1858-1862 - educated at Edinburgh Academy following his father's early death from cholera and a subsequent move to Edinburgh. 1870 - won the Stuart prize at the Royal Scottish Academy. 1878 - elected an associate member of the Royal Scottish Academy. 1880 - first etching accepted for the third edition of P. G. Hamerton's Etching and Etchers. 1884 - Walter Biggar Blaikie, proprietor of T&A Constable, publishers, invited him to etch portraits of professors for Quasi cursores. 1885 - elected to the Royal Society of Painter–Etchers and Engravers and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. 1889 - elected an academician of the Royal Scottish Academy. 1897 - was appointed to carry out the mural decoration of the central hall of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, on a theme illustrating Scottish history. 1901 - spent some weeks in Palestine with paints and a Kodak camera, recording the places and people to create authentic settings and costumes for a series of illustrations of the life of Christ, eventually published as The Life of Jesus of Nazareth. 1912 - visited Egypt and Palestine in order to create accurate watercolours for an Old Testament volume which was not completed.
