Alexander Francis Lydon

Alexander Francis Lydon (* 1836 in Dublin, † beginning in 1917 in Brentford) was a British engraver and lithographer.

Life and work

Lydon grew presumably in Driffield (Yorkshire ) and began in the late 1840s as a printer apprentice with Benjamin Fawcett, with whom he worked for long. In addition to Fawcett's preferred wood printing Lydon turned to other techniques, such as the chromolithography. Lydon initially became known known for his work in many books on natural history, with prints of birds, fish and plants according to drawings naturalists such as Francis Orpen Morris and William Thomas Greene. He made himself also drawings and watercolors, which were then often set by Fawcett in pressure. Later Lydon wore the colored engravings in the six-part book series County Seats of The Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland. By 1883 he was working with Fawcett in Driffield and then moved to London.

1859 married Lydon Catherine Fitzgerald and had seven children with her.

Selected engravings

Guy's Cliffe, Warwick, Warwickshire, England

Chromolithography of Milton Abbey, Dorset, England

Illustrations (selection)

• Francis Orpen Morris, Alexander Francis Lydon: A History of British Birds. George Bell & Sons, 1866 ( full text in the Google Book Search ).
• Jonathan Couch, Alexander Francis Lydon: A History of the Fishes of the British Islands. Groombridge and Sons, 1868 ( full text in the Google Book Search ).
• Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children. William Houghton, John Gould, Benjamin Fawcett, Alexander Francis Lydon, Groombridge and Sons, 1869.
• British fresh-water Fishes. William Houghton. London, in 1879.
• A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland: With Descriptive and Historical Letterpress. Francis Orpen Morris, Alexander Francis Lydon, W. Mackenzie, 1880.
• The ruined abbeys of Britain. Frederick Ross, Alexander Francis Lydon, W. Mackenzie, 1882.
• British birds ' eggs. , 1910.