John Charlton (artist)

John Charlton (1849–1917) was an English painter and illustrator of historical and especially battle scenes, mainly from contemporary history.

Born to Samuel Charlton and his wife Mary Ann (née Pickering) Charlton on 28 June 1849, in Bamburgh, Northumberland, he received his first lessons in drawing from his father when he was only three or four years old, and within a few years was drawing horses with some skill. Due to his family’s financial misfortunes, he had to attend Dr. Sharp’s charity school held in Bamburgh’s great castle, and a few years later, was forced to quit and find employment. A job in the Newcastle bookshop of Mr. Robinson, a keen collector of the work of Thomas Bewick, "the father of wood engraving,” gave him an appreciation of graphic art. It was here that the budding artist began to imitate the master’s work, much to the delight of two of Bewick’s ageing sisters. Later he spent seven monotonous years employed in the office of Sir Isaac Bell’s ironworks, but seeing the young man’s skill at draughtsmanship, his employers regularly granted him one day a week in which to practice his art. Mr. Joseph Crawhill suggested that he attend evening classes at the Newcastle School of Arts under William Bell Scott. During this time he began to develop quite a reputation on Tyneside as a painter of horses and dogs, and he received some commissions to portray family pets.

He debuted at the Royal Academy in 1870, and his first painting with a military theme, Exercising artillery horses on a frosty morning, appeared three years later. Realising that his best prospects for advancement lay in the London art world, he ventured south in 1874 and took classes at the South Kensington Museum, now the Victoria and Albert Museum, under J. D. Watson. While he settled in the capital, he never forgot his northern roots, maintaining a house at 24 Windsor Terrace, Newcastle, and at one time lived at Cullercoats, while his final years were spent at Lanercost in Cumbria.

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