Rev William Henry Barnard was an extremely well-connected artist and clergyman -being first cousin of Prime Minister George Canning, grandson of William Barnard, Bishop of Derry, and nephew of Thomas Barnard, Dean of Derry and Bishop of Limerick. He graduated from Pembroke College, Oxford in 1797. During his time at university he studied drawing with John Baptist Malchair (1731 – 1812) and produced numerous drawings and watercolours, often depicting humble Oxford street scenes using a black monochrome wash. He became rector of Marsh Gibbon and Water Stratford in Buckinghamshire. He visited Wales in 1793 and 1795, and travelled on the continent in 1803-4, and again between 1815- 1818. He died in 1818, at Stowe.