Robert Dudley Biography

Robert Charles Dudley (1826-1909) was born in Hackney, London, and baptised at St John, Hackney, on 27 September 1826. Dudley was the child of a well-to-do family. His father, Charles Stokes Dudley of Clonmel, County Tipperary, an Irish provision merchant, writer and philanthropist, was noted on Robert’s baptismal record (and also on his marriage certificate) as “Gentleman”. Charles’s wife was Sarah Dudley, née Haycock, and they had thirteen children in all.

On the 1851 census, Robert Dudley, at age 25, was a lodger at 95 Stanhope Street, St Pancras, and listed his profession as “Architect.”

On 4 August 1859, at age 32, Robert Dudley was married in Liverpool to Amelia (Amy) Hunt (1833-1921), then aged 26. Amelia’s father, Andrew Lucas Hunt, was also an artist, as was her brother Alfred William Hunt. In 1857 Alfred had given Robert a small watercolour of a coastal scene inscribed “To R. Dudley from A.W. Hunt”, and this perhaps indicates Dudley’s interest in the sea, which was to be the subject of so many of his paintings from the 1860s into the 1890s. 

After their marriage, the Dudleys lived at 32 Sussex Place, Kensington, London, where they had two children. A letter to Henry Clifford dated April 1868 has the Kensington address, but by the time of the 1871 census the family had moved to 31 Lansdowne Road in Notting Hill, where Dudley lived until his death.

In the early 1850s Dudley was principal draughtsman for the architect Matthew Digby Wyatt, and was later engaged by Day & Son, a leading firm of chromolithographers, to illustrate many of their lavish picture books. He was Special Artist for the Illustrated London News for many years, and was also a well-regarded book cover designer. 

In 1857 Dudley was “the youngest of the art directors” at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition, for which he designed the card of thanks sent by the executive committee to all those who had contributed. The Report of the Executive Committee noted that “The arrangement of the Sculpture in the Main Hall was specially confided to Mr. Robert Dudley.” He also produced many “drawings on wood” to illustrate the commemorative book “Art treasures of the United Kingdom from the Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester.”

Dudley worked extensively in watercolours, and also produced many oils, showing 47 paintings between 1865 and 1891 at London venues, including 24 at the Royal Academy and others at the New Water-Colour Gallery, Suffolk Street, and various exhibitions.

As well as being described as the ‘Special Artist” of the Illustrated London News, Dudley was also mentioned by name in some of the reports on cable expeditions. Wood engravings based on his sketches appeared in the newspaper to accompany stories on the 1865 and 1866 Atlantic cables between Ireland and Newfoundland; the 1869 French Atlantic cable; and the 1870 cable from Porthcurno in Cornwall to Portugal.

While on the 1865 and 1866 expeditions aboard Great Eastern, Dudley made a large number of paintings of particular interest to undersea cable historians. Many of the ones from 1865 were reproduced as colour lithographs in William Russell’s book, The Atlantic Telegraph, published in early 1866 by Day & Son. Dudley also designed the cover for this book about the 1865 Atlantic Cable expedition.

In 1892, all of these paintings and watercolours, together with other cable memorabilia from Cyrus Field’s collection, were given by Field to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and they remain in the Museum’s collection today. The invitation to Field's private view also includes a list of the forty watercolours.

Dudley died on 28 April 1909. Amelia Dudley continued to live at Lansdowne Road until her death on 25 December 1921, and her sons retained the house as their residence until their deaths.