James Gillray, caricaturist and printmaker, was born on August 13, 1856, in Chelsea, London. His father, a former soldier and a church sexton in the Moravian Brotherhood, sent his son James to a repressive Moravian boarding school at the age of five years old and he remained in that environment for three and a half years. When Gillray turned fourteen, he was apprenticed to the engraver, Harry Ashby. As an apprentice, a hopeful young artist can get mired down in repetitive chores of engraving trade cards or buttons. It is thought that was Gillray's fate under Ashby so the story that he and other apprentices left and joined a troupe of wandering actors seems plausible.  

At the age of nineteen, Gillray returned to London where he joined forces with the Humphreys, a family of printer/publishers. His early prints were published by William Humphrey between 1775 and 1777. Caricature was a rather recent import from Italy and Gillray’s first attempts were overwhelming social. In the Spring of 1778, he enrolled in the Royal Academy schools and it is reasoned, based upon a trade card announcing Gillray as a portrait painter, that he hoped to raise his stature as an artist. After 1785, he committed himself to satire, both social and political, and he became known as the father of the political cartoon. Gillray is also considered the most innovative English portrait caricaturist of the eighteenth century. He produced around 1,000 prints and he was both sought after and feared.

Gillray died on June 1, 1815, at the age of fifty-eight years.  

Source: James Gillray: Caricaturist