SIR
FRANCIS POWELLTHE President of the Royal Scottish Water-Colour Society was born at Pendleton, near Manchester, 22nd March, 1833, and received his education at Broughton High School. Deciding upon the career of a painter, he entered Manchester School of art at the age of seventeen, and after gaining the medals for figure drawing and for painting he went to London. There for four years he studied at Lee's Academy, and at the same time exhibited at the Royal Academy both water-colours and oil paintings. Upon his marriage, in 1858, to the daughter of Mr. Joseph Lockett, of the Strangeways Engraving Works, Manchester, he took up residence at Dunoon, in Argyllshire, where he has since remained. In 1876 he gained the Manchester Heywood Silver Medal and Prize of £50 for water-colour paining, and in the same year became a full member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, of which he had been an Associate since 1858. Two years later he became one of the founders of the Scottish Society of Painters in Water-Colours, on the lines of the older London Society, and was elected its first President. It was made a Royal Society in 1888, and in 1893 its President received the honour of knighthood.
Meanwhile, among other public offices, he had been elected to represent the Haldane Trust as one of the Governors of the Glasgow School of Art, he was President of the Glasgow Art Club from 1887 to 1891, and at the Glasgow International Exhibitions of 1888 and 1901 he was Joint-Chairman of the Art Section. In this last year the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Glasgow University.