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WILLIAM JAMES LINTON (1812-1897)

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Originally appearing in Volume V16, Page 736 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WILLIAM See also:JAMES See also:LINTON (1812-1897)  , See also:English See also:wood-engraver, republican and author, was See also:born in See also:London . He was educated at See also:Stratford, and in his sixteenth See also:year was apprenticed to the wood-engraver G . W . See also:Bonner . His earliest known See also:work is to be found in See also:Martin and See also:Westall's Pictorial Illustrations of the See also:Bible (1833) . He rapidly See also:rose to a See also:place amongst the foremost wood-engravers of the See also:time . After working as a journeyman engraver with two or three firms, losing his See also:money over a cheap See also:political library called the " See also:National," and See also:writing a See also:life of See also:Thomas See also:Paine, he went into See also:partnership (1842) with See also:John Orrin See also:Smith . The See also:firm was immediately employed on the Illustrated London See also:News, just then projected . The following year Orrin Smith died, and See also:Linton, who had married a See also:sister of Thomas See also:Wade, editor of See also:Bell's Weekly Messenger, found himself in See also:sole See also:charge of a business upon which two families were dependent . For years he had concerned himself with the social and See also:European political problems of the time, and was now actively engaged in the republican propaganda . In 1844 he took a prominent See also:part in exposing the violation by the English See also:post-See also:office of Mazzini's See also:correspondence . This led to a friendship with the See also:Italian revolutionist, and Linton threw himself with ardour into European politics .

He carried the first congratulatory address of English workmen to the See also:

French Provisional See also:Government in 1848 . He edited a twopenny weekly See also:paper, The Cause of the See also:People, published in the Isle of See also:Man, and he wrote political verses for the See also:Dublin Nation, signed " See also:Spartacus." He helped to found the " See also:International See also:League " of patriots, and, in 1850, with G . H . See also:Lewes and See also:Thornton See also:Hunt, started The See also:Leader, an See also:organ which, however, did not satisfy his advanced republicanism, and from which he soon withdrew . The same year he wrote a See also:series of articles propounding the views of Mazzini in The Red Republican . In 1852 he took up his See also:residence at Brantwood, which he after-wards sold to John See also:Ruskin, and from there issued The English See also:Republic, first in the See also:form of weekly tracts and afterwards as a monthly See also:magazine—" a useful exponent of republican principles, a faithful See also:record of republican progress throughout the See also:world; an organ of propagandism and a See also:medium of communication for the active republicans in See also:England." Most of the paper, which never paid its way and was abandoned in 1855, was written by himself . In 1852 he also printed for private circulation an See also:anonymous See also:volume of poems entitled The Plaint of Freedom . After the failure of his paper he returned to his proper work of wood-See also:engraving . In x857 his wife died, and in the following year he married Eliza See also:Lynn (afterwards known as Mrs Lynn Linton) and returned to London . In 1864 he retired to Brantwood, his wife remaining in London . In 1867, pressed by See also:financial difficulties, he determined to try his See also:fortune in See also:America, and finally separated from his wife, with whom, however, he always corresponded affectionately . With his See also:children he settled at Appledore, New Haven, See also:Connecticut, where he set up a See also:printing-See also:press .

Here he wrote See also:

Practical Hints on Wood-Engraving (1879), See also:James See also:Watson, a Memoir of Chartist Times (1879), A See also:History of Wood-Engraving in America (1882), Wood-Engraving, a See also:Manual of Instruction (1884), The Masters of Wood-Engraving, for which he made two journeys to England (189o), The Life of See also:Whittier (1893), and Memories, an autobiography (1895) . He died at New Haven on the 29th of See also:December 1897 . Linton was a singularly gifted man, who, in the words of his wife, if he had not bitten the Dead See also:Sea See also:apple of impracticable politics, would have risen higher in the world of both See also:art and letters . As an engraver on wood he reached the highest point of See also:execution in his own See also:line . He carried on the tradition of See also:Bewick, fought for intelligent as against merely manipulative excellence in the use of the graver, and championed the use of the " See also:white line " as well as of the See also:black, believing with Ruskin that the former was the truer and expression in the wood-See also:block printed upon paper . See W . J . Linton, Memories; F . G . Kitton, See also:article on " Linton" in English Illustrated Magazine (See also:April 1891); G . S . See also:Layard, Life of Mrs Lynn Linton (1901) .

(G . S .

End of Article: WILLIAM JAMES LINTON (1812-1897)
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