Thomas Lord Busby (baptized 10 November 1782, buried 5 May 1838), sometimes spelt Busbey, was an English portrait artist, etcher, and engraver. A Londoner, Busby exhibited at the Royal Academy and published collections of costume engravings, but little is known of his life outside his work.

Life and work

Christened into the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

in November 1782 at St Mary's Church,

Whitechapel Whitechapel () is an area in London, England, and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in east London and part of the East End of London, East End. It is the location of Tower Hamlets Town Hall and therefore the borough tow ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

, Busby was the son of William and Lucy Busbey of

Leman Street Leman Street, once known as Lemon Street, is a street in Tower Hamlets. It was built in the seventeenth century as part of the development of Goodman's Fields. It is named after John Leman who was responsible for this development, which also inc ...

, Whitechapel.''Register of Baptisms, St Mary’s, Whitechapel''
Thomas Lord Busbey, 10 November 1782
''Burials in the Parish of Paddington in the County of Middlesex''
"No. 1081, Thomas Lord Busby, Abode Streatham Surrey, Age 56"
5 May 1838, ancestry.co.uk, accessed 30 July 2021 Although Busby left a large body of work, little is known of his life. The

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

says of him "Painter, etcher and humorous illustrator: active in London." '' The Benezit Dictionary of British Graphic Artists and Illustrators'' notes that Busby exhibited portraits at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

and the Suffolk Street Gallery of the

Royal Society of British Artists The Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy. History The RBA commenced with twenty-seven members, and took until 1876 to reach fi ...

between 1804 and 1837 and adds that he is "probably the same person as the T. L. Busby who exhibited portrait miniatures at the Royal Academy between 1804 and 1821". Busby published several collections of etchings and engravings, including ''Costume of Hartlepool, an interesting Town in the North of England'' (1819),"Literary Intelligence" in ''The British Critic'', March 1819, Vol. 12
p. 336
/ref> which contained six engravings to illustrate ''The History of Durham''. On his ''Costume of the Lower Orders of London'' (1819), a critic has commented His ''Costumes of the Lower Orders in Paris'', which had in it twenty-nine coloured etchings, appeared in 1820, and ''The Cries of London: Drawn from Life'' in 1823.Sean Shesgreen, ''Images of the Outcast: The Urban Poor in the Cries of London'' (2002)
p. 181
/ref> In 1824, the first issue of Busby’s ''Civil and Military Costume of the City of London'' was published and was dedicated by permission to

King George IV George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 29 January 1820 until his death in 1830. At the time of his accession to the throne, h ...

. Busby’s portrait of the one-legged black busker Billy Waters was the inspiration of many Derby porcelain and

Staffordshire pottery The Staffordshire Potteries is the industrial area encompassing the six towns Burslem, Fenton, Hanley, Longton, Tunstall and Stoke (which is now the city of Stoke-on-Trent) in Staffordshire, England. North Staffordshire became a centre of c ...

figures. This was one of the American figures appearing in his London collection of 1819 and was also in his ''Cries of London'' (1823). In February 1831, ''

The Gentleman's Magazine ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1907, ceasing publication altogether in 1922. It was the first to use the term ''m ...

'' noted a new engraving by Busby of

William Kidd William Kidd (c. 1645 – 23 May 1701), also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd, was a Scottish-American privateer. Conflicting accounts exist regarding his early life, but he was likely born in Dundee and later settled in N ...

’s “The Traveller disturbed”. Busby was buried in the parish of

Paddington Paddington is an area in the City of Westminster, in central London, England. A medieval parish then a metropolitan borough of the County of London, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965. Paddington station, designed b ...

in 1838, when his age was stated in the parish register as fifty-six and his abode as

Streatham Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. Streatham was in Surrey ...

Published works

*''The Elements of Flower and Fruit Painting: illustrated with engravings by T. L. Busby; from studies after nature by Madame Vincent'' (London: R. Ackermann at his Repository of Arts, 1814), with Adelaide VincentThe elements of flower and fruit painting

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

*''Costume of the Lower Orders of the Metropolis'' (London: 1816) *''Costume of Hartlepool, an interesting Town in the North of England, the Subjects designed and engraved by T. L. Busby'' (1819) *''Costume of the lower orders of London painted and engraved from nature by T. L. Busby'' (London: Baldwin and Co. for T. L. Busby, 1819) *''Costumes of the Lower Orders in Paris'' (London, 1820) *''The Cries of London: Drawn from Life'' (London, 1823) *''Civil and Military Costume of the City of London'' (London: Jennings, 1824) *''Busby's Street Scenes: Images of Street Hawkers and Criers in 19th-century London and Paris'' (new edition by Bird & Bull Press, 2013)

Notes

External links

"Thomas Lord Busby (active 1804–1837), Lithographer"
at

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world th ...

''Costume of the Lower Orders of London''

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

"T L Busby’s Costume of the Lower Orders"
spitalfieldslife.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Busby Thomas Lord 1782 births 1838 deaths English etchers English engravers English portrait painters