Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Burgess, William (1749?-1812)
BURGESS, WILLIAM (1749?–1812), painter, son of Thomas Burgess (fl. 1786) [q. v.], achieved his first success as early as 1761, when he was awarded a premium by the Society of Arts. ‘He exhibited portraits and conversation-pieces with the free Society of Artists in 1769 and 1771, and at the Royal Academy, commencing in 1774, portraits in chalk, small whole-lengths, groups, “Gipsy Boy and Girl,” and occasionally landscape views. He last exhibited in 1799.' Like his father, he was probably better known as a successful teacher of drawing, in which occupation he made more money than by his pictures. Burgess died in Sloane Square, Chelsea, on 12 May 1812, at the age of 63. He was the father of H. W. Burgess, landscape-painter to William IV.
[Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists (1878), p. 62; Gent. Mag. lxxxii. i. 50l.]