Hogarth and Chiswick
Hogarth's view of his House across Chiswick Common Field
Hogarth and his family took on a three-storey brick house on the western edge of Chiswick Town in 1749. This was their country refuge, a weekend and summer home, away from the noise of Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square). Some of Hogarth’s friends and contacts lived nearby – Thomas Morrell, an antiquarian whop was Handel’s librettist, James Ralph, the American political writer and dramatist, and Joshua Kirby, tutor in perspective to the royal children at Kew.
The Hogarths extended the house and enjoyed the fruit trees and nut walk in the walled garden – the mulberry can still be seen. Pets were buried in one corner and Hogarth had a ‘painting room’ at the bottom of the garden where he was working until a few days before his death.
Hogarth’s widow, Jane kept on the house and ran the print-selling business after his death in 1764. She bequeathed it to her cousin, Mary Lewis, who had helped run the business. Mary survived until 1808.
The family tomb, with an epitaph to Hogarth written by his great friend David Garrick, the actor, is in St Nicholas’ Churchyard, a short walk from the House. Most of the Hogarths’ relatives who lived in Chiswick are buried there too.
To find out more about Chiswick’s history, go to the Brentford & Chiswick Local History Society’s web site or follow our trail “In Georgian Footsteps”