Joseph Holland Tringham

Place: Hammersmith

Born: 1861

Death: 1908

Biography:

Joseph Holland Tringham (10 October 1861 – 26 March 1908) was an artist and illustrator in Victorian times. He received royal patronage, exhibited at the Royal Academy, and now has a pub named after him in Streatham, SW London. His early life was spent in the Royal Navy, where he would enjoy himself sketching caricatures of his colleagues. When his boss saw a caricature of himself, Tringham duly got the sack. However, in time he became a really well known illustrator, with his work appearing in several periodicals such as the London Illustrated News. As his fame spread, he joined fashionable society, and frequently had works exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was also commissioned to paint the portraits of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra on at least two occasions, and received letters signed personally by the Queen. In 1905—1906 he accompanied the Prince and Princess of Wales on their tour of India. He moved to Streatham in SW London in 1891, and is known at three addresses there, the last being 19 Greyhound Lane. He married Miss Beatrice Hall in 1886, but the marriage was dissolved in 1902, not long after the death of his mother. These events were accompanied by the development of photographic reproduction, which meant there was far less need for line illustrations in magazines, so his commissions started to dry up. He turned to alcohol, and the death of his former wife in February 1908 seems to have tipped him over the edge. To try to recover, he visited Douglas in the Isle of Man in 1908, but was arrested by a policeman who saw him behaving in a strange manner. The same night he was certified as insane and taken to the local lunatic asylum, where he died on 26 March 1908, aged 45.