George Fennell Robson

One of 23 children of John Robson (1739–1824) by his second wife, Charlotte, eldest daughter of George Fennell, R.N., he was born at Durham in 1788; his father, a wine merchant, was from Etterby, near Carlisle.

[1] Robson was an honorary member of the Sketching Society, but weakness of sight prevented him from drawing at their evening meetings.

A meeting of the society to say farewell to Charles Robert Leslie on his departure for America was held at his house, 17 Golden Square, on Thursday, 22 August 1833.

From 1813 to 1820 he contributed, on the average, twenty drawings annually to the Oil and Watercolour Society's exhibition, mostly of the Perthshire highlands, but comprising also scenes from Durham, the Isle of Wight, and Wales.

That year he bought a drawing, by Joshua Cristall, from A Midsummer Night's Dream, cut out the groups, laid them down on separate sheets of paper, and got other artists, including George Barret the younger, to paint backgrounds to them.