Henry John Boddington

Henry John Boddington (1811 – 11 April 1865) was an English landscape painter.

Life and work

Boddington was born Henry John Williams in St Marylebone, London, the second son of painter Edward Williams (1782–1855) and his wife Anne (née Hildebrand, 1780–1851). He had five brothers, all of whom became landscape painters. His paternal grandfather, Edward Williams, an engraver, married a sister of James Ward R.A., the animal painter, and hence he was related to George Morland R.A., and H B Chalon, who married other sisters of James Ward, and to John Jackson R.A., who married Ward's daughter.

Boddington had no formal academy training - what teaching he had he received from his father, in whose studio he worked from childhood. In 1832, when just of age, he married Clarissa (Clara) Eliza Boddington (daughter of John Boddington), and adopted her surname, becoming Henry John Boddington, in order to distinguish his work from that of his brothers and other relatives; They had one child, Edwin Henry Boddington, (14 October 1836, Islington – 1905), who also became a painter. After a few years of great poverty and struggle, Henry John became a very prosperous artist. He lived first at Pentonville, then moved to Fulham, then Hammersmith, and finally in 1854 to Barnes, then in Surrey.

His earliest pictures...
Read More