LIKE the forgotten soldiers in his evocative images, etcher and letterer Percy Smith was something of an unsung hero in his field. Yet his achievements are plentiful, from the inscription on the Canadian war memorial, Vimy Ridge, in France to his moving series of poignant World War One etchings which are displayed internationally from the Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh to the museum at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

Keen to give him the recognition he deserves, Marion Delf, whose great aunt was Percy’s wife, Professor Ellen Delf Smith, has spent the last year working with other relatives to pull together a comprehensive exhibition of his work, featuring portraits, watercolours and etchings.

“My interest was spiked when my aunt gave me a folder of Percy’s artwork. It was a portfolio of dry points, sketches and coloured drawings entitled Wuthering Heights and it just grew from there,” Marion tells me.

Trained at the Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts, Percy, was born in Dulwich and then lived in Hampstead until his death in 1948. He enjoyed a successful career crafting lettering for The Times newspaper bills, the London underground, County Hall and Broadcasting House among other prestigious accounts.

Then, when the outbreak of war was announced in 1914, he felt duty bound to sign up to service. Rejected twice because of a hernia, he was finally accepted into the Royal Marine Artillery in 1916 and sent to Thiepval on the Somme, where he served as a gunner. An avid sketcher, Percy, who was named a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts in 1930, did not travel anywhere without his sketch book, including the Western Front.

“He was part of the gunning team who fired this huge gun, a howitzer, which was named the granny. There are some accounts that say he was arrested twice when he was there for his sketches because he was considered a spy,” Marion explains. “When he got into trouble he asked to see the general and he showed him his sketches who, in turn, asked him to sketch the assembling of this huge gun. It took about 16 men to assemble it and Percy drew 15 etchings showing the process. They would smuggle the plates to him in the leaves of magazines.”

This incredibly intricate and detailed set of drawings is displayed in the exhibition alongside Percy’s famous series of seven etchings, Dance of Death (1919), which show the personification of death as an eerie skeletal figure looming over the soldiers and summed up the horror and futility of war.

“He wanted to show the horrific situation on the front, but there is also a lovely poetic side to his work.”

The poetic side is also very apparent, in Percy’s collection of atmospheric etchings of Bronte country. A huge fan of Emily Bronte, there is also a Christmas card he drew in salute to his heroine.

“When he came back from war, one of the first things he did was go up to Bronte country to get away from the massacre,” Marion tells me. “He was inspired by the solitude and loved the wild and windy countryside.”

The exhibition runs at Forty Hall, Forty Hill, Enfield until Sunday, February 28. Details: 020 8363 8196