James Walter Robert Linton, born June 14, 1869 in London was the second of eleven children of the academic watercolourist, Sir James Dromgole Linton and his wife, Harriet Maria Allen. Sir James lobbied strongly for the recognition of British art and for watercolour as a medium.

James was educated in British art schools including the Slade School of Fine Art in 1885-88; and, later at the Westminster School. In both schools, he learned the importance of drawing and to develop his powers of observation and visual memory. He was briefly apprenticed to the architects Batterbury & Huxley; however his only known architectural work is the Leake memorial fountain in King's Park, Perth (1904).

In 1896...