Francis William Topham was an English watercolourist and enrgaver. Born in Leeds in 1808, he was apprenticed to his uncle who was a writing engraver. He moved to London in the early 1830s and began working as engraver of coats-of-arms before becoming employed by publishers and engravers Messrs. Fenner & Sears.
He first visited Ireland in 1844 - 1845 with fellow British artists Frederick Goodall and Alfred Fripp. His early works consisted chiefly of representations of Irish peasant life a
nd studies also of wales and its people. In the autumn of 1860 he paid a return visit to Ireland, and in 1861 exhibited The Angel's Whisper and Irish Peasants at the Holy Well.
He also visited Spain in 1852 and produced many works based around the country and its people including his earliest known work of this subject painted in 1854, when he exhibited Fortune Telling — Andalusia, and Spanish Gypsies . n the winter of 1876 Topham again went to Spain, dying in Córdoba in 1877, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery there.
His earliest work exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1832 was titled The Rustic Meal and in the followinf years he continued to contribute to the annual show.
He was elected an associate of the New Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1842 of which he became a full member in 1843.
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