Early Life and Royal Academy Training William Edward Frank Britten, born in Lambeth, London, in 1848, emerged from a family steeped in artistic sensibility – his father, William Goodwyn Price Britten, possessed an appreciation for the visual arts that undoubtedly shaped young William’s early inclinations. The burgeoning industrial landscape of Victorian England provided a stark contrast to the classical ideals Britten would soon embrace, and it was within this dynamic environment that he began his formal training at the prestigious Royal Academy of Arts in Piccadilly, London. Admitted as a p…