The artist was born in Greenford, Middlesex, the son of a Swiss jeweller who modelled George II’s crown. He was a noted amateur draughtsman, but extravagant living exhausted his inherited fortune and forced him to earn an income from his hobby. The results of his regular antiquarian sketching tours were published as The Antiquities of England and Wales, The Antiquities of Scotland and The Antiquities of Ireland between 1773 and his death. He also drew portraits and figurative works, although they are comparatively rare.

He was a larger-than-life figure of substantial girth and known as the ‘Greatest Porter Drinker of the Age’. He died suddenly in Dublin and was buried at Drumcondra, where his tombstone records that Grose ‘whilst in cheerful conversation with his friends, expired in their arms without a sigh 18 May 1791 aged 60’.