(b Bristol, 28 Dec 1807; d Hampstead, London, 22 Sept 1879). English painter. He was the son of a poor Bristol grocer and was not encouraged to become an artist. Because he was almost entirely self-taught, his work was always marked by faults of drawing, particularly in anatomy and the foreshortening of figures. These defects were frequently condemned even by those critics who approved of the imaginative power for which his art was chiefly noted. Poole moved to London in 1829 and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1830, showing A Scene in Naples (untraced). He then spent some years in Southampton and did not exhibit at the Academy again until 1837, though he did send work to the Society of British Artists and the British Institution. His temporary retirement from society is explained by his involvement in a marital scandal: in 1829 the painter Francis Danby eloped with his mistress to Paris, leaving behind his wife, Hannah, whom Poole then lived with and later married.

• Poole, Paul Falconer
  • Danby, Francis
  • Watercolour societies and sketching clubs