[1] On leaving Dr. Cruikshank's private school at fifteen he entered the drawing-office, in his native town, of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, in whose employ his father sailed.

He was soon employed in the decorations of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in 1871, with his friends Herkomer and Robert Walker Macbeth, began working for The Graphic, which had just been started by William Luson Thomas.

He first made his mark as a painter with the oil painting Dawn (now in the possession of John Singer Sargent, R.A.), originally shown at Deschamps' gallery in 1879.

During his trip to Italy in 1882 he visited Capri and painted a beautiful picture of the Gardens of Augustus and Mount Solaro.

As early as 1883, he was elected with Macbeth to the associateship, and he became academician in 1898, after the completion and exhibition of his Boulter's Lock: Sunday Afternoon, a work which hardly justified the years of elaboration spent upon it.