Horsham painter who highlighted people’s greed

On May 12 the prolific painter Walter Denny Sadler, who grew up in Horsham, was born in 1854.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy for several years and often painted people with comical expressions to illustrate their greed or stupidity.

This painting (right) in the Museum is of Horsham solicitor, money-lender, speculator and gambler Henry Padwick, painted with a more natural look.

Padwick was notorious for lending money to young men at gambling houses, then forcing them to pay off the debt by the sale of their property cheaply.