Barlow was born in
Oldham in
Lancashire, the son of Henry Barlow, an ironmonger living in the High Street, and Sarah (née) Oldham. He was educated at the Old
Grammar School, Oldham, and was then articled to "Stephenson & Royston", a firm of engravers in
Manchester. He studied at the
Manchester School of Design, where he won a prize of 10
guineas in 1846 for a drawing entitled
Cullings from Nature. (engraving after
Daniel Maclise) He moved to
Ebury Street,
London, in 1847. His first independent work was a line engraving of John Phillip's
Courtship, made in 1848, and this led to a close friendship with the painter, the most important of whose pictures he subsequently engraved. These include
Dona Pepita (1858);
The Prison Window (1860);
The House of Commons in 1860 (1866);
Prayer in Spain (1873);
Highland Breakfast (1877); and the celebrated
La Gloria (1877). Barlow was the executor of Phillip's will, and drew up a catalogue of the collection of the artist's works which were shown at the
Third Annual International Exhibition in
London in 1873. / In 1856, Barlow engraved
John Everett Millais's
Huguenot, and in 1860 his
My First Sermon, and during the latter part of his life was largely engaged upon that artist's works. Portraits of
John Bright,
Sir William Sterndale Bennett,
Gladstone,
Tennyson,
Cardinal Newman,
Lord Salisbury, and other public characters, painted by Millais for the art dealer "Agnew's", were all engraved by Barlow. Other well-known engravings include the
Death of Chatterton (after
Henry Wallis); portrait of Sir
Isaac Newton (after
Godfrey Kneller); portrait of
Charles Dickens (after
William Powell Frith); and several after
Landseer,
Maclise,
Ansdell, and
James Sant. Barlow engraved
Jl M. W. Turner's
Wreck of the Minotaur for the
Earl of Yarborough, who presented the plate to the
Artists' General Benevolent Institution, and in 1856, for the same charity, he made a large etching of Turner's
Vintage of Macon. Thirty years later he repeated the work in mezzotint, shortly before his death. In 1858 Barlow founded the "Kensington Life Academy", an informal life-drawing club attended by a small but select group of artists, and which met at the studios of Richard Ansdell (hence the alternative name "Ansdell's"). Barlow was elected an associate engraver of the Royal Academy in 1873, a full associate in 1876, and an academician (RA) in 1881. He was a member and, for many years, secretary of
The Etching Club. Barlow died at his house, Auburn Lodge, in
Victoria Road,
Kensington, on 24 December 1889, and was buried in
Brompton cemetery. ==Family==