George Heywood Sumner was originally an English painter, illustrator and craftsman, closely involved with the Arts and Crafts movement and the late-Victorian London art world. Born at Alresfod in Hampshire he relocated to Cuckoo Hill, near Fordingbridge in Hampshire in his mid-forties, and spent the rest of his life actively investigating and recording the archaeology, geology and folklore of the New Forest and Cranborne Chase regions.
Sumner studied law at Oxford and London alongside his childhood friend W.S. Benson, who later became a successful metalwork designer. It was through this friendship that he was introduced to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.
Sumner rejected the elitism of the William Morris clique and engaged in projects to bring Arts and Crafts within the experience of the general public. In the 1890s he helped to set up the Fitzroy Picture Society, a group of artists dedicated to producing boldly coloured prints that could be sold cheaply to liven up the walls of public institutions such as schools and hospitals.