William Wynne Ryland was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 engraver.

Life and work

Ryland was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, the eldest of seven sons of Edward Ryland (died 1771), an engraver and copper-plate printer. He studied engraving under Ravenet

Simon François Ravenet

Simon François Ravenet was a French engraver.He was born in Paris, where he studied engraving under Jacques-Philippe Le Bas before moving to London in 1750, where he founded a school of line engraving and is credited with the revival of engraving in England. He died in London...

 in London, and, in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, drawing under François Boucher

François Boucher

François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...

 and engraving under Jacques-Philippe Le Bas

Jacques-Philippe Le Bas

Jacques-Philippe Le Bas or Lebas was a French engraver.-Life and work:Lebas was engraver to the Cabinet du roi and successfully produced engravings after several paintings by different artists...

. After spending five years on the continent he returned to England, and having engraved portraits of George III

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

 and Lord Bute

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute KG, PC , styled Lord Mount Stuart before 1723, was a Scottish nobleman who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain under George III, and was arguably the last important favourite in British politics...

 (after Ramsay), and a portrait of Queen Charlotte

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was the Queen consort of the United Kingdom as the wife of King George III...

 and the Princess Royal after Francis Cotes

Francis Cotes

Francis Cotes was an English painter, one of the pioneers of English pastel painting, and a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768.-Life and work:...

, R.A., he was appointed engraver to the king - a position that carried a salary of £200 per annum.

In 1766 he became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists

Society of Artists

The Society of Artists of Great Britain was founded in London in May 1761 by an association of artists in order to provide a venue for the public exhibition of recent work by living artists, such as was having success in the long-established Paris salons....

, and he exhibited with them and in the Royal Academy

Royal Academy

The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...

. In his later life Ryland abandoned line engraving

Line engraving

Line engraving is a term for engraved images printed on paper to be used as prints or illustrations. The term is now much less used and when is, it is mainly in connection with 18th or 19th century commercial illustrations for magazines and books, or reproductions of paintings.Steel engraving is...

, and introduced chalk-engraving, in which the line is composed of stippled dots

Stippling

Stippling is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots. Such a pattern may occur in nature and these effects are frequently emulated by artists.-Art:...

, and in which he transcribed Mortimer's

John Hamilton Mortimer

John Hamilton Mortimer was a British Neoclassical painter known primarily for his romantic paintings and pieces set in Italy and its countryside, various other works depicting conversations between people, and works drawn in the 1770s portraying war scenes, very similar to those of Salvator Rosa...

 "King John

John of England

John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...

 Signing Magna Carta

Magna Carta

Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...

", and copied the drawings of the old masters and the works of Angelica Kauffmann

Angelica Kauffmann

Maria Anna Angelika/Angelica Katharina Kauffman was a Swiss-Austrian Neoclassical painter. Kauffman is the preferred spelling of her name; it is the form she herself used most in signing her correspondence, documents and paintings.- Early years :She was born at Chur in Graubünden, Switzerland,...

.

Ryland became prosperous, and seeking an investment, went into partnership with a pupil, Henry Bryer, putting his money into a print shop in Cornhill, London; the business went bankrupt in December 1771. After an interval, he resumed business as a print-seller in the Strand

Strand, London

Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...

, but before long retired to a private residence at Knightsbridge

Knightsbridge

Knightsbridge is a road which gives its name to an exclusive district lying to the west of central London. The road runs along the south side of Hyde Park, west from Hyde Park Corner, spanning the City of Westminster and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...

, from which he disappeared on 1 April 1783. An advertisement was issued offering a reward for his apprehension, on a charge of forging and uttering two bills of exchange for £714 with intent to defraud the East India Company

East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

. On the arrival of officers to arrest him in a small house near Stepney

Stepney

Stepney is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in London's East End that grew out of a medieval village around St Dunstan's church and the 15th century ribbon development of Mile End Road...

, he made a desperate attempt to commit suicide by cutting his own throat. On 27 July he was tried at the Old Bailey

Old Bailey

The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...

 before Sir Francis Buller

Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet

Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet was an English judge.-Life:Buller was born at Downes House in Devon, the son of James Buller, Member of Parliament for Cornwall, and his wife Lady Jane, daughter of Allen Bathurst, 1st Earl Bathurst. He was educated at the King's School, Ottery St Mary, and...

.

Suspicion had been raised when two bills had been found with the same number, however there was no evidence form the engravings as to which was the real bill and which the forgery. Only the evidence of the paper manufacturer, that the paper upon which Ryland's bill was printed and not been sold until after the date of the bill resulted in his being convicted, and sentenced to death. He was hanged at Tyburn

Tyburn, London

Tyburn was a village in the county of Middlesex close to the current location of Marble Arch in present-day London. It took its name from the Tyburn or Teo Bourne 'boundary stream', a tributary of the River Thames which is now completely covered over between its source and its outfall into the...

 on 29 August 1783, and buried at St Dunstans Church in Feltham

Feltham

Feltham is a town in the London Borough of Hounslow, west London. It is located about west south west of central London at Charing Cross and from Heathrow Airport Central...

 Middlesex

Middlesex

Middlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...

. According to Wqalford, " It is worthy of record that the last criminal executed here was one Ryland, who was hung for forgery in 1783; after which the gallows were taken down about London in order to concentrate the executions at Newgate and Horsemonger Lane."

He left a widow and six children. His widow kept a print-shop for many years in Oxford Road

Oxford Street

Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as its most dense, and currently has approximately 300 shops. The street was formerly part of the London-Oxford road which began at Newgate,...

, and his daughter became a teacher of drawing, and instructed the Princess Elizabeth and others of the royal family. One of Ryland's brothers was, in 1762, convicted of highway robbery, committed in a drunken frolic, and was reprieved only on the morning of the day of execution through his brother's personal influence with the king.

External links

• Portrait engravings by Ryland (National Portrait Gallery, London)
• Short biography (The Newgate Calendar
  The Newgate Calendar
  The Newgate Calendar, subtitled The Malefactors' Bloody Register, was a popular work of improving literature in the 18th and 19th centuries....
  
  - Ex-Classics Web Site)
• Artwork in the Plymouth City Museum
• Dormio Innocuus (engraving after Angelica Kauffman - British Museum)