Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Dalziel, Thomas Bolton Gilchrist Septimus
DALZIEL, THOMAS BOLTON GILCHRIST SEPTIMUS (1823–1906), draughtsman, youngest and last surviving member of the firm of the Brothers Dalziel [see Dalziel, Edward, and Dalziel, George], was seventh son of Alexander Dalziel by his wife Elizabeth Hills. Born at Wooler, Northumberland, on 9 May 1823, he was educated at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Unlike his brothers, he was brought up as a copperplate engraver, but did not pursue that vocation after completing his apprenticeship. He came to London in 1843, and worked as an independent illustrator for the Dalziels among others, until he joined the firm in 1860. He did not take part in the engraving of blocks, but devoted himself to drawing on wood. He also undertook the important improvements to be carried out before a finished proof was submitted to the artist. He also painted both landscape and figure subjects in water-colour, and made drawings of coast scenery in charcoal. As an illustrator Thomas Dalziel holds a higher rank than any of his brothers. The hundred illustrations to the 'Pilgrim's Progress' (Ward & Lock, 1865) are entirely by him, and he contributed eighty-nine illustrations to the 'Arabian Nights' (1864), twenty to Jean Ingelow's 'Poems' (1867), twenty-five to Robert Buchanan's 'North Coast' (1868), fourteen to the 'Bible Gallery' (1880), and a smaller number to several anthologies, illustrated by various artists and produced by the Brothers Dalziel. In designing the illustrations to the 'Arabian Nights' he profited by the oriental costumes and objects of art in the collection of his collaborator, Arthur Boyd Houghton, with whom, as with Pinwell and Walker, he was on terms of intimate friendship. Thomas Dalziel died at Herne Bay, Kent, where he had chiefly resided since 1893, on 17 March 1906, and was buried in old Highgate cemetery. By his marriage in 1856 with Louisa, daughter of Charles Gurden, who survived him, he had five sons and three daughters. His two elder sons, Herbert, born on 8 Dec. 1858, and Owen, born on 24 July 1860, are painters.
[The Brothers Dalziel, 1901; Gleeson White's English Illustration: The Sixties, 1897; Hampstead Express, 22 March 1906; information from Mr. Gilbert Dalziel.]