Frank Miles

George Francis Miles (22 April 1852 – 15 July 1891) was a London-based British artist who specialised in pastel portraits of society ladies, also an architect and a keen plantsman.

He was the artist in chief of the magazine Life, and between 1877 and 1887 he contributed text and botanical illustrations to The Garden, a weekly journal published in London by William Robinson.

A letter of 1887 from Miles to the wife of the artist George Broughton reads: ...As soon as I have given up my house for three years, I and my girl will find a cottage and live close to London... we think of the S.E.

edge of Epping Forest... L and I expect we shall have many friends... we shall be near the best nursery gardens – and I spend half my life growing new rose plants I introduce and send to Kew.

[6]Miles commissioned Edward William Godwin to build him a house at what was then No 1 (but later renumbered to 44) Tite Street, Chelsea and moved in from his previous residence off the Strand.

In 1887, Miles was committed to Brislington House,[12] an asylum near Bristol, and he died in 1891 of what was diagnosed as 'general paralysis of the insane'[13][14] (4 years), exhaustion and pneumonia.

After being depleted by paying for his medical care at the asylum, on his death, the remaining possessions of a once-wealthy man with a large inheritance and a successful artistic career were found to be worth only £20 (approx £20,000 in 2008 terms).

The Prince of Wales was an occasional guest and shooting companion of Frank's cousin, Sir Philip Miles.