William Gershom Collingwood (6 August 1854 – 1 October 1932) was an English author, artist, antiquary and professor of Fine Arts at University College, Reading. A long-term resident of Coniston, Cumbria, he was President of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian Society (1920-32) and the Lake Artists' Society.
Life
William Gershom Collingwood was born in Liverpool, the son of William Collingwood RWS. His father was also a watercolour artist, and had married Marie Elisabeth Imhoff of Arbon, Switzerland in 1851. Soon young William was sketching with his father in the Lake District, North Wales, and Switzerland.
He received his early education at Liverpool College. In 1872, he went to University College, Oxford, where he met John Ruskin. During the summer of 1873 Collingwood visited Ruskin at Brantwood, Coniston. Two years later Collingwood was working at Brantwood with Ruskin and his associates. Ruskin admired his draughtsmanship, and so Collingwood studied at the Slade School of Art between 1876 and 1878. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1880.
For many years Collingwood dedicated himself to helping Ruskin, staying at Brantwood as Ruskin's assistant and travelling with him to Switzerland. In 1883 he married Edith Mary Isaac (1857–1928) and settled near to Ruskin in the Lake District. Collingwood edited a number of Ruskin's texts and published a biography of Ruskin in 1893.
In 1896, Arthur Ransome met the Collingwoods and their children, Dora (later Mrs Ernest Altounyan), Barbara (later Mrs Oscar Gnosspelius), Ursula, and Robin (the later historian and philosopher). Ransome learned to sail in Collingwood's boat, Swallow, and became a firm friend of the family, even proposing marriage to both Dora and Barbara (on separate occasions). After a summer of teaching Collingwood's grandchildren to sail in Swallow II in 1928, Ransome wrote the first book in his Swallows and Amazons series of books. He used the names of some of Collingwood's grandchildren for his characters, the Swallows (see Roger Altounyan).
