Henry John Boddington

Henry John Boddington (1811 – 11 April 1865) was an English landscape painter during the Victorian era, and a member of the Williams family of painters.

Biography

Henry John Boddington was born Henry John Williams on 14 October 1811 in London. He was the second son of the painter Edward Williams (1781-1855) and Ann Hildebrandt (c.1780-1851), and a member of the Williams family of painters, who were related to such famous artists as James Ward, R.A. and George Morland. His father was a well-known landscape artist, who taught him how to paint; otherwise he received no formal instruction.

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 depicted the scenery of Surrey and the banks of the Thames. Work of his was first exhibited at the Royal Academy, London in 1837, and from 1839 onwards one or two of his pictures were exhibited there every year until his death and four years after it. He showed even more paintings at the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street.