William Brockedon
William Brockedon (13 October 1787 – 29 August 1854) was a 19th-century English painter, writer and inventor.
Early life
Brockedon was born at Totnes on 13 October 1787, son of a watchmaker. He was educated at a private school in Totnes, but learned more from his father, taking over the business during the illness of nearly twelve months which ended in his father's death in September 1802. Brockedon then spent six months in London in the house of a watch manufacturer.
On his return to Totnes he continued to carry on the business for his mother for five years. Robert Hurrell Froude, then rector of
Painter
From 1809 he pursued his studies in London as a painter with little interruption till 1815. Immediately after the
Brockedon was elected a member of the Academies of Rome and Florence. In compliance with a law of the Florentine Academy he presented it with his portrait painted by his own hand. Brockedon's portrait was hung in the Uffizi of the Florence Gallery near those of Reynolds and Northcote.
Writer
Brockedon was meanwhile earning for himself a reputation as an author. In 1824 he made an excursion to the Alps for the purpose of investigating the route of
In 1833 he published in one volume his Journals of Excursions in the Alps, the Pennine, Graian, Cottian, Rhetian, Lepontine, and Bernese. He also edited William Finden's Illustrations to the Life and Works of Lord Byron. In 1835 he edited for the Findens the Illustrated Road Book from London to Naples, with thirty illustrations by himself and his friends Prout and Stanfield. In 1836 he wrote for Blackwood's Magazine Extracts from the Journal of an Alpine Traveller, and he subsequently wrote the Savoy and Alpine parts of Murray's Handbook for Switzerland. His next work, published in folio in 1842-4, was Italy, Classical, Historical, and Picturesque, illustrated and described, with sixty engravings from drawings by himself, Eastlake, Prout, Roberts, Stanfield, Harding, and other friends. In 1855, in conjunction with George Croly, he wrote part of the text of David Roberts's The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia, Croly writing the historical, and Brockedon the descriptive portions.
Works
- Brockedon, William (1828). Illustrations of the passes of the Alps, by which Italy communicates with France, Switzerland, and Germany. Vol. 1. London: printed for the author.
- Brockedon, William (1829). Illustrations of the passes of the Alps, by which Italy communicates with France, Switzerland, and Germany. Vol. 2. London: printed for the author.
In Literature
Letitia Elizabeth Landon published a poem on the subject of Brockedon's painting of Raphael Showing his Mistress her Portrait in The Literary Gazette in 1824.[2]
Inventor
In 1819 he turned attention to the mode of
In 1843 he patented an invention for the manufacture of wadding for firearms; another for compressing sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate into the form of pills and lozenges;[3] and for preparing or treating plumbago by reducing common black lead to powder, and then compressing it in vacuo, so as to produce artificial plumbago for lead pencils purer than any that could then be obtained, in consequence of the exhaustion of the mines in Cumberland, and especially valuable to artists because it was free from (diamond) grit. The invention was first worked for him by Messrs. Mordan & Co., but at his death in 1854 the plant and machinery were sold by auction, and bought by one of the merchants connected with the lead industry at Keswick. In 1844, 1846, and 1851, he patented inventions for various applications of vulcanised india-rubber.
Later life
In 1830 Brockedon took an active part in the formation of the Royal Geographical Society, and was elected a member of its first council. He was afterwards the founder of the Graphic, an art society. On 12 June 1830 he was elected a member of the Athenæum. On 18 December 1834 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.
He died on 29 August 1854, in his sixty-sixth year, at 29 Devonshire Street, Queen Square, Bloomsbury, and was buried in the grave which contained the remains of his first wife and his son in the burial-ground of
Family
He married in 1821 Elizabeth Graham, who died in childbirth on 23 July 1829, in her fortieth year, leaving two children, Philip North, born at Florence on 27 April 1822, and Mary, married to Joseph Hornby Baxendale, the head of the firm of
External links
The Mother and Child., a painting engraved by William Humphrys for The Literary Souvenir annual for 1825, with a poem by Felicia Hemans
References
- ^ Charles Fellows, National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved June 2010
- ^ Landon, Letitia Elizabeth (1824). "Original poetry". Literary Gazette, 1824. The Proprietors, Literary Gazette Office, Strand. p. 268.
- ^ "Inventor of the Compressed Tablet: William Brockedon". The Chemist and Druggist. 1954.
- ^ Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1886). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 6. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- Attribution
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Brockedon, William". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.