Henry William Pickersgill

Henry William Pickersgill RA (3 December 1782 – 21 April 1875) was an English painter specialising in portraits. He was a Royal Academician for almost fifty years, and painted many of the most notable figures of his time.

Biography Born in London, Pickersgill was adopted in his youth by a Mr Hall, a silk manufacturer in Spitalfields, who financed his schooling and then took him into the family business. When war caused difficult trading conditions, Pickersgill opted to develop his talent for painting into a career, and was a pupil of landscape artist George Arnald between 1802 and 1805 before entering the Royal Academy Schools as a student in November 1805.

His early subjects were varied and included landscapes and classical and historical themes, but he eventually settled to portraiture as his speciality. His first exhibit at the Royal Academy was a portrait of his benefactor Mr Hall, along with a small number of portraits of Pickersgill himself by others.

From 1856 to 1864, he was librarian of the Royal Academy. at the age of 93. After her death in 1885, Mrs Pickersgill became the first person to be legally cremated in the United Kingdom at Woking Crematorium.

In his will, Pickersgill left a bequest to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). A 35-foot self-righting lifeboat Henry William Pickersgill R.A., was placed at Dover Lifeboat Station, in service between 1878 and 1888.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poem The Oriental Nosegay by Pickersgill in her Poetical Sketches of Modern Pictures (in The Troubadour, 1826) probably refers to his Oriental Love Letter (1824) in the R. A. collection.

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