Henry Thomas Alken

Henry Thomas Alken (1785–1851) was an English engraver and painter, mostly known for his work as an illustrator of sporting scenes as well as a caricaturist and painter of coaching scenes. He was born in London to Samuel Alken who was also a sporting artist.

His most prolific years were between 1816 and 1831. He worked in both watercolour and oil and was also a skilled etcher. He started out learning from his father and then under the miniature painter J.T Barber. He abandoned miniature painting in favour of painting and illustrating under the name of ‘Ben Tally-O’.

From 1816 he produced a continuous stream of drawings, paintings and etchings of every type of sporting and field activity, some of which were humorous caricatures. (e.g. Humorous Specimens of Riding, 1821).

Alken provided the plates that showed hunting, racing, steeple chasing and coaching for the publication of The National Sports of Great Britain (London, 1821). He was an avid sportsman himself and produced some fine hunting prints many of which he etched himself until the late 1830s. He also produced prints for the leading sporting print sellers such as Thomas McLean, S and J Fuller and Rudolph Ackermann. He also collaborated with his friend, Charles James Apperley, a well known sporting journalist who was also known as Nimrod. Ackermann published Nimrod’s ‘Life of a Sportsman’ with 32 engravings by Alken in 1842.

“The Belvoir Hunt: Jumping Into And Out Of A Lane”, is one of Alken’s best known paintings and it hangs in the Tate Britain. The print department of the British Museum also holds a collection of his illustrations.