William Edward Millner, best known for his genre and animal paintings, particularly of horses, lived and worked all his life in Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. His father, also christened William (1818-1870), was a local painter and teacher. Millner exhibited some of his more rustic works at the Royal Academy between 1869 and 1896 such as Labourers, Unyoking, and Ploughing, Lincolnshire.