He died at Totnes – an artistic area in Devon on the South Coast – age 60 on 15 March 1914.

He was buried at Townstal ( NOT Totnes ) - 18th March, and had lived a long time in Dartmouth where he was a benefactor to several groups.

[2] From records at the General Register Office, a 'John Winbush' was born in London in January 1854[3] probably at the hotel.

[5] His grandfather John Wimbush (also spelt Winbush and born circa 1791), was the Licensed Victualler (from 1849) of the Old Fourpenny Shop hotel, Warwick.

As all the Winbush children were well educated, it appears that there was a definite decision on his part to change the spelling of his name.

Sickert later became a prominent art teacher and the subject of the book, Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper—Case Closed.

The area achieved notoriety for opium dens in the late 19th century, often featured in pulp fiction works by Sax Rohmer and others.

[13] The painting An opium den At Lime Street was exhibited (as work 1772) in 1889, then titled Lingering Clouds.

Since 1998 the record price for this artist at an auction is $53,278 USD for An Opium Den at Lime Street, sold at Sotheby's London in 2008.

[15]Sotheby's auction notes said that the painting An opium den at Lime Street was valued at £40,000 – 60,000 and sold for £36,050.

Lucian Freud and thence to his friend Charlie Thomas who gave the picture to Marianne Faithfull; Private Collection

Soft music like a perfume, and sweet light Golden with audible odours exquisite, Swathe me with cerements for eternity.

It is likely that this picture is the one entitled Lingering Clouds exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1889, the title alluding to the rings of thick smoke swirling above the recumbent figures in an East End opium den.

The image of the Chinatown opium den run by wicked Oriental immigrants luring innocent Westerners into a life of destitution and addiction, was one made popular in late nineteenth century literature and lurid newspaper stories.

East London opium dens appear in Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edward Drood and famously in Oscar Wilde's 'Picture of Dorian Gray' and the Sherlock Holmes adventure "The Man with the Twisted Lip".

The poet Arthur Symons, whose description of opium smoking is given above, wrote to a friend in 1892 and gave this enlightening account of the hold that the drug had on the addicted: 'I open this again to tell you of a strange girl I met at Franhaus' [the home of a popular novelist of the time] last night – an extraordinary looking young Jewess, about 20, with a long lithe body like a snakes.

(Antony Clayton, Decadent London – Fin de Siecle City, 2005, p. 81) Although many potentially dangerous and addictive narcotics were readily available over the counter at many Victorian pharmacies, towards the end of the nineteenth century, opium was increasingly perceived to be a great threat to the moral fabric of the country.

The advances in steam navigation in the 1870s led to an influx in Chinese immigrants to Europe and with them came a ready supply of the drug and the proprietors of the dens that opened in the slums of the larger cities.

The image of the debauched and sordid opium addict languishing in East End dens was largely the invention of artists and writers.

In Wimbush's painting, the three figures are Chinese men clearly under the influence of opium and the purpose of the picture appears to have been to depict a social ill threatening the moralities of the age.

The men are reclining on a low bed so that they are able to hold the long pipes used for smoking the opium, heated over the glowing lamp shown on a tray brought by a servant.

This painting has a fascinating provenance having been owned by the artist Lucien Freud and later by the singer Marianne Faithfull.

As the light was not good for the photographer, some canvasses were moved out in the hall, some were put on the roof, but the best place was discovered to be Mr. Wimbush's studio on the same building.

For a time early in the 1900s, after Wimbush left for Dartmouth in Devon, 8 Fitzroy Street became Walter Sickert's studio.

The artists, writers and intellectuals who lived and worked in the area in the late 19th and early 20th century included Clive Bell, Ford Madox Brown, Quentin Crisp, Thomas Musgrave Joy, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, George Orwell, Lytton Strachey, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Rimbaud, George Bernard Shaw, and Virginia Woolf.

Lord Salisbury served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom three times over 13 years starting in 1885.

Interestingly the painter Henry B. Wimbush also did numerous illustrations and drawings around Devon and Cornwall at this time and possibly the website devoted to Whistler above confuses the two.

[5] John Wimbush died in the artistic area of Totnes in Devon 15 March 1914 at age 60 - just prior to the start of World War 1.

The mischievous magpie 29.8 x 24.1 cm 1886 12 March 1997 An Opium Den At Lime Street J. L. Wimbush Further signed, titled and inscribed on an old label attached to the stretcher 1889 £36,050 Sotheby's 9 December 2008 Waiting for a bite J. L. Wimbush /1901 Inscribed and signed 'Royal Academy Exhibition/No 2/J.

L. Wimbush/8 Fitzroy Street/Fitzroy Square/ Waiting a Bite' (on the artist's label, attached to the reverse) Oil on canvas 1901 Christie's 15 March 2012 The Music Lesson J. L. Wimbush 188’ Oil on canvas 60.9 x 45.7 cm £1,155 – £1,650 Invaluable A cook preparing the fish John L. Wimbush A cook preparing the fish, signed lower right and unclearly dated oil on canvas, 60.5 x 51 cm £800 – £1200 Venduehuis, The Hague 15 November 2017 A peasant woman in a headscarf 38 x 28 cm Oil on board The toy seller J. L. Wimbush Pair with The vegetable barrow 76.8 x 51.1 cm £5000 – £7000 (for the pair) Invaluable September/ 3 December 2008 The vegetable barrow J. L. Wimbush Pair with The toy seller 76.8 x 51.1 cm £5000 – £7000 (for the pair) Invaluable September/ 3 December 2008 Man with music score John L. Wimbush Oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm framed £370 Wash day 2 June 1993 The night watch John L. Wimbush Oil on board, 20 x 33 cm unframed Undisclosed Rowley Fine Art Auctioneers 31 August 2016 As Cores da Arte John L. Wimbush An English sailor John L. Wimbush Oil on canvas 51 x 36 cm A girl Turning Heads as she returns from market John L. Wimbush Oil painting on canvas, framed canvas size: 102 x 59 cm plus frame provenance: Delightful, large scale Victorian genre oil painting depicting a young girls turning heads in Private UK collection 11 September 2018 Turning Heads (Series) John L. Wimbush Large Victorian Oils Portrait of a girl Dartmouth Museum[17] The jester Dartmouth Museum[17] Charles Peek, Mayor of Dartmouth 1912 Dartmouth Guildhall[17] The art market website Artnet has a list of Wimbush paintings.