John Warwick Smith

[1] Smith was born at Irthington, near Carlisle, Cumberland, the son of a gardener to the Gilpin family, and educated at St.

[1] Becoming known as a skilful topographical draughtsman, he was employed on Samuel Middiman's Select Views in Great Britain, and obtained the patronage of George Greville, 2nd Earl of Warwick, which enabled him to travel to Italy between 1776 and 1781.

[3] On one of his tours of Wales, at some time after 1788, Smith was accompanied by Lord Warwick's brother, Robert Fulke Greville, and the artist Julius Caesar Ibbetson .

In the preface, Sotheby wrote "the author of the following Poems thinks proper to signify, that the present edition is published solely for the emolument of the artist, who has stamped a value on the descriptive parts of the Welsh Tour, by the embellishments of his accurate and masterly pencil".

[2] Smith died in Middlesex Place, London, on 22 March 1831, and was interred in the St George's burial-ground in the Uxbridge Road.