Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Halswelle, Keeley
HALSWELLE, KEELEY (1832–1891), artist, son of David Halswelle, born at Richmond, Surrey, on 23 April 1832, came of a Somerset stock. At an early age he contributed drawings to the 'Illustrated London News,' and was long engaged in book illustration. Some work for Robert Chambers's 'Illustrated Shakespeare' took him to Edinburgh, where he found a very good friend in William Nelson, the publisher. Among other books which he illustrated were: 'The Falls of Clyde,' 1859; 'Byron's Poems,' 1861; 'Scott's Poems,' 1861; 'Thomas Morris's Poems,' 1863; 'Wordsworth's Poems,' 1863; and 'The Knight of the Silver Shield,' 1885. In 1857 a painting of his was exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, and in 1866 he was elected associate. In 1869 he left England for Italy, and during the next few years found most of his subjects there. The 'Roba di Roma,' exhibited at Burlington House, gained a 50l. prize at Manchester; but the most popular work of this period, possibly because of its subject, was 'Non Angli sed Angeli,' painted in 1877. Halswelle was then known as an artist whose inclination was either to paint from the life or to seek subjects in poems and pages of history. Latterly he made a reputation as an excellent landscapist. An exceptionally beautiful work of this period, a painting in oil of the Thames above Maidenhead, was included in (Sir) Henry Tate's gift to the nation, and is now in the Millbank Gallery. In 1884 some views of the Thames, recalling 'Six Years in a Houseboat,' were shown by themselves in London. A book on the subject, which bears the same title, was from the artist's pen. Halswelle was elected a member of the Institute of Painters in Oils in 1882.
Halswelle resided in his later years at Stoner House, Steep, near Petersfield, where he was a ruling councillor of the Primrose League. He died of pneumonia at Paris on 11 April 1891, and was buried at Steep on 20 April. He married in 1873 Helen, daughter of Major-general N. J. Gordon, who survived him with two sons.
[Magazine of Art, iv. 406; Men of the Time, 14th ed.; Dict. of British Artists, 1895; Scribner's Cyclopaedia of Painters and Paintings; Tate Collection Official Cat.; Ann. Reg. 1891, Chron. p. 159; Times, 14, 18, and 21 April 1891; private information.]