Hogarth’s House

Hogarth’s House is the former country home of the 18th century English artist William Hogarth. The 18th century house was William Hogarth s ‘little country box’. It was the artist’s country retreat from 1749 until his death in 1764 and has been a museum in his memory since 1904. Rescued from the threat of redevelopment in 1900 by a local benefactor, it has also survived bomb damage in 1940 and a fire in 2009. A major project during 2009-11 has seen the entire structure carefully restored. Past studies have concentrated on the period from 1749 to 1764 when Hogarth lived there. New research makes it possible to imagine the life of his widow, Jane, who kept the house on, with his sister and her cousin, Mary Lewis. The family’s connections with the House continued until May Lewis’ death in 1808. The first occupant, from 1717, was a Lutheran pastor, George Andreas Ruperti, who worked tirelessly to support thousands of refugees from the Rhineland who came to London en route for America, after a famine in 1708-9. Like the Hogarths, he used the house as his country home. Nineteenth century residents included Henry Francis Cary, a skilled poet and translator of Dante who was at the heart of a circle of poets and writers, and Brayvo Hicks, a melodramatic actor, who retired to Chiswick in the 1860s.