William Daniell. William Daniell was an English landscape and marine painter, and printmaker, notable for his work in aquatint.
He travelled extensively in India in the company of his uncle Thomas Daniell, with whom he collaborated on one of the finest illustrated works of the period-Oriental Scenery. He later travelled around the coastline of Britain to paint watercolours for the equally ambitious book A Voyage Round Great Britain.
His work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution and he became a Royal Academician in 1822. William Daniell was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.
His father was a bricklayer and owner of a public house called The Swan in nearby Chertsey. Daniell's future was dramatically changed when he was sent to live with his uncle, the landscape artist Thomas Daniell after his father's premature death in 1779.
In 1784 William accompanied his uncle to India, who worked there on a series of prints, acting as his assistant in preparing drawings and sketches. William's brother Samuel Daniell remained independent of his uncle and also became a topographical artist; he went to South Africa in 1801 and after his return to England published African Scenery and Animals, a collection of aquatints. From 1806 he lived in Ceylon. Daniell was sixteen when he accompanied his uncle to India. On 17 July 1786, a few months after their arrival in Calcutta, Thomas Daniell