Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/392

 von Bülow paid a high tribute to his skill as a chef d'orchestre. A man of remarkably methodical businesslike habits for a musician, he had an exceedingly retentive memory, and did much to foster a taste for classical music in England. His compositions were unimportant. He edited a 'Practical Piano-forte School' (begun in January 1873), and its sequel, a 'Musical Library,' both consisting of classical pianoforte pieces, begun in 1876. There is an oil painting of him by Victor Mottez (1850).



HALSWELLE, KEELEY (1832–1891), artist, son of David Halswelle, born at Richmond, Surrey, on 23 April 1832, came of a Somerset stock. At an early age he contributed drawings to the 'Illustrated London News,' and was long engaged in book illustration. Some work for Robert Chambers's 'Illustrated Shakespeare' took him to Edinburgh, where he found a very good friend in William Nelson, the publisher. Among other books which he illustrated were: 'The Falls of Clyde,' 1859; 'Byron's Poems,' 1861; 'Scott's Poems,' 1861; 'Thomas Morris's Poems,' 1863; 'Wordsworth's Poems,' 1863; and 'The Knight of the Silver Shield,' 1885. In 1857 a painting of his was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, and in 1866 he was elected associate. In 1869 he left England for Italy, and during the next few years found most of his subjects there. The 'Roba di Roma,' exhibited at Burlington House, gained a 50l. prize at Manchester; but the most popular work of this period, possibly because of its subject, was 'Non Angli sed Angeli,' painted in 1877. Halswelle was then known as an artist whose inclination was either to paint from the life or to seek subjects in poems and pages of history. Latterly he made a reputation as an excellent landscapist. An exceptionally beautiful work of this period, a painting in oil of the Thames above Maidenhead, was included in (Sir) Henry Tate's gift to the nation, and is now in the Millbank Gallery. In 1884 some views of the Thames, recalling 'Six Years in a Houseboat,' were shown by themselves in London. A book on the subject, which bears the same title, was from the artist's pen. Halswelle was elected a member of the Institute of Painters in Oils in 1882.

Halswelle resided in his later years at Stoner House, Steep, near Petersfield, where he was a ruling councillor of the Primrose League. He died of pneumonia at Paris on 11 April 1891, and was buried at Steep on 20 April. He married in 1873 Helen, daughter of Major-general N. J. Gordon, who survived him with two sons.



HAMERTON, PHILIP GILBERT (1834–1894), artist and essayist, was born on 10 Sept. 1834 at Laneside, Shaw, near Oldham in Lancashire. His grandfather, Gilbert Hamerton, was the second son of an old Lancashire family. His father, John Hamerton, a solicitor, married in 1833 Anne, the orphan daughter of Philip Cocker, a cotton manufacturer. She survived his birth only a few days, and the boy was brought up by his aunts at Burnley, and afterwards educated at Burnley and Doncaster grammar schools. His father, to whom he owed nothing but existence, died in January 1844. After the completion of his school education Hamerton was placed with a clergyman, 'with whom I had not two ideas in common,' to be prepared for Oxford. This scheme came to an end from the youth's distaste for the subjects of academical study, combined with reluctance to sign the thirty-nine articles. Being possessed of independent means, he was able to gratify both his leading tastes by 'deciding to try to be a painter and to try to be an author, and seeing what came of both attempts.' In the meantime he accepted a commission in the militia, and travelled and painted in Scotland. In 1853 he came to London, and studied under a clever but not highly cultured artist named Pettitt, who carried on painting as 'a high-class industry.' 'I made rapid progress; it was not quite in the right direction.' He resorted also to Ruskin for advice, which in his opinion proved misleading. He was gradually led back to the Highlands, and his first publication, 'The Isles of Loch Awe and other Poems' (1855), was a volume of verse chiefly inspired by Highland scenery. Its entire failure confirmed him for a time in the pursuit of art, and after his sudden but most fortunate marriage in 1858 with a young French lady, Mdlle. Eugenie Gindriez, the daughter of a republican ex-prefect, who had refused employment under the empire, he took up his residence with her in the solitary islet of Innistrynich on Loch Awe a marvellous change for the bride, accepted with complete acquiescence. Financial difficulties, chiefly connected with Hamerton's Lancashire property, led, after a few years, to removal to