John George Sowerby

John George Sowerby (1849–1914) was an English painter and illustrator from Gateshead, and director of Ellison Glass Works, the Sowerby family business, which during the 1880s was the largest producer of pressed glass in the world. The grandson of naturalist James Sowerby, his paintings were exhibited in the Royal Academy of Arts, and his children's book illustrations were generally well received.

Sowerby's landscapes and floral paintings, while not numerous, were described as showing "a genuine Pre-Raphaelite intensity of vision". He brought designs inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement into Ellison Glassworks. Sowerby countered that the illustrations were not imitations of Greenaway's art but merely within the same genre. Afternoon Tea also suffered from printing inconsistencies and colour misalignment, the result of somewhat haphazard assembly by three different engraving firms before publication. described by librarian scholar Roger Dixon as "among the loveliest books ever produced."

Sowerby married Amy Margaret Hewison in 1872. They had one son and five daughters. His daughter Githa Sowerby became a noted playwright and children's book author, with many of her books illustrated by sister Millicent Sowerby, who also illustrated classic nursery rhymes and stories such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Sowerby died on 14 December 1914 in Herefordshire, to where he had retired.

Ellison Glass Works Sowerby's family had been in the glass making business since the early 1800s when his grandfather George Sowerby was a partner in the New Stourbridge Glass Works.

Books Afternoon Tea: Rhymes for Children. With H. H. Emmerson. London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1880 At Home. With Thomas Crane. London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1881 At Home Again. With Thomas Crane and Eliza Keary. London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1883 Jimmy: Scenes From the Life of a Black Doll. London: George Routledge & Sons., 1888 Young Maids & Old China. With F. W. Bourdillon. London: Marcus Ward & Co., 1889 Rooks and their Neighbours. London: Gay & Bird; Newcastle-on-Tyne: Mawson, Swan, & Morgan, 1895