Artist, Illustrator. He is remembered for his caricatures and his illustrations of the early works of English author Charles Dickens. The second of three children, his family moved to London England where his father died, leaving the family impoverished. He was then apprenticed to a pattern-drawer. He desired to become an artist and in 1822 his painting of a scene from Torquato Tasso’s "Jerusalem Delivered," with over 100 figures, was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He was then commissioned to illustrate the works of William Shakespeare, John Milton, Miguel de Cervantes, and William Wordsworth and also produced innumerable portraits, miniatures, and landscapes. After the rejection of his 2nd Royal Academy of Arts submission, he continued to paint, mastered techniques of copper engraving, and began illustrating books for a living. From 1822 until 1827 he produced designs for a wide range of subjects including poetry, melodramas, children’s stories, and topographical and scientific works, enabling him to live in relative comfort. In 1827 his mother died and his publishers, Knight and Lacey, went bankrupt, owing him a considerable amount of money. He then found steady employment when his etchings and engravings were accepted by publisher Thomas McLean. Learning to etch on the newly fashionable steel-plates, he then first began to specialize in caricatures and other humorous subjects. In 1830, having mastered the art of etching, he started lithographing separate prints and book illustrations. He struggled with mental illness and that same year, he suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1831 he began working for a new magazine called Figaro in London, producing 300 humorous drawings and political caricatures to accompany the mundane, political topics of the day and the texts of English humorist Gilbert à Beckett, a friend of Charles Dickens. In 1834 à Beckett suffered a severe financial loss and launched a public media campaign cruelly libeling Seymour, who resigned, only returning when Henry Mayhew replaced à Beckett as the Figaro editor. He then created a new series of lithographs, "Sketches by Seymour," all depicting expeditions of over-equipped and under-trained Cockneys pursuing cats, birds and stray pigs on foot and on horseback. His characters were immensely popular, but were all lighthearted, sporting or political in theme and the thin and large characters he developed were continued into the early life of Dickens first novel "The Pickwick Papers," a collection of stories about the fictional Pickwick Club, whose members decide to embark on a series of colorful adventures across the English countryside. Control of the project was originally given to Seymour and Dickens job was to provide a few words of accompanying text and after they argued about the quality of one of his illustrations, he returned to his home and committed suicide at the approximate age of 38 and was interred at the St. Mary Magdalene Churchyard in Islington, Greater London, England. Later, alterations to the church grounds led to his tombstone being removed from the grave site and considered "lost" until 2006 when it was discovered in the church's crypt. In July 2010 the tombstone was acquired by the Charles Dickens Museum in London where it is on permanent public display.