John William Schofield was a Halifax born painter of landscape and genre pictures. He attended Westminster School of Art under Fred Brown and furthered his studies in Paris with William-Adolphe Bouguereau, (1825-1905) and Jules Joseph Lefebvre (1836-1911). He relocated to the south coast of England in 1890 and showed at many galleries. These included the Royal Society of British Artists to which he was elected in 1903 and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours to which he was elected in 1917.

Schofield also showed at the Arlington Gallery, London Salon, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, Manchester Academy of Fine Arts, Royal Society of Portrait Painters, Royal Academy, Royal Institute of Oil Painters, Yorkshire Union of Artists and the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.