Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Whymper, Josiah Wood
WHYMPER, JOSIAH WOOD (1813–1903), wood-engraver, born in Ipswich on 24 April 1813, was second son of Nathaniel Whimper, a brewer, and for some time town councillor of Ipswich, by his wife Elizabeth Orris. The Whymper (or Whimper) family has been honourably known in Suffolk since the seventeenth century, one branch (including J. W. Whymper's great grandfather, Thomas Thurston) having been owners of the Glevering Hall estate (near Wickham Market) for several generations. After 1840 J. W. Whymper adopted what he considered the original spelling of his family name, Whymper; many of his early woodcuts are signed Whimper. He received his early education in private schools in his native town, and wishing to become a sculptor was apprenticed at his own desire to a stone-mason, but an accident in the mason's yard terminated his apprenticeship, and all but ended his life before he was sixteen. On his mother's death in 1829 he went to London with the hope of finding entrance to some sculptor's studio, but he was dissuaded from taking up that branch of art by John C. F. Rossi, R.A., to whom he had an introduction. Determined not to ask support from home, he turned to wood-engraving, teaching himself, and beginning by executing orders for shop-bills and the like. This led to some commissions for the ‘Penny Magazine.’ His prosperity started with the successful sale of an etching of New London Bridge at the time of its opening (1831), which realised 30l. profit. He lived for many years in Lambeth (20 Canterbury Place), doing much wood-engraving for John Murray, the S.P.C.K., and the Religious Tract Society. Among his best engravings are those in Scott's ‘Poetical Works’ (Black, 1857); ‘Picturesque Europe’ (Cassell, 1876–9); Byron's ‘Childe Harold’ (Murray); E. Whymper's ‘Scrambles in the Alps’ (Murray); and in Murray's editions of Schliemann's works. He had many pupils, the most distinguished being Fred Walker and Charles Keene. He engraved a very large number of illustrations by Sir John Gilbert, who was his intimate friend and a constant travelling companion for water-colour sketching. He had taken up water-colour after 1840, having a few lessons from Collingwood Smith. He commenced to exhibit in 1844, and became a member of the New Water-colour Society (now the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-colours) in 1854. From 1859 he had a country house at Haslemere, but did not finally retire from his work in London until 1884. He died at Town House, Haslemere, on 7 April 1903, and was buried in Haslemere churchyard.
He married twice: (1) in 1837 Elizabeth Whitworth Claridge (1819–1859), by whom he had nine sons and two daughters, including Edward [q. v. Suppl. II]], the Alpine traveller and wood-engraver, and Charles, an animal painter; (2) in 1866 Emily Hepburn (d. 1886) (a talented water-colour painter, who exhibited at the Royal Academy 1877–8, and Royal Institute 1883–5).
A portrait by Lance Calkin was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1889.
[D. E. Davy, Pedigrees of the Families of Suffolk, British Museum, MSS.; The Times, 8 April 1903; Catalogues of the New Water-colour Society (later the Royal Institute of Painters in Water-colours); information supplied by his daughter, Miss Annette Whymper.]