The 1916 work includes a pencil sketch of their Home at Higher Kilnhurst.
It seems possible that Eileen’s talent, and interest in art, came from her father. A clue to this is the watercolour of a farmhouse at Heysham, which she says was “started July 1911 by my Dad and finished as much as I can by me Eileen Dawson January 20th 1973”.
An article in the Todmorden Advertiser 14 April 1916 says that Eileen “a student at the Todmorden School of Art, has been awarded the second prize in a competition for portrait drawing in the Cooperative monthly ‘Our Circle’ Miss Malone, who is only 15 years of age, selected as her three subjects the navvy author and poet Patrick McGill, first as a soldier and then as a poet, and Raermaekers, the famous Dutch cartoonist.”
The portraits are reproduced on this website.
It is clear that Eileen attended the School of Art for some years, but the examination results for that period have not yet been located in the local newspapers.

Eileen was born in 1900 at Wyke, near Bradford. Her parents were Edith, aged 21, and Michael Malone, aged 28, described in the census as a housepainter.
By 1910 the family were living in Todmorden, at 60 Higher Kilnhurst. The photograph taken there in that year shows Eileen seated, with her younger sister Winnie and parents.
Eileen clearly started drawing and painting at an early age, as the gallery of her work includes designs from 1914 and 1915, and much work from 1916.

Eileen married Mr Major Dawson in 1923, and they lived at Lobb Quarry, Todmorden, staying there until the 1950’s. This is near to Dobroyd Castle (built ca 1868 for John Fielden), where Eileen painted the Castle and the Castle Garden.

After a short period at Victoria Road, Todmorden, sometime after 1960 the couple moved to Newton Abbott in Devon., where Major died in 1965. Eileen was still painting, as evidenced by the vase of anemones done one day in 1973, not long before her death in that year.

The images of Eileen’s work used on this website have been taken from photocopies of the originals. These photocopies are held by her grandson Craig Escritt, and the images are displayed with his consent. Sadly, the whereabouts of the original works are not known.