Josiah Wood Whymper (

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

24 April 1813 – 7 April 1903

Haslemere The town of Haslemere () and the villages of Shottermill and Grayswood are in south-west Surrey, England, around south-west of London. Together with the settlements of Hindhead and Beacon Hill (Hindhead, Surrey), Beacon Hill, they comprise ...

) was a British

wood-engraver Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image into a block of wood. Functionally a variety of woodcut, it uses relief printing, where the artist applies ink to the face of the block and prints using relatively lo ...

, book illustrator and watercolourist.

Early life and education

Born the son of a

brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...

, Whymper was apprenticed to a

stonemason Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. Stonemasonry is the craft of shaping and arranging stones, often together with mortar and even the ancient lime mortar ...

. He soon turned to drawing and painting, settled in London in 1829 and studied under

William Collingwood Smith William Collingwood Smith (10 December 1815 Greenwich – 15 March 1887 Brixton Hill), was a British watercolourist. William's father William Smith worked for the Admiralty and was a musician and amateur artist. William had no formal trainin ...

(1815–1887).

Career as illustrator

After having an

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...

London Bridge The name "London Bridge" refers to several historic crossings that have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark in central London since Roman Britain, Roman times. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 197 ...

published, he became well known as an illustrator and worked for

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

(for the 1857 edition of poetic works of

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

), John Murray, Cassell and other publishers. His wood-engraving enterprise became one of London's most successful. He also painted watercolours, specialising in

riverscape A riverscape (also called river landscape) comprises the features of the landscape which can be found on and along a river. Most features of riverscapes include natural landforms (such as meanders and oxbow lakes) but they can also include artifici ...

s, and gave drawing classes to pupils such as Charles Keene (1823–1891),

John William North John William North (London 1 January 1842 – 20 December 1924 Stamborough, Somerset) was a British landscape painter and illustrator, a prominent member of the Idyllists. Biography North was born in Walham Green in London, England. His f ...

(1842–1924),

George John Pinwell George John Pinwell (London 26 December 1842 – 8 September 1875 London), was a British illustrator and watercolourist. Biography Pinwell was born on 26 December 1842 at 12 Great Mays Buildings, London. He was baptised on 27 July 1845, a ...

(1842–1875) and Frederick Walker (1840–1875). He also produced fine engravings of animals, fish, landscapes and

wonders of the world Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, in order to catalogue the world's most spectacular natural features and human-built structures. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the o ...

for the

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) is a United Kingdom, UK-based Christians, Christian charity. Founded in 1698 by Thomas Bray, it has worked for over 300 years to increase awareness of the Christians, Christian faith in the Un ...

, sold for 3/4d

penny A penny is a coin (: pennies) or a unit of currency (: pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. At present, it is ...

plain, 2d

pence A penny is a coin (: pennies) or a unit of currency (: pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. At present, it is t ...

coloured. In 1846, Whymper made thirty engravings about dramatic natural phenomena such as the

aurora borealis An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

whirlpool A whirlpool is a body of rotating water produced by opposing currents or a current running into an obstacle. Small whirlpools form when a bath or a sink is draining. More powerful ones formed in seas or oceans may be called maelstroms ( ). ''Vo ...

s and

iceberg An iceberg is a piece of fresh water ice more than long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". Much of an i ...

s. Whymper exhibited in the London and Provincial Galleries and was elected an associate of the New Society of Painters in Water Colours in 1854, becoming a full member in 1857. Whymper's set of engravings for

Charles Alexander Johns Charles Alexander Johns (1811–1874) was a 19th-century United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British botanist and educator who was the author of a long series of popular books on natural history. Early years Charles Alexander Johns w ...

's ''British Birds in Their Haunts'' (1862) after drawings by

Joseph Wolf Joseph Wolf (22 January 1820 – 20 April 1899) was a German artist who specialized in natural history illustration. He moved to the British Museum in 1848 and became the preferred illustrator for explorers and naturalists including David Livin ...

is widely regarded as his finest work. He made some of the engravings for

Henry Walter Bates Henry Walter Bates (8 February 1825 – 16 February 1892) was an English natural history, naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the Tropical rainforest ...

's 1863 ''

The Naturalist on the River Amazons ''The Naturalist on the River Amazons'', subtitled ''A Record of the Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, during Eleven Years of Travel'', is an 1863 book by the British ...

''. He also produced the wood engravings for the ''Life and Habits of Wild Animals'' (1873–74) with the help of his sons Charles, Frederick and Edward, and provided illustrations for

Joseph Dalton Hooker Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (30 June 1817 – 10 December 1911) was a British botanist and explorer in the 19th century. He was a founder of geographical botany and Charles Darwin's closest friend. For 20 years he served as director of the Ro ...

's ''Himalayan Journals'' (1854) and

David Livingstone David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone was married to Mary Moffat Livings ...

's ''Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi'' (1865). He was in charge of the illustrations for ''

Picturesque Europe ''Picturesque Europe'' was a lavishly illustrated set of books published by D. Appleton & Co. in the mid-1870s based on their phenomenally successful '' Picturesque America''. An edited form was reprinted in Europe by Cassell & Co.''Picturesque ...

'' (1875).

Family and later life

Whymper was the father of eleven children including

Edward Whymper Edward Whymper FRSE (27 April 184016 September 1911) was an English mountaineer, explorer, illustrator, and author best known for the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. Four members of his climbing party were killed during the descent. W ...

(1840–1911), the alpinist, illustrator and wood-engraver, who made the first ascent of the

Matterhorn The , ; ; ; or ; ; . is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the Main chain of the Alps, main watershed and border between Italy and Switzerland. It is a large, near-symmetric pyramidal peak in the extended Monte Rosa area of the Pennine Alps, ...

in 1865 and engraved the illustrations for Howard Willoughby's ''Australian Pictures'' (1886). Other sons were Frederick Whymper (1838–1901), an artist and explorer, and Charles H. Whymper (1853–1941), who provided illustrations for books on travel, sport and natural history, including an edition of

William Yarrell William Yarrell (3 June 1784 – 1 September 1856) was an English zoologist, prolific writer, bookseller and naturalist admired by his contemporaries for his precise scientific work. Yarrell is best known as the author of ''A History of Briti ...

's ''

A History of British Birds ''A History of British Birds'' is a natural history book by Thomas Bewick, published in two volumes. Volume 1, ''Land Birds'', appeared in 1797. Volume 2, ''Water Birds'', appeared in 1804. A supplement was published in 1821. The text in ''Land ...

'' (1871–89) and the ''Birds of Egypt'' (1909). His second wife was Emily Whymper. Toward the end of his life, he lived in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, where he died in 1903. Examples of Whymper's work may be seen in the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

, London.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whymper, Josiah Wood 1813 births 1903 deaths English illustrators 19th-century English painters English male painters 20th-century English painters English natural history illustrators 20th-century English male artists 19th-century English male artists 20th-century English engravers