Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bonnar, George William
BONNAR, GEORGE WILLIAM (1796–1836), wood-engraver, was born at Devizes on 24 May 1796. After having been educated at Bath, he was apprenticed to a wood-engraver in London, and acquired much skill both as a draughtsman and an engraver, distinguishing himself by his revival of the art of producing a gradatlon of tints by means of a combination of blocks. Together with John Byfield he engraved for ‘The Dance of Death,’ edited by Francis Douce in 1833, Holbein's ‘Imagines Mortis,’ from the Lyons edition of 1547. Some of his woodcuts appeared in the ‘British Cyclopædia.’ He died on 3 Jun. 1836.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878.]