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Thomas Billinge (Engraver)

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1Thomas Billinge (c.1741-1816) is first recorded in 1763 when Thomas Billinge, Engraver, Liverpool married Mary Rigby in Ormskirk Lancashire. He is also listed as an engraver in  the first Liverpool Directory of 1766 and continued to be listed until 1805 when he was described as a stationer, printer and publisher.  In 1770 he took an apprentice, Thomas Wheatcroft, a trade card by him can be seen in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum. 

The signature ‘T Billinge Sc[uplsit]’ is occasionally found on portraits on porcelain printed in Liverpool by Sadler and Green. These engraved portraits have distinctive scrolls carrying the name of the subject. The same form of named portrait is also found on Wedgwood creamware printed by Sadler and Green, and later by Green on his own. Billinge was not a specialist ceramic engraver or printer, he also engraved maps including Burdett’s Chart of Liverpool Harbour in 1771 and his map of Cheshire in 1777, as well as printing reproductions of works of art including prints by George Stubbs. From 1794 he was the proprietor of the local newspaper, Billinge’s Liverpool Advertiser and Marine Intelligencer. He died in Liverpool on 17 January, 1816, at the age of 75 and despite his extremely competent work that we see on ceramics he was most remembered as a printer and proprietor of newspapers.

For engraving on porcelain by Billinge click here 

For engravings in the style of Billinge click here