Harry Quilter

Harry Quilter (24 January 1851 in London – 10 July 1907 in London), was an English art critic, writer and artist.

Life He was the youngest of five children of William Quilter (1808–1888), first president of the Institute of Accountants, and a collector of watercolours, and younger brother of William Cuthbert Quilter the politician. His mother, his father's first wife, was Elizabeth Harriet, daughter of Thomas Cuthbert. Born at Lower Norwood, south London, on 24 January 1851, Harry Quilter was educated privately, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, at Michaelmas 1870; he graduated B.A. in 1874 and proceeded M.A. in 1877. At Cambridge he played billiards and racquets, and read metaphysics, graduating the Moral Sciences Tripos of 1873 in the third class.

Quilter was intended for a business career, but on leaving university travelled abroad, and studied in Italy. A student of the Inner Temple from 3 May 1872, on returning to England he spent six months in studying for the bar, mainly with John Fletcher Moulton; he also attended the Slade School of Art at University College and the Middlesex Hospital. He was called to the bar on 18 November 1878. An attack of confluent smallpox damaged his health. Whistler's antipathy to critics was concentrated upon Quilter, to whom he always referred as "Arry" and whom he lashed unsparingly at his death.

His nephew Roger Quilter became a notable English art song composer, suggesting an enduring family engagement with the arts.