William Holt Yates Titcomb

Who was William Holt Yates Titcomb?

William Holt Yates Titcomb was an English artist.

Titcomb was born in Cambridge, the eighth child and first son of the Rev. Jonathan Holt Titcomb and his wife Sarah.

He was educated at Westminster School. He began his art training at the South Kensington School.

His father was appointed the first Bishop of Rangoon, Burma in 1877. Titcomb joined him there in December 1880 and made a series of paintings and sketches of life in the monasteries there.

He was taught in Paris by Gustave Boulanger and at the Royal College of Art in Antwerp by Charles Verlat.

He married Jessie Ada Morison, in 1892. She was also an artist, living at the time in St. Ives, Cornwall.

He was a figurative oil painter, particularly known for his depictions of the Cornish fisherfolk.

His painting Primitive Methodists at Prayer, was displayed at the Dudley Museum and Art Gallery in 1889. It won many international medals and was the first of three paintings that Titcomb completed of the Primitive Methodist congregation of Fore street, St. Ives.