CHAPTER I.

       HIS EARLY ART CAREER.

       Table of Contents

      Randolph Caldecott, the son of an accountant in Chester, was born in that city on the 22nd of March, 1846, and educated at the King's School, where he became the head boy. He was not studious in the popular sense of the word, but spent most of his leisure time in wandering in the country round. Thus, his love of sport and fondness for rural pursuits, which never forsook him, were evidenced at an early age. His artistic instincts were also early developed, and many treasured sketches, models of animals, &c., cut out of wood, were produced in Chester by the boy Caldecott.

      Perhaps the best and most characteristic record of his early life is, that he and his brother were "two of the best boys in the school;" the genius that consists in "an infinite faculty for taking pains" having much to do with his after career of success.

       "Coom, then."

      In 1861 Caldecott was sent to a bank at Whitchurch in Shropshire, where, for six years, he seems to have had considerable leisure and opportunity for indulging in his favourite pursuits. Here, living at an old farm-house about two miles from the town, he used to go fishing and shooting, to the meets of hounds, to markets and cattle fairs, gathering in a store of knowledge useful to him in after years. The practical, if half-unconscious, education that he thus obtained in his "off-time," as he termed it, whilst clerk at the Whitchurch and Ellesmere Bank, was often referred to afterwards with pleasure. Thus from the earliest time it will be seen that he lived in an atmosphere favourable to his after career. But the bank work was never neglected; from the day he left his school in Chester in 1861 to become a clerk in Whitchurch, until the spring of 1872 when he left Manchester finally for London, the record of his office work was that he "did it well."

       "Three Friends."

      During the Whitchurch days he had, as we have indicated, unusual advantages of leisure, and the opportunity of visiting many an old house and farm, driving sometimes on the business of the bank, in his favourite vehicle, a country gig, and "very eagerly," writes one of his fellow clerks and intimate friends, "were those advantages enjoyed. We who knew him, can well understand how welcome he must have been in many a cottage, farm, and hall. The handsome lad carried his own recommendation. With light brown hair falling with a ripple over his brow, blue-grey eyes shaded by long lashes, sweet and mobile mouth, tall and well-made, he joined to these physical advantages a gay good humour and a charming disposition. No wonder that he was a general favourite."

      But soon he was transferred to Manchester, where a very different life awaited him—a life of more arduous duties—in the "Manchester and Salford Bank," but with opportunities for knowledge in other directions, of which he was not slow to avail himself. If in his early years his father discouraged his artistic leanings, he was now in a city which above all others encouraged the study of art—"as far as it was