Title: 'John Gilpin'

Date: 1833
Etching on paper
Hablot Browne, also known as 'Phiz'
Provenance: untraced find, c.1915
Museum No. OLNCN 181

Hablot Knight Browne (1815-82) was the thirteenth of fourteen children, born of a family descended from Huguenot refugees who had settled in East Anglia in the 17th century. He was christened 'Hablot' in memory of a French officer to whom one of his sisters had been engaged and who had been killed at Waterloo.

From school at Botesdale in Suffolk Browne was apprenticed to the engraver William Finden (1787-1852) from whom he received a grounding in draughtsmanship. Often described as an idle apprentice, with some commenting that he 'spent more time reading Shakespeare, Smollett and Butler than in engraving blocks', he worked hard enough to keep Finden happy.

'John Gilpin' proved a significant work for Browne as its quality led to his being awarded the Isis Medal of the Society of the Arts in 1833. By 1834 this recognition had allowed him to set up in business by himself at No. 3 Furnivall's Inn, not far from Charles Dickens, whose Bleak House, Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities he was to illustrate.