Painter, draughtsman and teacher, born and lived in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, where he was prominent in the community. His gifts as a speaker were valuable during his 15 years as chairman of the thriving Arts Club and as a founder-member of the Friends of Erewash Museum at Ilkeston, which has a John Lally Gallery and which holds his striking, Cubist-influenced picture Museum and Grand Hotel, Scarborough. A tall, stately, charismatic man, Pop Lally, as he was known, studied for three years at Sheffield University until 1934, then taught, eventually becoming headmaster of Gladstone Boys School, retiring in 1977. He showed at Nottingham Museum and Art Gallery before World War II, after the war with the Midland Group of Artists in Nottingham.