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Henry Clarence Whaite, who had a long and distinguished career as a painter, was one of the founders and president of both the Royal Cambrian Academy and of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. He was born in Bridge Street, Manchester, in 1828 and attended several private schools, becoming a scholar at the Manchester Grammar School, where he received the greater part of his education. He early displayed a taste for drawing and painting, and became a student at the Manchester School of Design, where he remained for some years before proceeding to London. Here, he attended Leigh's celebrated school in Newman Street, and also became a student at the art school at Somerset House and at the Royal Academy Schools. A visit to Switzerland at the beginning of the 1850s, where the grandeur of the Alps greatly impressed Whaite, awoke in him the love of mountain scenery which became so characteristic of his work. It was this love which led Whaite to Wales in 1851, and eventually to make his home in the Conwy valley, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He married a local girl, Jane Alice Griffith, in 1876, and they had one daughter, Lily, who, like her father was devoted to art. Clarence Whaite died in 1912.