Landscape painter, watercolorist, engraver, and lithographer William Delamotte
was born in Weymouth in County Dorset to a French refugee family. He studied at the Royal Academy beginning in 1794 (Wood, Christopher. The Dictionary of Victorian Painters, 2nd ed. Woodbridge, Suffolk, England: Antique Collectors’ Club, 1978: 124). In 1803, he was appointed Second Landscape Drawing Master at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst (Wilson, Arnold. “St. Nicholas Church Museum,” in The Burlington Magazine 120, no. 899, Feb. 1978: 86-87). Delamotte was a friend of Benjamin West (1738–1820) and consulted with him extensively on the restoration of an altarpiece by William Hogarth (1697–1764) at St. Nicholas Church, Bristol. He actively exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1793 to 1851 and traveled throughout Wales, Belgium, France, northern Italy, and Switzerland. Delamotte is perhaps best known for his illustrated topographical books about Oxford and for his landscape paintings. (JGK)