Born Forfar. Watercolour painter of landscape and figurative subjects. Son of a shoemaker, he was schooled in Dundee and then apprenticed to a house painter in Forfar before becoming a clerk in a local textile mill. His artistic interest shone through and his parents eventually relented enabling him to embark upon an artistic career. In 1884 he moved with his family to Edinburgh. His only formal training was at Herkomer's School in Bushey, Hertfordshire, where he met William Nicholson and James Pryde. It was about this time that he was influenced by the style and technique of Arthur Melville, whom he may have met. In the 1890s he lived in London holding several exhibitions. In 1901, in spite of having made the acquaintance of a well-to-do patron, he returned to Arbroath and remained there for the rest of his days, becoming increasingly addicted to alcohol. He painted in a very personal using a 'blottesque' technique. Loved the streets and harbour of Arbroath, capturing the colours and patterns created by the sails of fishing boats, the busy market scenes and figures painted darkly at dusk. The quality of his work declined markedly in his later years when the composition became loose and unstructured and the colours ever darker. But at his best he was a wonderfully sensitive, evocative artist. Capable of transcending commonplace scenes into the realm of religious mysticism as in 'The Saint', now in the V&A.

Exhibited RSA (5) 1888-1911, posthumously in 1926, Glasgow Institute (3) and Aberdeen Artist's Society 1902-1906. Represented in British Museum, V&A, National Gallery of Scotland, Arbroath AG, Dundee AG, Glasgow AG, Greenock AG, Kirkcaldy AG and Paisley AG.