WILKINSON, Revd Joseph

c.1764 - 1831

Joseph Wilkinson was born at Carlisle and baptised in 1764, son of John Wilkinson, a London merchant, who settled in Carlisle. Joseph was educated at Corpus Christi, Cambridge graduating B.A. in 1794 and ordained deacon in 1790 and priest in 1792 and took the curacy of Irthington, Cumbria. Joseph had also held curacies in Sunderland and Lincoln and was chaplain to George Gordon, 9th Marquis of Huntly (1761-1853) who held lands in the Lake District. Joseph married All Saints' Church, Bolton, Cumberland in 1788, Mary Wood, daughter of Whitehaven metallurgist Charles Wood and she was a niece to doctor and scientist William Brownrigg (1711-1800) of Ormathwaite Hall and after the death of Brownrigg's wife Mary née Spedding in 1794, John and his wife went to live at Ormathwaite Hall. In 1803 he was appointed to the parish of East and West Wretham, just north of Thetford in Norfolk, moving there in 1804 and remaining for the rest of his life. He was also perpetual curate at Beccles in Suffolk. Wilkinson was a passionate amateur artist, and his slightly primitive sketches catch the isolation of Lakeland buildings and the mystery of the mountains behind. In 1809, Wilkinson asked poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) if he or William Wordsworth (1770-1850) would introduce a volume of his Lake District views and Wordsworth agreed to write the copy and his 'Select Views in Cumberland, Westmoreland and Lancashire' appeared in 1810, he was also the author of 'The Architectural Remains...of Thetford' (1822). Joseph Wilkinson died at Thetford, Norfolk on 16 October 1831, aged 67. (Death from Cambridge Chronicle and Journal 21 October 1831.)

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Works by This Artist