George Elgar Hicks

Born on 13 March 1824 in Lymington, Hampshire, George Elgar Hicks was the second son of a wealthy magistrate.

He blamed this on the fact he had little time to study art or interact with other artists, due to a busy family life.

It was a typical genre painting, showing a scene from the Bank of England and featuring a broad range of social classes.

Hicks' paintings were often of subjects that no other artists attempted, such as the General Post Office and Billingsgate Fish Market.

By the late 1860s, the popularity of genre painting had declined and Hicks began to focus on historical subjects, leading to society portraiture in the 1870s.