Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/483

 

 DALZIEL, EDWARD (1817–1905), draughtsman and wood-engraver, second of the Brothers Dalziel [see, and , Suppl. II], was fifth son of Alexander Dalziel by his wife Elizabeth Hills. Born at Wooler, Northumberland, on 5 Dec. 1817, he was educated at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Brought up at first for business, he followed his brother George to London in 1839 and entered into a partnership with him as engraver, and afterwards as publisher and printer, which lasted till 1893. He is said to have taken the leading part in extending the operations of the firm, and is credited with the faculty of discerning and fostering a talent for illustration in artists hitherto untried. He himself studied, after coming to London, at the Clipstone Street life school, where he was a contemporary of Sir John Tenniel and of Charles Keene; he painted in his leisure time both in oils and water-colours, and exhibited occasionally at the Royal Academy. As an illustrator he was less gifted and prolific than his brother Thomas. No book was illustrated entirely by him, but woodcuts from his designs appear in the following: 'Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant' (New York, 1857); 'Home Affections with the Poets' (1858); Dalziel's 'Arabian Nights' (1864); 'A Round of Days' (1865); 'Poems' by Jean Ingelow (1867); Robert Buchanan's 'Ballad Stories of the Affections 1 (1866) and 'North Coast' (1868); Novello's 'Our National Nursery Rhymes' (1871); Dalziel's 'Bible Gallery' (1880). Thirty illustrations to Parnell's 'Hermit' from drawings made by Edward Dalziel in 1855 were privately printed at the Camden Press in 1904. Dalziel died on 25 March 1905 at 107 Fellows Road, South Hampstead, where he had resided since 1900, and was buried in old Highgate cemetery. Portraits of Edward Dalziel, from a painting by his brother Robert about 1841, and from a photograph of 1901, appear in 'The Brothers Dalziel,' the book of memoirs of which he was joint author with his brother George.

By his marriage in 1847 with Jane Gurden, who died in 1873, Edward Dalziel had five sons and four daughters. The eldest, Edward Gurden, born in London on 7 Feb. 1849, died on 27 April 1888; a painter and draughtsman of some merit (see, Dict. of Artists), he illustrated ' Christmas Stories,' 'The Uncommercial Traveller,' and the tales published with 'Edwin Drood,' in Chapman & Hall's 'Household' edition of Charles Dickens (1871-9). The second son, Gilbert, artist and journalist, born on 25 June 1853, a pupil of the Brothers Dalziel as wood-engraver, and a student at the Slade School of Art under Sir Edward Poynter, P.R.A., became proprietor and editor of 'Judy' and other comic papers and annuals. The third and fourth sons, Harvey Robert, born on 13 March 1855, and Charles Davison, born on 16 Jan. 1857, carried on the Camden Press, the printing business of the Brothers Dalziel, under the name of Dalziel & Co., Limited, from 1893 till 1905, when the press was closed.

 DALZIEL, GEORGE (1815–1902), draughtsman and wood-engraver, the senior of the Brothers Dalziel [see, and , Suppl. II], was born at Wooler, Northumberland, on 1 Dec. 1815, and educated at Newcastle-on-Tyne. His father, Alexander Dalziel (1781-1832), was something of an artist, and seven of his eight sons by Elizabeth Hills (1785-1853) became artists by profession, four of them, George, Edward, John, and Thomas, constituting the firm which produced, as engravers, draughtsmen, and publishers, a large proportion of the English woodcut illustrations issued between 1840 and 1880.

Of the elder sons, William (1805-1873) was a painter of still life and heraldic decoration, Robert (1810-1842) a portrait and landscape painter, and Alexander John (1814-1836) a promising draughtsman in black and white. The two sons of Robert Dalziel, Alexander Aitcheson and John Sanderson, became pupils of the Brothers Dalziel in wood-engraving, but did not persevere in their profession.

John, the sixth son of Alexander Dalziel (born at Wooler on 1 Jan. 1822, died at Drigg, Cumberland, on 21 May 1869), the most notable member of the family after George, Edward, and Thomas, became associated with his brothers' firm in 1852, and was a highly accomplished engraver on wood, but failing health compelled him in 1868 to abandon artistic work and retire to Cumberland. He was twice married: in 1846 to Harriet Carter, by whom he had a son and two daughters, and in 1863 to Elizabeth Wells, who was