William Sharp (engraver)

[3] He also completed the plate of Benjamin West's "Landing of Charles II" which William Woollett had left unfinished at the time of his death, engraved some of the illustrations by artists who travelled with Captain Cook on his famous voyages,[4] and J. H. Benwell's "Children in the Wood".

As a result of a legal dispute involving Horne Tooke, Sharp was questioned by the Privy Council on charges relating to treason,[3] but was eventually dismissed without punishment as merely an "enthusiast".

He became a convert to the teachings of Mesmer and Swedenborg and came under the religious influence of would-be visionary Jacob Bryan (who worked for Sharp as a printer for a time), and millennialist prophet Richard Brothers, engraving the latter as "Prince of the Hebrews".

After Brothers' incarceration in an insane asylum in Islington, Sharp became an adherent of prophetess Joanna Southcott, whom he brought from Exeter to London and kept at his own expense for a considerable time;[3] he made a portrait drawing of her which he engraved.

[6] Despite her apparently premature death, he never lost faith in her divine mission or the possibility that she would reappear, and wrote a book in her defence: "An answer to the world etc."