Henry Albert Payne [also known as H.A. Payne, and as Harry A. Payne] was born at Kings Heath in Birmingham, England, in 1868, and studied at the Municipal School of Art in Birmingham under Edward R. Taylor (1838-1911) and was among the students who painted murals in Birmingham Town Hall. He subsequently trained as a stained glass designer with Christopher Whall (1849-1924) at Lowndes & Drury, the London studio of Mary Lowndes (1857-1929) and Alfred John Drury (1868-1940), and in c.1900 began designing stained glass at Adcock Green, in Birmingham.
A cartoon for a window at Warter Memorial Chapel, designed by Robert Anning Bell and executed by H.A. Payne and assistants is illustrated in 'The Studio Yearbook of Decorative Art' 1909 (p.41). H.A. Payne and his studio also executed windows for Madresfield Court in Worcestershire (1902); a church in Stokesay, Shropshire (1904); the Good Shepherd Church in Hook Common, Worcestershire (1906); the Church of St Andrew in Sunderland (designed by architect by Edward S. Prior 1906-7); St. James's Church in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire (1925); St. John's Church in Elkstone, Gloucestershire (1929); and Corpus Christi College, Oxford (1931); Leicester Cathedral and St. Andrew's Church in Leicester, Leicestershire; the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Malvern, Worcestershire; and a church in Roker, Tyne and Wear.
Payne also worked as a portrait, landscape and decorative painter, and drew illustrations for the 'The Dome' and 'The Strand' magazines and contributed illustrations to the Birmingham Art School production 'A Book of Pictured Carols: designed under the direction of Arthur J. Gaskin (London: G. Allen, 1893).
Payne taught at Birmingham School of Art from 1889 to c,1907. By 1904, though still teaching, he was running a busy independent stained-glass practice. He was a member of the Birmingham Group and from c.1900 was associated with the Bromsgrove Guild, for whom he designed stained glass, frescos and decorative schemes. This included painted décor for the Price of Wales pavilion at the Exposition Universelle et Internationale in Paris in 1900. Under the auspices of the Bromsgrove Guild, Payne displayed a cartoon for a stained glass window at the exhibition of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in 1903. In 1903 [or 1901 - sources differ]
Payne married Edith Gere (1875-1959) [later known as Edith Payne], the half-sister of the painter Charles Gere, and like Payne, a former student of the Municipal School of Art in Birmingham and member of the Birmingham Group. In 1909 they moved to St. Amberley in Gloucestershire, where in c.1912 they established the Loe's Guild, which worked on various decorative art schemes and produced stained glass, mosaics, embroidery, etc.
In 1902 Payne was commissioned to decorate the chapel at Madresfield Court in Malvern, Worcestershire. The project occupied him for twenty years and is considered one of the great achievements of the Arts and Crafts movement. He also received a commission to paint frescos for the House of Lords in 1910
From the late 1890s onwards he exhibited at the Fine Art Society, the New Gallery, the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours, Walker's Gallery and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London, the Royal Society of Artists in Birmingham, the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Manchester City Art Gallery and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Water Colours.
He was elected a member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (RBSA) in 1909, an Associate of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours (ARWS) in 1912, and a full member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours (RWS) in 1920. He was also a member of the Society of Painters in Tempera
H.A. Payne died in Amberley, Gloucestershire, on 4 July 1940.
