Richard Henry Brock

Richard Henry Brock was the second son of Edmund Brock, the younger brother of Charles Edmund Brock and older brother of Henry Matthew Brock. The Brock brothers were each incredibly talented illustrators, but Richard is perhaps the least known of the three. Indeed, when the Brock family came to be written up by the Dictionary of National Biography, neither the date of Richard's birth nor death were known.

Richard was, in fact, born in Colney Hatch, London, in 1871, moving with his family to Cambridge a few years later where his father was a reader with the Cambridge University Press. All three Brocks -- as well as another brother, Thomas Alfred (who later went on to be a mathematician), and two sisters, Katherine Allison and Bertha Matilda, lived with their parents at St. Andrew the Less for many years.

Richard shared a studio with Charles and Harry Brock in Cambridge but did not share their interest in architecture, furniture and fashion. Where they gained reputations as book illustrators, Richard concentrated on painting, earning a modest income from local landscapes, mostly in oils. He did turn his hand of illustrating magazines for children such as The Prize and Chatterbox, although he lacked the skill and vigour of his brother Harry's illustrations.

In later years he illustrated a number of books, mostly for girls, including Tracked on the Trail by Nancy M. Haynes (1926), Another Pair of Shoes by Jessie Leckie Herbertson (1929) and The Windmill Guides by Violet M. Methley (1931). A couple of rare excursions into standard novels were illustrated editions of Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (n.d.) and The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1924).

Richard Henry Brock died in Brentford, London, in 1943, aged 71.

The above illustration is offered for sale by the Illustration Art Gallery.