Painter, notably of portraits, and teacher, born in Rudgwick, Sussex. He attended Christ’s Hospital and worked briefly in an engineering draughtsman’s office before gaining the Christopher Head Scholarship to Royal Academy Schools, 1923, studying under Charles Sims and F E Jackson. He later studied at Académie Julian in Paris before returning to London to become a pupil of Sir John Lavery. The economic depression prompted Larking to move to Canada in 1930, where he showed regularly with the Royal Canadian Academy, married Betty Burnham in 1935 and then returned to England. Larking was a keen teacher, at Heatherley’s School of Fine Art and from 1949–67 at Sir John Cass School of Art. He then retired and moved to Colyton, Devon, where he lived in a small thatched cottage and held some classes, painting local characters and the landscape.