthe Bacon, the family's au pair and his mother, Winifred and Edward Bacon, at the Old Rectory, Bradford Peverell, Dorset, ca. 1938 © Courtesy The Estate of Francis Bacon and the Knott family