Born in Castle Douglas in 1861, William Stewart MacGeorge began his artistic training at an early age, demonstrating an exceptional talent. He even became a prototype for a caricaturist character of Samuel R. Crockett's The Raiders - the author was MacGeorge's boyhood friend.

In 1880, MacGeorge entered Edinburgh School of Art, where among his classmates were George Denholm, Thomas B. Blacklock and Edward A. Hornel, with whom MacGeorge established a firm and artistically significant friendship. During his years at the Edinburgh School MacGeorge won a number of artistic prizes, including a Queen's Prize in the National competition and as early as the age of twenty he had his first work hung in the Royal Scottish Ac...