Thomas Hearne (22 September 1744 – 13 April 1817) was an English landscape painter, engraver and illustrator. Hearne's watercolours were typified by applying a wash of subtle subdued colours over a clear outline in fine brush, pen or pencil. His techniques were studied by younger artists such as Thomas Girtin and J. M. W. Turner. Early life Thomas Hearne was born at Marshfield, Gloucestershire. When he was five years old, his father, William, died and Thomas moved with his mother, Prudence, to Brinkworth, Wiltshire. One of his biographers, Simon Fenwick, suggests that the nearby Malmesbury Abbey proved an inspiration to Hearne's later interest in Gothic architecture. As a teenager he was apprenticed to his uncle who worked as a pastry cook in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. Next door was a print shop; Miller, the engraver, no doubt facilitated his move to the profession of artist. In its early years, the Royal Society of Arts offered prizes—which it called "premiums"—for people who could successfully achieve one of a number of published challenges. In 1763 Hearne was awarded a guinea premium for a still life. The next year he received 8 guineas for an equestrian piece. By 1765 he had become apprenticed to the engraver William Woollett, who came to consider him the finest landscape engraver of his day and with whom he stayed for six years. Early in 1771 Hearne spent six weeks with Woollett and the young George Beaumont in Henstead, Suffolk at the home of the latter's tutor at Eton, Revd Charles Davy. For Beaumont it proved the inspiration for his future profession as a landscape painter himself. Beaumont would later accompany Hearne on location to the north of England and Scotland in 1777 and 1778. Career Before the invention of photography it was the custom for topographical watercolour artists to travel abroad with the Governors of Colonies. In 1771 Hearne travelled to the Leeward Islands after newly appointed Governor-General, Sir Ralph Payne commissioned 20 large landscapes (including ten of Antigua). Hearne remained there for three-and-a-half years, making drawings of the characteristic features of the islands. This work also employed him for a further two years in London, painting watercolours from the sketches. Hearne's portrait of Payne himself is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 1777, in conjunction with engraver William Byrne (1743–1805), Hearne began work recording and illustrating the country's historic monuments