William Snelling Hadaway

Who is William Snelling Hadaway?

William Snelling Hadaway was an American artist who worked in Madras, India. He specialized in book illustration and in jewelry and metal design. He trained in Massachusetts in the 1890s "at the Museum of Fine Arts, under C. Howard Walker and Miss Elizabeth Child." He belonged to the Boston Art Students' Association. After school "he spent two years studying in Sicily and Italy." Beginning in 1907 he worked in India for the Madras School of Arts; he stayed until 1927. He developed an expertise in Indian visual arts and published several works on the subject. His papers reside in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Life

William Snelling Hadaway was born in Malden, Massachusetts in 1872, son of Ephraim Locke Hadaway and Helen Agnes Noyes Hadaway. He told his younger daughter that his first job was in a hardware shop where he "learnt the flashpoints of oils".

In 1893, aged 21, he married Julia Peck, and applied on 30 December 1893 in New York for a passport for himself and wife. They left for Italy on 4 January 1894. On 22 December 1894 he applied for an emergency passport in the US Embassy in Rome, in joint names, saying he was temporarily residing in Naples. He then returned to the US on this passport, without Julia, on 26 June 1895. Julia is listed as returning to New York on 2 September 1895 aboard the "Werra" from Verona. They divorced shortly afterwards.