1854-1924 Edward Wilkins Waite, RBA was born at Leatherhead in Surrey on 14 April 1854, the son of a dissenting minister, the Revd Edward Waite MA, and his wife, Cleopha Julia, nee Dukes. The second in a family of six sons and two daughters. He was born into an artistic tradition; his grandfather; William Watkin Waite, was a miniaturist, and his father an amateur watercolour painter. Three of his brothers became artist and two became musicians. Waite was an amateur musician himself; playing the violin. He is recorded in later years as conducting an orchestra at Woolhampton. Waite was educated at Mansion House Grammar School, Leatherhead. In 1874 he went to Ontario, Canada and worked for a while as a lumberjack; a sketch book from this journey survives today. Waite seems to have taken up painting seriously on his return. In 1878 he exhibited two pictures at the royal Academy in London and again two in 1880. Thereafter, with only eight breaks, he exhibited at the Royal Academy in every year until 1919. Although his home was Blackheath, where in 1875 his father had become headmaster of the school for the Sons of Missionaries, Waite visited Clovelly in the early 1880s and remained there for some three years sketching and painting. On his return he spent much of his time in Brockham, near Dorking Surrey and it was here that he met his future wife. On January 22 1891 Waite married Barbara Isabella, daughter of Sir Peter Taite, and the eighth in a family of nine children. They spent the summer of that year at Streets Farm Peaslake, before moving, in October to The Cottage, Abinger Hammer. In November 1892 their first child Barbara was born. They had two more children, John, born in 1894 and Margaret born in 1896. In the summer of 1905 Waite seems to have become ill and did not recover fully until late summer 1906. The nature of this illness is not now known, but whether because of it or otherwise, he and his family left Abinger Hammer in July of that year. They stayed for a while in lodgings until Sunnymount, their new house in Guildford was ready in October. There they remained until 1910 when they moved to The White House, Woolhampton between reading and Newbury in Berkshire. Waite left Woolhampton towards the end of 1915 and moved to Haslemere, and then in 1919 to St Mary's Fittleworth, Sussex. Later he moved to Littlemead Fittleworth which was his home when he died on 19 February 1924. He is remembered by a friend of his later years as a quiet, gentle person. His wife survived him by more than 26 years, dying on 10 September 1950.

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