Francis william warwick topham biography for kids

Francis William Topham

Francis William Topham (Leeds 15 April – 31 March Córdoba) was an English watercolourist and engraver.

Life

His early in life he was articled to an uncle who was a writing engraver.

Around he came to London, and at first found employment in engraving coats-of-arms. He then entered the service of Messrs. Fenner & Sears, engravers and publishers.

Francis william warwick topham biography for kids pictures

Moving employment to James Sprent Virtue, he engraved landscapes after William Henry Bartlett and Thomas Allom.[1]

Topham first visited Ireland in and , with Frederick Goodall and Alfred Fripp.[2] His career as watercolourist appears to have started self-taught, helped by practice at the meetings of the Artists' Society in Clipstone Street.

He was in one of Charles Dickens's company of actors (the "splendid strollers") in The Rent Day of Douglas Jerrold and Bulwer Lytton's Not so bad as we seem. Towards the end of he went for a few months to Spain in search of the picturesque.[1]

In the winter of