Sir joseph noel paton biography sample

, Sir JOSEPH NOËL (1821–1901), artist, born on 13 December 1821, at Dunfermline, was elder son of Joseph Neil Paton, designer of patterns for damask (the staple industry of the town), who was a collector of works of art and after many phases of religious development became a Swedenborgian. His mother, Catherine MacDiarmid, who claimed descent from Malcolm Canmore, through the Robertsons ​of Struan, was an enthusiast for fairy-tales and the traditions and legends of the Highlands. His younger brother, Waller Hugh [q. v.], was the landscape-painter, and one of his two sisters, Amelia (1820-1904), who married David Octavius Hill [q. v.], modelled with skill and executed several public statues of merit. At an early age the boy Joseph, who read widely, was impressed by the designs, as well as the poetry, of William Blake. By the time he was fourteen he had made a series of illustrations to the