1. George Morland was the son of Henry Robert Morland, and grandson of George Henry Morland, said by Cunningham to have been lineally descended from Sir Samuel Morland, while other biographers go so far as to say that he had only to claim the baronetcy in order to get it.
George Morland continued to exhibit at the Free Society in 1775 and 1776, and at the Society of Artists in 1777, and then again at the Royal Academy in 1778,1779 and 1780.
George Morland's talents were carefully cultivated by his father, who was accused of stimulating them unduly with a view to his own profit, shutting the child up in a garret to make drawings from pictures and casts for which he found a ready sale.
George Morland was set by his father to copy pictures of all kinds, but especially of the Dutch and Flemish masters.
George Morland was introduced to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and obtained permission to copy his pictures, and all accounts agree that before he was seventeen he had obtained considerable reputation not only with his friends and the dealers, but among artists of repute.
George Morland soon became the mere slave of the dealer with whom he lived.
George Morland made an effort, and a successful one, to free himself from his task-master, and escaped to Margate, where he painted miniatures for a while.
George Morland moved from Pleasing Passage to Warrens Lane, and seems for some time to have made his headquarters at Paddington.
George Morland exhibited again in 1793 and 1794, but though he still painted finely he had become completely the prey of the dealers, painting as it were from hand to mouth to supply himself with funds for his extravagances.
George Morland's art was so popular that, comparatively small as was the price which he actually received for his labour, he might have easily lived for a week on the earnings of a day.
George Morland was besieged by dealers who came to him, as it is said, with a purse in one hand and a bottle in the other.
George Morland flitted from one house to another, residing among other places at Lambeth, East Sheen, Queen Anne Street, the Minories, Kensington, and Hackney.
George Morland was not much more scrupulous in his dealings than the dealers themselves, and a picture begun under contract with one would be parted with to another who had money in his hand, if the rightful owner was not there to claim it.
Occasionally George Morland managed to escape from both dealers and bailiffs.
George Morland painted the sign of an inn called the Black Bull, somewhere on the road between Deal and London.
George Morland is said to have often been drunk for days together, and to have generally slept on the floor in a helpless condition.
George Morland's wife died three days afterwards, and both were buried together in the burial-ground attached to St James's Chapel in the Hampstead Road.
George Morland exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy from 1784 down to 1804.
George Morland was a close friend of fellow artist William Armfield Hobday who painted a portrait of the artist which is still intact.