Luke Clennell (1781 – 1840)   

• Was a British wood-engraver and painter.
• Clennell was born in Ulgham near Morpeth, Northumberland.

• The son of a farmer.

• He was apprenticed to the Newcastle upon Tyne wood-engraver Thomas Bewick in 1797.

• After completing his seven-year apprenticeship with Bewick he moved to London in 1804.

• He married a daughter of the copper-engraver Charles Turner Warren. 

• He gained a reputation as a wood-engraver, and in May 1806 he was awarded the gold palette of the Royal Society of Arts for a wood-engraving of a battle scene.

• He subsequently gave up engraving for painting.

• In 1814, he received from the Earl of Bridgewater a commission for a large commemorative picture, Banquet for the Allied Sovereigns, at the Guildhall, London. 

• He experienced great difficulty in getting the more than 400 distinguished guests to sit for their portraits, suffered a mental breakdown, and spent some time in a mental asylum in Salisbury.

• Next