Henry Davy (1793–1865) was an English landscape painter, engraver and lithographer active in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

Davy was born on 30 May 1793 in The Poplars, what is now Birketts Farm, on Westhall Common, near

Halesworth Halesworth is a market town, civil parish and electoral ward in north-eastern Suffolk, England. The population stood at 4,726 in the 2011 Census. It lies south-west of Lowestoft, on a tributary of the River Blyth, upstream from Southwold. T ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

. He was the tenth and the youngest child in his family. His father, Thomas Davy, was a farmer. His mother, Sarah, was Thomas's second wife. She was the eldest daughter of William Gibson, surgeon of Carlton Colville and Willingham Hall, Beccles, Suffolk. Early in life Davy was apprenticed to a grocer at Halesworth, but his creative yearnings got the better of him and he left his apprenticeship to pursue drawing. Instead he became apprenticed to

John Sell Cotman John Sell Cotman (16 May 1782 – 24 July 1842) was an English marine and landscape painter, etcher, illustrator, author and a leading member of the Norwich School of painters. Born in Norwich, the son of a silk merchant and lace dealer, Cot ...

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...

, and assisted him in the etching of his Norfolk architectural views and illustrations of monumental brasses, published in 1818 and 1819. With this experience he issued his own series of ten etchings of Suffolk Antiquities including details of Beccles church, in 1818. In 1824 he married Sarah Bardwell, daughter of a master mariner in Southwold. Until 1829 he lived and worked in

Southwold Southwold is a seaside town and civil parish on the English North Sea coast in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk. It lies at the mouth of the River Blyth within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town is a ...

as an instructor in drawing and sketching from nature, and in the production of his own watercolours and etchings. Between 1823 and 1827 he issued a Collection of sixty etchings of further Suffolk Antiquities in parts, and these were re-issued (printed by Deck, in Ipswich) together with the earlier ten as ''A Series of Etchings Illustrative of the Architectural Antiquities of Suffolk'' in 1827. By this date he had also produced a series of ''Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen in Suffolk'' which contained only twenty plates, because, although many had subscribed, the funds contributed were not very large. In 1829 Davy moved to

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 ...

and soon settled in Globe Street (now renamed St George's Street), from which address the large body of his subsequent etchings down to the 1860s were usually dated. His first years in Ipswich were difficult, and in 1833 he sold many of his books, plates and other possessions by auction. His later etchings, by which he is best known, were in general issued and sold individually. His preparations for them, at first showing particular attention to Suffolk churches, included a copious body of sketches, from which he distilled a mass of detail for the preparation of his plates. During the later 1830s and 1840s he also produced journalistic illustrations of public events – such as the Laying of the First Stone of

Ipswich Docks The Ipswich Docks, Ipswich wet dock and the wet dock,) are a series docks in Port of Ipswich located at a bend of the River Orwell which has been used for trade since at least the 8th Century. A wet dock was constructed in 1842 which was 'the big ...

(1839) – as well as making drawings of farming and agricultural subjects, and of archaeological finds.A.H. Denney, ''Henry Davy'', pp. 84-85.

Works

Davy published at

in 1818 and 1827 sets of etchings illustrating the antiquities of

and the noblemen's seats in the county. He also exhibited three landscape paintings in 1829 in the Suffolk Street exhibition of the

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 fif ...

. His works are: * ''A Set of ten Etchings illustrative of Beccles Church, and other Suffolk Antiquities'', 1818. * ''Series of Etchings illustrative of the Architectural Antiquities of Suffolk, accompanied with an Historical Index, drawn and etched by Henry Davy'', Southwold, 1827. * ''Views of the Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen in Suffolk, from drawings by Henry Davy'', Southwold, 1827. Benacre Hall

Orford Castle Suffolk south east by Henry Davy

Notes

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Davy, Henry 1793 births 1865 deaths 19th-century English painters English male painters English engravers People from Halesworth 19th-century English male artists