Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norris, Charles
NORRIS, CHARLES (1779–1858), artist, born on 24 Aug. 1779, was a younger son of John Norris of Marylebone, a wealthy London merchant. Having lost both his parents while a child, Norris was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated on 26 Oct. 1797 (Foster, Alumni Oxon.), but did not proceed to a degree. For a short time he held a commission in the king's dragoon guards, but left the service on his marriage in 1800 to Sarah, daughter of John Saunders, a congregational minister at Norwich, and a descendant of Laurence Saunders, martyr (d. 1555). After residing at Milford, Pembrokeshire, for about ten years, he removed in 1810 to Tenby, and died there on 16 Oct. 1858. By his first wife he had four sons and nine daughters, of whom only two survived; and by his second wife (Elizabeth Harries of Pembrokeshire, whom he married on 25 Jan. 1832) he had three children.
In 1810 Norris issued two numbers of a very ambitious work, entitled ‘The Architectural Antiquities of Wales,’ vol. i. Pembrokeshire, London, fol. Its design was that each number should contain six oblong folio plates from Norris's own drawings (with letterpress also by him); but, owing to its great costliness, the work did not proceed beyond the third instalment, which appeared in 1811. At the same date the three numbers were reissued in one volume, under the title of ‘St. David's, in a Series of Engravings illustrating the different Ecclesiastical Edifices of that ancient City,’ London, fol. Five drawings of Pembroke Castle by Norris, engraved by J. Rawle, and originally intended to form a fourth number, were published in 1817. After this failure Norris, for the sake of economy, taught himself the use of the graver, and in 1812 published ‘Etchings of Tenby’ in two synchronous but distinct editions, London, royal 8vo and demy 4to, containing forty engravings both drawn and etched by the artist himself. He also wrote ‘An Historical Account of Tenby and its Vicinity,’ London, 1818; 2nd edit. 1820, containing six plates of local views and a map. In addition to these he left unpublished a large collection of architectural drawings, many of which are still in the possession of his son, Mr. R. Norris, of Rhode Wood House, Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire.
In person Norris was middle-sized and very strong. Walter Savage Landor—the Savages were connected with Norris—in writing from Paris in 1802 to his sister Elizabeth, described Napoleon's ‘figure and complexion’ as ‘nearly like those of Charles Norris.’ He always exhibited a spirit of cynical independence, verging often upon eccentricity.
[An article by Mr. E. Laws of Tenby in Archæologia Cambrensis, 5th ser. viii. 305–11; Etchings of Tenby in Brit. Mus. Print-Room; private communications.]