RA Collection: People and Organisations
English novelist, knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometime politician. He is remembered as the author of the Gothic novel Vathek (1786), the builder of the remarkable, now lost Fonthill Abbey and Lansdown Tower (“Beckford’s Tower”), Bath, and especially for his art collection.
Born: 1 October 1760
Died: 2 May 1844
Nationality: British
Gender: Male
Pocket book
1782
Item REY/1/21
J. B. Cipriani, Hedge Lane [to an unidentified recipient]
15 Mar 1782
Item JU/1/40
F. Bartolozzi, North End, to Cariss[i]mo Amico
06 Mar 1782
Item JU/1/29
Ozias Humphry. Account of a journey to William Beckford at Fonthill, with Benjamin West and James Wyatt
[c.1797]
Item HU/5/30