Blessington and Count d'Orsay. There he met among others Carlyle and Dickens, and Prince Louis, afterwards the Emperor Napoleon III. For some years before his marriage he had resided in the Albany in the chambers once occupied by Byron and Bulwer Lytton. In July 1839, soon after the completion of his drawing of the ‘Diet of Spiers,’ well known through the large engraving by William Walker, he received the offer of knighthood, which he refused. In the following month (20 Aug.) he married Clarissa Hester Elderton, a daughter of James Elderton, deputy remembrancer, &c. of the court of exchequer, and took a house at Clapham Rise, where he resided till 1863. Among his intimate friends were Thackeray and Dickens, Macready and Maclise, Douglas Jerrold and Talfourd, Stanfield and Landseer, Browning and Macaulay, Lytton and Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield). In his life of Dickens, John Forster says: ‘Another painter friend was George Cattermole, who had then enough and to spare of fun, as well as fancy, to supply a dozen artists.’ Numerous letters exist to testify to the affection between himself and Dickens, in whose amateur theatricals he often took part. In 1845 he specially distinguished himself in the character of Wellbred in ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ which was acted before the prince consort at ‘Miss Kelly's,’ now (1887) the Royalty Theatre, Dean Street, Soho.
After his retirement from the Water-colour Society, though still painting his old subjects in his old medium, he devoted himself a good deal to painting in oil-colours, and to scenes from Bible history. A large oil-painting of Macbeth belongs to this period, of which he said that it was the only work of his in which he had realised his own intention; and among the drawings which were in his possession at his death were cartoons of the ‘Raising of Lazarus,’ the ‘Marriage at Cana,’ and ‘The Last Supper.’
In 1863 he moved to 4 The Cedars Road, Clapham Common; and in September of that year he received from India the tidings of the death of his eldest son, Lieutenant Ernest George Cattermole, who died at Umballa while doing duty with the 22nd native infantry. He had shortly before lost his youngest daughter, and after this second shock a fearful depression fell upon him, from which he never recovered. He retired much from society, and after some years of continual brooding over his loss, he died on 24 July 1868. He was buried in Norwood cemetery. He left a widow, three sons, and four daughters. Of these, all except one son (Edward) are living. Leonardo Cattermole, the eldest surviving son, is well known for the grace and spirit of his pictures of horses.
Cattermole's reputation as an artist was not confined to his own country. The ‘Historical Annual’ was published in New York and Paris. At the French International Exhibition of 1855 he received one of the two grandes médailles d'honneur awarded to English artists, Sir Edwin Landseer taking the other. In the following year he was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Amsterdam, and of the Society of Water-colour Painters at Brussels.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists (1878); Graves's Dict. of Artists; Clement and Hutton's Artists of the Nineteenth Century; Forster's Life of Dickens; Miss Hogarth's Letters of Charles Dickens; Ruskin's Modern Painters; The Annals of the Fine Arts; Catalogues of the Royal Academy and Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours; Art Journal, July 1857, September 1868, March 1870; Men of the Time; works mentioned in the article and communications from the family.]
CATTERMOLE, RICHARD (1795?–1858), miscellaneous writer, was born about 1795, took orders, and was appointed secretary to the Royal Society of Literature at its first general meeting on 17 June 1823. This office he held till 1852. In 1825 he became connected with the church of St. Matthew, Brixton, Surrey. Here he laboured till 1832. Cattermole studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, and proceeded B.D. in 1831. He was finally appointed vicar of Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire. He died on 6 Dec. 1858 at Boulogne. He was married and had several children, who survived him. Cattermole assisted J. S. Spons in compiling his ‘Doctrine of the Church of Geneva’ (1st and 2nd ser. 1825–32). He was one of the editors of the ‘Sacred Classics, or Select Library of Divinity’ (30 vols. 1834–6), and probably edited ‘Gems of Sacred Poetry’ (1841). Besides a number of sermons, he also wrote the following works: 1. ‘Becket and other Poems,’ 1832. 2. ‘The Book of the Cartoons of Raphael,’ 1837. 3. ‘The Literature of the Church of England, indicated in Selections from the Writings of Eminent Divines,’ 2 vols. 1844. 4. ‘The Great Civil War,’ 1846 (previously published in two parts, issued in 1841 and 1855 respectively, with illustrations by the artist's brother, George Cattermole [q. v.]).
[Gent. Mag. January 1859, p. 99; Reports, &c. of Royal Society of Literature; Graduati Cantab. (Cambridge, 1884); Brit. Mus. Cat. Add. MSS. (1854–75); List in Index, p. 287.]
CATTI, TWM SION (d. 1630?). [See Jones, Thomas.]
