Regency Personalities Series-Society of Painters in Water Colour – Old Water Colour Society

Regency Personalities Series

In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.

Society of Painters in Water Colour – Old Water Colour Society

1804-1881 (Then becoming the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colour)

Society of Painters in Water Colour – Old Water Colour Society was founded in 1804 by William Frederick Wells. Its original membership was William Sawrey Gilpin, Robert Hills, John Claude Nattes, John Varley, Cornelius Varley, Francis Nicholson, Samuel Shelley, William Henry Pyne and Nicholas Pocock. The members seceded from the Royal Academy where they felt that their work commanded insufficient respect and attention.

In 1812, the Society reformed as the Society of Painters in Oil and Watercolours, reverting to its original name in 1820.

In 1831 a schism created another group, the New Society for Painters in Water Colours, and so the 1804 group became known as the Old Water Colour Society, and just the Old Society. The New Society subsequently became the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, which still exists today.

The Old Society obtained its Royal charter 1881.

Presidents were:

William Sawrey Gilpin (1804–1806)
William Frederick Wells (1806–1807)
John Glover (1808)
Ramsay Richard Reinagle (1808–1812)
Francis Nicholson (1812–1813)
John Warwick Smith (1814)
John Glover (1815)
Joshua Cristall (1816)
John Warwick Smith (1817–1818)
Joshua Cristall (1819)
George Fennell Robson (1820)
Joshua Cristall (1821–1831)
Anthony Van Dyke Copley Fielding (1831–1855)