FRANCIS
H. NEWBERYTHE head master of the Glasgow School of art was born at Membury, a village in Devonshire, and was educated in the Art School at Bridport, Dorsetshire, and at South Kensington. He received in 1875 an appointment as Art Master in the Cowper Street Corporation Schools, City Road, London, and from there went to a similar appointment in the Grocers' Company's Schools, Clapton. In 1880 he was elected a student in training at the National Art Training Schools, the director at that time being Mr. Edward J. Poynter, now Sir Edward Poynter, P.R.A. In 1885 he received the appointment of Head Master of the Glasgow School of Art and Haldane Academy which he still holds.
In 1889 Mr. Newbery was elected an Artist Member of the Glasgow Art Club, and
became a member of the Glasgow Institute of the Fine arts. In 1895 he was made
an Associate of the Royal College of Art, and in 1902 an Associate of the
International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers. At the International
Exhibition of Decorative Art held in Turin in 1902, he was President of the
Scottish Section, and received from the King of Italy, in recognition of public
services, the Cross of a Knight Officer of the Order of the Crown of Italy.The Glasgow School of Art has risen under his charge to be the established central institution for higher art education for Glasgow and the West of Scotland, and a strong staff of professors has been brought from London Paris, and Brussels. He has exhibited pictures at the Royal Academy, the Royal Scottish Academy, the Glasgow Institute, the two Paris Salons, Venice, Berlin, Munich, Brussels, Budapest, and in America and elsewhere; and he has pictures in the public galleries of Venice, Magdeburg, Turin, and Munich. Among other literary work he wrote the articles on Sculpture and Painting in Blackie's Encyclopaedia, and he has contributed frequent articles and criticisms to the Scottish Art Review, the Studio, the Artist, Dekorative Kunst, the Glasgow Herald, the Glasgow News, and other journals. He was the author of the highly successful "Masque of the City Arms" produced at the School of Art, at Christmas, 1903, and performed by the students.