William Fowler

Who was William Fowler?

William Fowler, was an English artist.

Fowler was born at Winterton, Lincolnshire, 12 March 1761. His father was Joseph Fowler, a builder at "The Chains" in West Street.

William became an architect and builder at Winterton, and about 1796 made drawings of Roman pavements discovered there. These were so much admired that he took them to London to be engraved by his brother-in-law, Mr Hill. There he studied the process of copper-plate engraving, and in April 1799 brought out his own coloured engraving of a Roman pavement at Roxby. From that date until 30 January 1829 he published three volumes of coloured engravings of twenty-five pavements, thirty-nine subjects from painted glass, five brasses and incised slabs, four fonts, and eight miscellaneous subjects. He also executed at least twenty-nine unpublished engravings, mostly of objects of antiquity. Many of the published plates are accompanied by printed broadsides. Most of the lettering on the plates was done by professed engravers. Those which he did himself are much more characteristic and interesting.