The family moved several times before settling in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, where Lawrence Schwabe opened a printing and stationery business.
Randolph was educated at a private school in Hemel Hempstead and from an early age showed a talent for drawing.
In 1906, a Slade scholarship allowed him to study at the Académie Julian in Paris before travelling to Italy in 1908.
[13] Although he remained Principal of the Slade, he moved to Helensburgh in Dunbartonshire for health reasons and he died there in September 1948.
Schwabe's ashes are interred in the churchyard of St John-at-Hampstead in Hampstead, over which stands a small statue of an angel by the sculptor Alan Durst.
The angel wears a sash with the legend, Randolph Schwabe in whose life we have seen excellence in beauty.