Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Stacpoole, Frederick
STACPOOLE, FREDERICK (1813–1907), engraver, born in 1813, was apparently son of Edmund Stackpoole, lieutenant R.N., whose death was reported in the 'Navy List' of January 1816, and whose widow subsequently married a naval captain named Jefferies. He received his general education in Ghent, and later became a student at the Academy schools, gaining two silver medals in 1839 for a drawing from the antique, and in 1841 for the best copy made in the painting school. Circumstances induced him to give up his original intention of becoming a portrait painter in favour of engraving, and he devoted the best part of his life to this art. Most of his plates are executed in a mixed mezzotint (i.e. mezzotint in conjunction with line and stipple). His work was exclusively reproductive, including a large number of prints after Briton Riviere (chiefly published by Messrs. Agnew), Thomas Faed (chiefly published by Messrs. H. Graves), and C. Burton Barber. He also engraved pictures by Lady Butler, G. D. Leslie, Reynolds, Holman Hunt, Richard Ansdell, Sir Francis Grant, Sir J. W. Gordon, Landseer, Thomas Brooks, Frederick Goodall, Robert Collinson, Jerry Barrett, Alice Havers, Frederick Tayler, A. Bouvier, Philip R. Morris, and J. Sant. One of his most successful engravings is the 'Shadow of Death,' after Holman Hunt (1877). It is stronger and less mechanical in its style than the majority of his plates. 'Pot Pourri: Rose Leaves and Lavender,' after G. D. Leslie (1881), may also be singled out for the simplicity and breadth of its treatment. Among his most popular subjects were the 'Palm Offering,' after Frederick Goodall (1868), and the 'Roll Call,' after Lady Butler (1874).
He was a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy from 1842 to 1899. He was elected an associate in 1880, retiring from active membership in 1892 (being the last engraver made associate until the election of Frank Short and William Strang in 1906). His first Royal Academy exhibit (1842) was an oil portrait, and he exhibited six other paintings (portrait, subject, and landscape) at the Academy between 1843 and 1869, but from 1858 to 1893 his regular contributions were engravings. He also exhibited paintings at the Society of British Artists between 1841 and 1845. Two of his earliest published engravings are after Sir Edwin Landseer, and both are done in collaboration with other engravers, i.e. 'Peace' with T. L. Atkinson (1848), and the 'Hunted Stag' (engraved under the title of the 'Mountain Torrent') with Thomas Landseer (1850) (both after pictures from the Vernon collection, now in the National Gallery of British Art). During the last ten years of his life he again took up painting, sending five small subject pictures to the Royal Academy between 1894 and 1899. He died in London on 19 Dec. 1907, and was buried in Brompton cemetery. In 1844 he married Susannah Atkinson, and had issue four daughters and one son.
[The Times, 21 Dec. 1907; Lists of the Printsellers' Association; A. Graves, Dict. of Artists, 1895, and Royal Acad. Exhibitors; Cat. of Soc. of Brit. Artists; information supplied by his daughter, Mrs. Arthur Bentley.]