Birth date
1823
Death date
1899
Biography
William Graham Simpson was born in Glasgow in 1823. He practiced as a painter, watercolourist, draughtsman and lithographer, arriving in London in 1851 to make views of the Great Exhibition. His subsequent career was pursued chiefly as a war artist earning him the sobriquet ‘War in the East Simpson.’ He covered the Crimean War, the Afghan and Abyssinian campaigns and the Indian mutiny; he was also present in Paris during the period of the Commune. In 1866 he became a draughtsman for “The Illustrated London News”. (Apparently he was not a member of the Garrick Club, although a Walter Simpson was elected in 1864 and was removed five years later for non-payment of dues.)