Lady Dorothy Nevill was a noted hostess, writer, collector, and a horticulturist who corresponded with Darwin and was a friend of Disraeli and Edward VII. As a young girl her portrait was painted by G.F. Watts. Her son Ralph Nevill wrote 13 books which included British Sporting Prints.
Her grandson Jackie Nevill was an art dealer who had a gallery in Stafford Street, London. With the encouragement of Sir Michael Sadleir, Vice Chancellor of Leeds University, he mounted the first exhibition of PAUL GAUGUIN in England. At a similar time he also mounted exhibitions by PAUL CEZANNE, CAMIILLE PISSARRO and PICASSO drawings.

Uncle John
( stands pensive in conversation with a large woman ) in his gallery in Stafford Street off Bond Street. 1911 Gauguin Exhibition. (painting by Spencer Gore RA.)

His nephew, John Nevill, started the Nevill Gallery in Canterbury in 1969 with his wife Ann. Ann's mother, Mary Rochford, studied at the Slade School of Fine Art under Tonks. She married Archibald Corble, an Olympic fencer, who amassed a collection of 2000 books on fencing and duelling, now in the Louvain Library, Belgium. They settled in Cookham where she knew Stanley Spencer and collected his work along with that of other contemporary artists. She also had a notable collection of Gothic statues.

Ann studied history at Oxford and worked on Fleet Street. She lectures for NADFAS.

Their son Christopher Nevill, fifth generation in the arts, is now a Director of the Nevill Gallery. He studied at Grenoble and grew to love pictures while in charge of the Workshop at the Nevill Gallery for over fifteen years. The Nevill Gallery's aim is of bringing the best of contemporary works of art to Canterbury.

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