Margaret Elizabeth (Betty) McCord

Other names: née Clements

Born 1 April 1909

Active: 1933 - 1951

Country of birth and death: Northern Ireland

Sculptor, teacher

Born in Downpatrick. She was the youngest of four children of James Clements, manager, then owner of Downpatrick Timber Slate & Coal Co. and his wife Elisabeth née McDowell. For most of her youth Betty lived with an aunt, Mrs Aird, in Belfast. Mrs Aird also supported her education at Belfast Royal Academy and Belfast Municipal College of Art. McCord wished to be an Architect but did not have the necessary mathematics. In 1922 Betty accompanied her aunt on a trip to Canada to visit cousins and also introduced her to the suffragette movement through membership of the Women's Citizens Union.

In 1931, after completing her studies in sculpture at the municipal art college in Belfast, she was accepted at the Royal College of Art, London. There she became a pupil of Henry Moore and on graduation received a travelling scholarship which she used to study Egyptian Art and research mediaeval wood carving in Germany for several months. Clements married James D. McCord ARCA who was an inspector of education and has exhibited for much of her career as Betty McCord.

During the Second World War, she trained with the St John’s Ambulance and served as an Air Raid Warden in north Belfast (1940-45). As soon as evening classes were available after the war McCord continued studying pottery at the Belfast Technical Institute, taught by Jean MacGregor (who exhibited with Clements with the Ulster Unit in 1934). During the late 1940s and 1950s she taught occasionally at the Summer Schools at Stranmillis College.

Clements exhibited at the the Guild of Northern Irish artists, a precursor to the Ulster Unit, in November 1933 (six sculptures including study of a girl with mandolin in wood). Examples of her work were purchased by fellow artists, including Joy McKean and the architect Dennis D O’Hanna. In 1934 she showed a half figure in bronze, of Miss Odette Davies at the Royal Academy in London and submitted work to the International Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1935. Clements was one of the initial members of the Art Teachers Association (N.I.) in 1936.

This entry includes information submitted by Margaret McCord and Emma McVeigh.

Citing this record

'Margaret Elizabeth (Betty) McCord', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib3_1257272655, accessed 25 Mar 2023]