The war years held other worries for Rackham. His wife now became seriously ill, from a heart attack after pneumonia. She never recovered her full health but suffered from cardiac and nervous weakness for the rest of her life. Her painting had to be almost entirely abandoned.

A large part of the war was spent by Mrs Rackham and her daughter in furnished houses at Rustington, near Littlehampton, while her husband remained at 16, Chalcot Gardens, paying them visits when he could. In this way Edyth Rackham avoided the strain of the 1914–18 air raids, which, though overshadowed by the bombing of

An informal self-portrait at the time of Rackham’s war service in January 1916.