John Everard

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John Everard (born Edward Ralph Forward 1898-1964) was a First World War veteran and former tea planter, who became a British press and studio photographer. He was a noted self taught photographer of nudes from the late 1920s until the early 1960s.







He was born on 28th June 1898, in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire. His father, originally from Devon, was a solicitor. In 1916, when Edward turned eighteen he enlisted in the British Infantry and was quickly captured, remaining a POW till the end of the Great War. He was awarded the Military Cross while with the Machine Gun Corps for his bravery at the time of his capture.


After the war, he accepted posting in Malaysia to manage a rubber plantation for American Rubber Co. On leave in Switzerland (skiing) in 1928, he met Kathleen Stanley, from Margate, who he married later that year on June 4th. On returning to England in 1932, he became photographer known for nudes. He adopted the nom de plume of John Everard to please his father, who was worried about the reputation of the family name. His first book Adam’s Fifth Rib was released in 1935.


Everard, along with Walter Bird (1903-1969) and Horace Roye (1906-2002) were the top nude photographers in the 1930s and ’40s. So much so they all decided that they were giving each other too much competition and that they should cooperate instead. So in 1939 they set up a joint company called Photo Centre Ltd.


They made their headquarters in a suite of rooms above Walter Bird’s studio in Savile Row. The fabulously titled Eves without Leaves (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd., London, 1940) was their first publication, which naturally proved popular with Allied troops during the Second World War. In September 1940, however, the photographic studios were badly damaged by Goering’s Luftwaffe.


For the book Sculptor’s Model (The Bodley Head, London, 1956) Pamela Green was enlisted as one of the models and recalled it was an outdoor shoot near Chelmsford. The girls apparently worked all day without anything to eat or drink, not even a glass of water, for which they were paid the minimum fee. Mean as he may have been, Everard produced some fabulous and lasting images of vintage female pulchritude.
Everard was a fellow of the British Institute of professional photography (FBIPP). Together with Bird and Roye he supplied the Men Only & Lilliput.

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More fine images from Mr. Everard

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Some more of Mr. Everard's Asian delights!

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and back to Blighty!

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