William Heath

British, 1795 - 1840

BiographyWilliam Heath also known to many as “Paul Pry” was born in 1794/1795(year of birth is still a point of contention). Heath was known as an illustrator and caricaturist however, there is not a substantial amount of written history about his life. Heath was a successful in the realm of caricature/illustration but he was not a prolific artist. His work was first published when he was 14. For the most part his works are satirical but there are other social and militaristic themes found in his work. Health received a decent amount of notoriety for his contribution to The Northern Looking Glass (Scotland). This success followed him after he relocated to London in the 1820’s but it was cut short after his work was replaced by Robert Seymour for The Looking Glass (London). Apparently Health was known to be consistently late, in a great deal of debt as well as a heavy drinker. Heath died in 1840.
While the reasoning behind Heath’s nickname “Paul Pry” is unknown, Paul Pry was a play written in the 19th century. The three act farce centered on a nosy character interested in everyone else’s business. In order to pry into other’s business, the character would leave their umbrella everywhere they went as an excuse to come back to nose around.

http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/66123#sthash.jDWBOWWy.dpuf
http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/june2005.html

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