Henry Pilleau Author

Henry Pilleau, of Huguenot descent, was born in Kennington, London in 1813. His ambition on leaving Westminster School was to be an artist, but he was persuaded by his family to enter a more secure profession. For 25 years he served in the Army Medical Corps, retiring as Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals.

Throughout his service, which included years of political unrest in India and Ireland, he practised his watercolour painting, and in 1861 he left the army to devote himself full-time to his art. In the heyday of watercolour painting, before the development of colour photography, he travelled extensively in the British Isles, Europe and the Middle East and exhibited regularly.

In 1896, at the age of 83, he wrote this memoir of his life. He died three years later in Brighton.