James Waylen (19 April 1810–1894) was a 19th-century English painter.
He was already successful as an artist in his 20s, when he exhibited two portraits and a work entitled Marmion Borne Down by the Scottish Spearmen at Flodden at the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 1834 to 1838.
[3] He was born in Devizes, Wiltshire, in southern England on 19 April 1810 of Robert and Sarah Waylen.
[4] On 2 June 1829 Waylen came to the office of the famous civil engineer Thomas Telford, designing London's St Katharine Docks.
[5][6] Working in Telford's drawing office, he made long-life friends with another civil engineer, the Scottish George Turnbull, who in 1838 asked Waylen to travel from London to Huntingtower near Perth in Scotland to paint a portrait in oils of Turnbull's father William Turnbull, who wrote to his son: Waylen seems just the same unassuming, kindhearted creature as when last here: his heart appears to be in his profession, and he has made more progress in it than could have been expected in the time; we find him very amusing in the accounts of his travels.