Josiah Wood Whymper (

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

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, they comprise the civil parish of Haslemere i ...

) was a British

wood-engraver Wood engraving is a printmaking technique, in which an artist works an image or ''matrix'' of images 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 p ...

, 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. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, mo ...

. 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 training ...

(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 types ...

London Bridge Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It r ...

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

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

(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, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'', ''Rob Roy (n ...

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

(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 UK-based Christian charity. Founded in 1698 by Thomas Bray, it has worked for over 300 years to increase awareness of the Christian faith in the UK and across the world. The SPCK is th ...

, sold for 3/4d

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

plain, 2d

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

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

aurora borealis An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of br ...

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 freshwater ice more than 15 m long that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water. Smaller chunks of floating glacially-derived ice are called "growlers" or "bergy bits". The ...

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 British botanist and educator who was the author of a long series of popular books on natural history. Early years Charles Alexander Johns was born on 31 December 1811 in Plymouth, Engl ...

'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 Liv ...

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

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

's 1863 ''

The Naturalist on the River Amazons ''The Naturalist on the River Amazons'', subtitle (titling), 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 ...

''. 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 twenty years he served as director of t ...

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

David Livingstone David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of t ...

'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 (, ; it, Cervino, ; french: Cervin, ; rm, Matterhorn) is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy. It is a large, near-symmetric pyramidal peak in the extended Monte Rosa area of the ...

in 1865 and engraved the illustrations for

Howard Willoughby Howard Willoughby (19 June 1839 – 19 March 1908) was an Australian journalist. Notably, he was the first Australian war correspondent, he wrote against penal transportation to Australia and in favour of the federation of Australia. Willoughby ...

's ''Australian Pictures'' (1886). Other sons were

Frederick Whymper Frederick Whymper (20 July 1838 in London – 26 November 1901) was a British artist and explorer. Biography Whymper was the eldest son of Elizabeth Whitworth Claridge and Josiah Wood Whymper, a celebrated wood-engraver and artist. His younger ...

(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 ''The History of Bri ...

'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 ''Lan ...

'' (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 and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...

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

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London.

References

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