Author: Birrell, Andrew
Biography:
BIRRELL, Andrew (d 1807: findmypast.co.uk)
Andrew Birrell was a well-known line engraver who specialised in small portraits; likely he worked in both London and Scotland and he may have been born and trained in Scotland. However almost nothing is known about his life and no birth records that can plausibly be matched to him have been located. He was almost certainly the Andrew Birrell who married Euphemia Lundin in St. Giles, London, on 5 Nov. 1789. Thomas Holcroft reports of Birrell in his Theatrical Recorder of 1805 that he “is of some merit in his profession; but is infirm, oppressed by marriage, and pining in poverty.” Birrell applied to the RLF for assistance but a note in his file, dated 2 Jan. 1808, states that he was rejected. In fact Andrew Birrell had already died by the date of the RLF’s decision; he was buried at St. James’s Church, Clerkenwell, on 24 Dec. 1807. At the time of his death he was resident on Rosomon Street; his wife, Euphemia, died at the same address in 1840. (RLF file 214; ancestry.co.uk 24 Apr. 2023; findmypast.co.uk 24 Apr. 2023; Thomas Holcroft, Theatrical Recorder 4 [1805]) SR