Henry Edridge

Henry Edridge ARA (1768 in Paddington – 23 April 1821 in London) was the son of a tradesman and apprenticed at the age of fifteen to William Pether, a mezzotinter and landscapist, and became proficient as a painter of miniatures, portraits and landscapes.

His subjects included Lord Nelson, the explorer Mungo Park, the Methodist missionary Thomas Coke, the Prime Minister William Pitt and John Wesley at the age of 88.

With the desire to indulge his taste for landscape painting, which he cultivated under Thomas Hearne, he made two excursions to Normandy and Paris, in 1817 and 1819, producing many interesting drawings which were subsequently exhibited.

Three of his landscapes are now in the South Kensington Museum, and his sketches on the first Lord Auckland and of Robert Southey are in the National Portrait Gallery.

Unhappily he had but a very short time to enjoy this distinction, for he died from an attack of asthma on 23 April 1821.