[1] Wells first met the artist Joanna Mary Boyce in Betws-y-Coed in north Wales in 1849, where she was studying under painter David Cox.

Her brother was the Pre-Raphaelite painter George Price Boyce, so the marriage brought Wells into the group of friends that included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ford Madox Brown and John Ruskin.

[5] Wells was trained as an artist in his teens, first being apprenticed to Messrs Dickinson as a draughtsman for lithographs in 1843 (aged 15), changing to miniature painting for the same firm.

When photography took over most of the market for miniature images, in 1861 Wells switched to painting portraits in oils, becoming known as the painter to choose for military groups.

[9] He died at his home, Thorpe Lodge, on Campden Hill in Kensington on 16 January 1903 and was buried in Kensal Green cemetery.