Jane Bewick

Jane Bewick (1787–1881) was the eldest daughter of the wood engraver Thomas Bewick by his wife Isabella.

Life

One of Thomas Bewick's wood engravings for his A History of British Birds.

Jane Bewick is known for her lifelong veneration for her father's memory, and her store of anecdotes about his work and ways.

In 1862 she edited and issued A Memoir of Thomas Bewick, written by Himself. Embellished by numerous wood engravings, designed and engraved by the author for a work on British Fishes, and never before published. This memoir, written by her father at Jane's request in 1822-8, was throughout the nineteenth century the standard authority for Bewick's personal history, providing a frank, manly, and characteristic piece of autobiography, but it barely mentions his innovative wood engraving method and technique.^[1]

Jane's sister Isabella, survived her until 1883, dying in the old Bewick family house, now 19 West Street, Gateshead, where her father and sister had died before her. In 1882 Isabella anticipated a bequest, agreed upon with her sister Jane, and gave the British Museum a substantial collection of water-colours and woodcuts by her father, his brother John, and his son Robert, some of which had been exhibited in London in November and December 1880. After her death her executors presented a collection of portraits, drawings, prints, and other Bewick relics to the Newcastle Natural History Society's Museum.^[1]

References

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Dobson, Henry Austin (1885). "Bewick, Jane". In Stephen, Leslie. Dictionary of National Biography. 4. London: Smith, Elder & Co.