Apprenticeship
Channel: TheBewickSociety
Date: 2021-07-14

Young Thomas Bewick leaves home to be apprenticed to Ralph Beilby in Newcastle. Words by Anthony Atkinson, Pictures by Peter Quinn, The Bewick Society 2021.

Bewick 'was schooled in the nearby village of Ovingham by the Reverend Christopher Gregson, and at the age of fourteen apprenticed to Ralph Beilby, the owner of an engraving business in Newcastle upon Tyne, twelve miles away. During his seven–year apprenticeship, Bewick was instructed in all the skills necessary to excel in the engraving business, but Beilby was soon to recognise his young protégé’s obvious talent for woodcut engraving.' Biography on http://www.bewicksociety.org/Life%20and%20Work.html