Toye Vise

John Adcock recently ran an interview with founder of Chums Max Pemberton on his Yesterday's Paper blog. This originally appeared in the August 1933 issue and was conducted by Toye Vise.

In fact, Toye Vise did a whole series of interviews in 1933-34 but I knew nothing about the interestingly named Vise. A quick look around library records shows he was the author of various pamphlets, some relating to journalism, as follows:

A Staircase in Fleet Street. London, Press Club, 1939.
Planning for Beauty..., ed. Toye Vise. [S.I.], Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, n.d.
Tell It In Pictures. Hints to churchmen on pictorial journalism. London, Church Assembly, 1950.

R. Toye Vise was listed in the London phone book at Nook, New Maldon Est., Hornchurch, in 1928/30, 23 Churston Mansions, W.C.1 in 1932/35, 81 Parliament Hill Mansions, N.W.5 in 1936/59.

Records elsewhere show that Reginald Toye Vise was born around in 1874 in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, the son of Ambrose Blithe Vise and his wife Jennetta (nee Woodward), who had married in Kidderminster on 19 January 1869. He was educated locally in the Lincoln area.

By 1901, Vise was an assistant school master working in Lambeth. He was married in 1906.

As well as being a member of the Press Club, Toye Vise was also active in the Friends of Octavia Hill society, founded in 1958 to make her work better known and to prosecute the causes for which she fought. Hill was one of the founders of the National Trust and was very active in the struggle to bring open spaces within the reach of London's slum dwellers.

Vise died in Willesden in 1961, aged 86.

One thought that strikes me: given the fact that R. Toye Vise's mother was called Jennetta, I wonder if he was related to Robin artist and author Jenetta Vise?