John Ley Pethybridge was born in Launceston in 1865 and died in Stratton, Cornwall in 1905. He was a gifted artist and illustrator, who exhibited at the RA, RBA and Liverpool. He had a solo exhibition at the Eland Gallery in Exeter in 1903. His art student days were spent initially in London, and subsequently under the tutelage of the animal painter John Emms in Lyndhurst, Hampshire and finally, with the Newlyn School of Painters in Cornwall.

He first exhibited in Lyndhurst in 1885, but returned to live in Launceston, where he was very active in a range of spheres, being also a talented musician, vocalist, actor, humourist, raconteur of Cornish stories and sportsman. In 1902 he married and moved to Stratton, near Bude, but died prematurely from cancer in 1905. His daughter Grace PETHYBRIDGE also became an artist.