William Gershom Collingwood

William Gershom Collingwood (6 August 1854, Liverpool - 1 October 1932) was an English author, artist, antiquary and professor of Fine Arts at University College, Reading. In 1897, Collingwood travelled to Iceland where he spent three months over the summer exploring with Jón Stefánsson the sites around the country in which the medieval Icelandic sagas are set.[2] He produced hundreds of sketches and watercolours during this time (e.g. an imagined meeting of the medieval Althing), and published...See more

William Gershom Collingwood (6 August 1854, Liverpool - 1 October 1932) was an English author, artist, antiquary and professor of Fine Arts at University College, Reading. In 1897, Collingwood travelled to Iceland where he spent three months over the summer exploring with Jón Stefánsson the sites around the country in which the medieval Icelandic sagas are set.[2] He produced hundreds of sketches and watercolours during this time (e.g. an imagined meeting of the medieval Althing), and published, with Stefánsson, an illustrated account of their expedition in 1899 under the title A Pilgrimage to the Saga-steads of Iceland. Collingwood was a member of the Viking Club and served as its president. In 1902 he co-authored again with Jón Stefánsson the first translation it published, a translation of Kormáks saga entitled, The Life and Death of Kormac the Skald. His study of Norse and Anglican archaeology made him widely recognised as a leading authority. Following Ruskin's death Collingwood continued to help for a while with secretarial work at Brantwood, but in 1905 went to University College, Reading (now the University of Reading) and served as professor of fine art from 1907 until 1911. Collingwood joined the Admiralty intelligence division at the outbreak of the First World War. In 1919, he returned to Coniston and continued his writing with a history of the Lake District and perhaps his most important work, Northumbrian Crosses of the pre-Norman Age. He was a great climber and swimmer, and a tireless walker into advanced age. In 1927 he experienced the first of a series of strokes. His wife died in 1928, followed by Collingwood himself in 1932. He was buried in Coniston. The largest part of Collingwood's paintings of Iceland are held in the National Museum in Reykjavik: other locations include Abbot Hall Art Gallery. See less