After a promising career at various art schools, including the Royal Academy, in the late 19th century Macklin produced Romantic black-and-white illustrations for books, numerous landscapes, figurative paintings and civic portraits, all of which came to the attention of local newspapers in his native Newcastle upon Tyne.

[13] After returning to Newcastle, Macklin and his wife Alys lived in a "little old cottage hidden in a garden behind a high stone wall in Osborne Road".

[33] In 1911 the Census finds Macklin lodging at 139 Marylebone Road, NW London, and working on his own account as an artist, painter and sculptor; it says he had had one child, who was still living.

In addition to the portrait, Mr Macklin, who is accomplished in modelling, has executed a bust of Sir Charles which, also, is an admirable likeness, forcible and expressive.

Dircks, A Bend of the Tees ("a simple but satisfying landscape study"), and Streatley Mill on the Thames ("a water-colour drawing with an excellent moonlit sky").

The first, testified in the Academy's catalogue, says that Macklin had three hung that year (not including Mrs Dircks), and his wife Alys had one picture on the line: Priez Pour Eux.

[66] The second version, according to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, says that there were three oil paintings and one watercolour: Streatley Mill ("managed with telling effect"), A Bend of the Tees ("not so successful" and looking "unfinished"), and portraits of a young woman in blue and a child with a bunch of flowers, both titled Helen.

Macklin, the artist's wife, is included among the addresses in the catalogue as an exhibitor, though she is not represented by any work, the explanation being that although a painting from her was accepted ... it could not be found".

[nb 7] Macklin's portrait of William Glendinning was hung "in an unfortunate position for, owing to the curious lights that play about the canvas, it [was] almost impossible to obtain a fair view of it".

[78] In 1908 Macklin exhibited his "dignified and fine" portrait of Edmund J. Browell, JP, alongside his black and white drawings, at the Laing Gallery, Newcastle.

[80] In 1890, the Newcastle Chronicle observed cryptically that, "for some time past Mr Thomas Eyre Macklin ... has contributed high class pen and ink and other drawings to an illustrated metropolitan contemporary".

[nb 8][81] In 1893 Macklin produced "a variety of sketches" for Historical Notes on Cullercoats, Whitley and Monkseaton by William Weaver Tomlinson.

[82] The Newcastle Chronicle's critic "Robin Goodfellow" reported that "the gem of these illustrations is Mr Thomas Eyre Macklin's sketch of the Whitley coast.

[84][85] Macklin produced the "very fine frontispiece in photogravure" for an 1893 edition of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter,[86][87] and some illustrations for The Newcastle Christmas Annual, 1893.

[90] In the same year, Macklin created frontispieces for Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance,[91] and Our Old Home,[92] besides illustrations for Emily Grace Harding's A Noble Sacrifice.

[93] In August of that year was published Denton Hall and its Association, a history of the building by William Weaver Tomlinson, which contained thirteen illustrations by Macklin.

He has painted many fine pictures there, but his great production – a canvas 8 feet (2.4 m) square – has not been sent to the Royal Academy, as perhaps might have been expected, he being one of the most promising of its young men, but to the Paris Salon, where it occupies a capital position.

[110] In 1901, Alderman Richardson's likeness was painted by Macklin, and that was hung in the magistrates' room at the City Police Court in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle.

[118] "The ex-Lord Mayor is depicted seated, wearing his robes of office above court dress, and the background is the lobby of the Laing Art Gallery.

[119] In January 1918, a Daily Mirror journalist wrote: "The rage for photography among stage folk has not entirely killed the work of the portrait painter.

Mr T. Eyre Macklin tells me that he was so impressed with the appearance of Miss Muriel Dole in a small part at His Majesty's that he determined to paint her picture".

[120][nb 13] In 1921, Macklin painted a life-sized portrait of W.R. McMurray, JP, who for 50 years was the managing director of John Shaw Brown & Sons, Belfast.

[122] In 1928, Macklin painted a presentation portrait of his friend Sir Robert Baird, who was the royal arch officer of the District Grand Chapter of Antrim.

[4][127] He and Charles Septimus Errington (1869–1935) were first asked to submit plans for the monument in 1904,[128] and in 1905 it was announced that Macklin had won the competition to execute the work.

[138] Macklin was present when the Bangor war memorial was unveiled on Empire Day, 24 May 1927, by the Duke of Abercorn, in the presence of the Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore, a crowd "of several thousands", and much attendant ceremony.

The pedestal plinth, oversails and cornice are, like the shaft, of beautifully-cut Portland stone laid in mathematically harmonised ashlar work, the hardness being broken at intervals by the introduction half-courses.

The deadly dulness of the ordinary obelisk has been got rid of by the introduction of a collar of four panels showing delightful Celtic interlacing in basso relievo.

On the oversail on this side is a figure alleged to be of Erin holding the palm branch of victory but giving, none the less a sense of mourning – a charmingly thought-out idea.

The Lion of Victory also stands out in alto relievo, and very gracefully on the opposite side is a massive bronze shield on which are graven the names of the fallen heroes whom it commemorates.

On the Southern face midway up the shaft is the legend Died in the service of their country, and, on the panel of the pedestal is carved: The Great War 1914–1918.