Horace Payne Ellis Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1808 - d. 1890

Horace Payne Ellis, the eldest child of Horace Ellis (1782 – 1830) and Mrs Philly Ellis, nee Payne, was born4 and christened in Horsham, Sussex, in 1808.5 Ellis was born into a family of successful solicitors. His father Horace ran a legal practice in Horsham, Sussex and his grandfather William Ellis (1745 – 1809) had been an attorney of His Majesty’s Court of King’s Bench at Westminster.6

Little is known of Horace Payne Ellis’ early years or education in England, though his level of skill is clearly indicative of some sort of formal art training. Certainly, he claimed to have been occupied as an artist and portrait painter in his youth. For reasons that remain mysterious, Ellis joined the Honourable East India Company’s Madras Artillery Service at an entry rank of Acting Corporal in Westminster on 10 April 1829. On his attestation papers he described his former occupation as artist. He sailed from England to British India aboard the ship Minerva, arriving in Madras on 13 August 1829.

Horace Payne Ellis died at the Parramatta Hospital for the Insane on 29 June 1890 and was buried at the Church of England Cemetery in Rookwood.