Samuel Read was a painter and illustrator, specialising in architectural subjects and, to a lesser extent, coastal views. He was particularly fond of producing images of the interiors and exteriors of cathedrals, many of which were reproduced in The Illustrated London News, for which he worked as its first Special Artist (a visual journalist sent to record major news stories for illustrated publications). Samuel Read was born in Needham Market, Suffolk, the eldest of ten children of the bootmaker, Thomas Read, and his wife, Mary. He was baptised at the local Congregational church on 20 December 1815. Educated at Theobald’s Grammar School, in Needham Market, he was articled as a clerk in 1830 to John Eddowes Sparrowe, attorney of Ancient House, Ipswich, and town clerk. During his time with Sparrowe, he produced both political caricatures and pencil portraits of the leading men of Ipswich.
In 1839, he moved to the office of William Mason, the borough surveyor, possibly with the intention of becoming an architect.
In 1841, Read moved to London to learn wood-engraving from J W Whymper, and also studied painting with the watercolourist, W Collingwood Smith. In 1843 – and annually between 1846 and 1857 – he began to send architectural drawings to the Royal Academy of Arts, mainly of the interiors of English and Belgian churches. In the following year, while living in Greenwich, he began to illustrate books, the first being Zoological Studies, and also contributed to The Illustrated London News. He became the first Special Artist for that magazine, and in that capacity was sent to Constantinople in 1853, just before the outbreak of the Crimean War.
In 1857, Read was elected as an associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours, and from then on contributed to every one of its exhibitions. Three years later, he married Isa- bella Carruthers, the daughter of the proprietor of the Inverness Courier, and they would have one son and one daughter.
Read made a number of British and Continental sketching tours, and during the 1870s produced coastal scenes and other landscapes, though they proved less successful than his architectural subjects. In June 1865, while returning from a sketching trip abroad, he was – like fellow passenger, Charles Dickens – involved in the Staplehurst railway disaster, and narrowly escaped death.
In 1880, Read became a full member of the Society of Painters in Water Colours (the year before the society received its Royal Charter). He also retained an unofficial position as art editor of The Illustrated London News. In his later years he lived at Parkside in Bromley, though he died at Fort Cottage, Sidmouth, Devon, on 6 May 1883, following a stroke. His studio sale was held at Christie’s on 29 February 1884.
His work is represented in the collections of the V&A.
Further reading: Anne Pimlott Baker, ‘Read, Samuel (1815-1883)’, H C G Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2010, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/23220
