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names of Meryon, Whistler and Haden. Long betöre this, however, 
certain British artists, working apart from the main currents of 
teaching or of fashion, had achieved notable success in etching. 
The Norwich school, influenced by the example of the Dutch in 
etching, as also in painting, produced excellent etchers, among 
whom John Crome, John Seil Cotman, and E. T. Daniell were the 
best. Scotland also had its native etchers of real eminence. Pre- 
ceded, in landscape, by John Clerk of Eldin, Sir David Wilkie 
(1785—1841) and Andrew Geddes (1783—1844) etched a number 
of excellent plates (genre, portrait and landscape) and distinguished 
themselves by the successful use of dry-point, a medium tili then 
little used by British engravers except the direct imitators of 
Rembrandt. 
The chief Organisation for the promotion of original etching, 
the Royal Society of Painter Etchers and Engravers, was founded in 
1880, and in its long career has had only two presidents, Sir Francis 
Seymour Haden (1818—1910) and Sir Frank Short (b. 1857) Many 
of its younger members are recruited from the Royal College of 
Art at South Kensington, where the dass for instruction in engra- 
ving holds a high reputation for efficiency. The Royal Society of 
Painter Etchers, however, enjoys no monopoly of Contemporary 
talent, for some of the engravers and etchers who enjoy the highest 
reputation at the present day, such as Muirhead Bone, Frank Brang- 
wyn, Sir D. Y. Cameron, Francis Dodd and James McBey, prefer to 
remain outside its ranks. 
The lithographers, not so numerous, have their own Organi 
sation, the Senefelder Club. Lithography has never enjoyed the 
favour of the public to the same extent as etching since about 
1890 but excellent work has been done in this technique by 
English artists who look to Whistler as their forerunner. 
Since the war original wood-engraving has undergone a great 
development and is now the medium preferred by a large number 
of artists. In earlier times it had been practised, except by Pro 
fessional and reproductive wood engravers, only occasionally and 
by isolafed artists or groups, as by Thomas Bewick (1753 1828) at 
Newcastle, then by Blake and Calvert, and in much more modern 
times by the artists of the Vale and Eragny Presses, Ricketts, 
Shannon, Sturge Moore and Lucien Pissarro, and occasionally by a 
single engraver like Gordon Craig.