John Henry Henshall

In March 1876 he travelled to London to join the South Kensington School of Art, but he remained there only one term, passing in the following June to the Royal Academy on the special recommendation of Edward Poynter.

In 1880 he was awarded a Royal Academy silver medal for a Painting of a Head from the Life, almost certainly the fine watercolour An Egyptian Muleteer now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Although Henshall did paint some oils he was principally a watercolourist, being elected an Associate of the RWS in 1883, and becoming one of the Society's forty full members in 1897.

He exhibited 171 pictures at the RWS and his diploma work, La Serenata, may be viewed at the Society's Bankside gallery.

He was not afraid to tackle uncomfortable subjects and his honest, realistic pictures of ordinary life were quite unusual for painters in the Victorian era.