Tom Riley
OccupationTattoo artist

Tom Riley (1870-?) was a prominent English tattoo artist in the late 19th century and early 20th century, nicknamed "Professor".[1] Riley's work, alongside rivals Alfred South and Sutherland MacDonald, was part of establishing an English style of tattooing.[2]

Early life and military service

Riley was born Thomas Clarkson in 1870,[2] from Leeds, Yorkshire. He was apprenticed as a bricklayer but chose not to pursue that profession.[2] Riley enlisted in the British Army in 1889; while in the army, he learned tattooing and worked on many other soldiers and officers.[2]

Riley also fought in the Second Boer War between 1899-1902 and in Sudan.[3]

Career

Riley took drawing classes at a mechanics' institute in Leeds and opened a tattoo shop in Liverpool near the docks.[1][4] He then went to Glasgow and built a reputation there, was invited to tattoo at the Royal Aquarium in London, then opened his own shop on the Strand in London.[1] Riley tattooed King Edward VII.

Riley's style was fine-lined and influenced by Japanese tattoo designs.[2]

Patents

Some sources credit Riley with patenting the first single-coil tattoo machine in 1891, soon after Samuel O'Reilly received an American patent for the first electric tattoo machine.[5]

In 1903, an interviewer noted that Riley was using a single-coil tattoo machine and said that Riley had co-invented it with O'Reilly, however a tattoo historian could not find any records of a British patent by Riley.[6] Another tattoo artist, George Burchett, had said that Riley had received a British patent for a tattoo machine in December 1891, improving on Samuel O'Reilly's design.[6] Burchett may have been misremembering Sutherland MacDonald's work, who received the first British tattoo machine patent in December 1894.[6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 DeMello, Margo (30 May 2014). Inked: Tattoos and Body Art around the World. ABC-CLIO. p. 550. ISBN 978-1-61069-076-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Nyssen, Carmen; Hardy, Rich (14 October 2017). "Tom Riley: The Making of a Tattooist". Buzzworthy Tattoo History. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  3. ↑ Gibson, Kelly (17 August 2016). "A Short History of Military Tattoos: The tradition is a mainstay in American military history". VFW Magazine. Retrieved 19 June 2022.
  4. ↑ Henderson, Rebecca (21 December 2018). "Hidden tattoo treasure uncovered in national museum collection". Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  5. ↑ Linder, Courtney (7 February 2021). "The First-Ever Electric Tattooing Machine, Inspired by Thomas Edison, Came About in the 1890s". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 20 June 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 Forquer Nyssen, Carmen (5 October 2015). "Early Tinkerers of Electric Tattooing". Buzzworthy Tattoo History. Retrieved 20 June 2022.


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