Edward John Gregory

1850 - 1909

Gregory was born in Southampton, the son of a ship's engineer and grandson of John Gregory, engineer-in-chief on Sir John Franklin's last Arctic expedition. He was educated privately before entering the drawing-office of P&O in Southampton. He met Hubert von Herkomer, whose family had settled in Southampton, and together they attended life-classes. In 1869 they both joined the South Kensington Art School. He later studied at for a short time at the Royal Academy Schools. In 1871, together with his friends Herkomer and Robert Walker Macbeth, he began working for The Graphic as an illustrator. In the mid 1870s he started painting portraits and figurative subjects both in oil and watercolour, his first major painting, Dawn, (1876) was in the collection of John Singer Sargent (now in Royal Cornwall Museum). Perhaps his best-known work is Boulter's Lock, Sunday Afternoon (1895, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool). He exhibited at the Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Paints in Water Colours and elsewhere. Works by him are held in the Tate Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and many other public collections.