About William Berryman
Lived 1701 – 1816 (aged 114–115). William Berryman was an English painter.
William Berryman was an English artist who was active in Jamaica during the period 1808–1816. He produced over three hundred pencil sketches and watercolours of the Jamaican landscape and the daily lives of the island's people. His work demonstrates particular interest in the lives of the island's majority inhabitants: enslaved people of African and mixed descent. He planned a project of making an engraving series based upon his Jamaican artwork, but died before he could undertake it.
Berryman's life is not well documented. In the early 1800s he lived with his brother John on Great Portland Street, London, and both of them exhibited art in the 1802 exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts. William and John later contributed woodblock illustrations to John Thomas Smith's Antiquities of Westminster (1807). It is unknown exactly when Berryman arrived in Jamaica, but there is evidence he sought the patronage of Edward Beeston Long, son of wealthy Jamaican plantation owner Edward Long, and a dated illustration places Berryman in Jamaica by May 1808.
Berryman's unpublished work was neglected until it was rediscovered in an album acquired by the United States Library of Congress.
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Important facts
People in William Berryman's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
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Frequently asked questions
Who was William Berryman?
British artist
When was William Berryman born?
William Berryman was born in 1701.
When did William Berryman die?
William Berryman died in 1816.
What was William Berryman's occupation?
William Berryman was a painter.
What nationality was William Berryman?
William Berryman was English.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). William Berryman. https://biography.guide/william-berryman/
MLA: "William Berryman." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/william-berryman/.
Chicago: "William Berryman." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/william-berryman/.
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