“ After the death of his father, who had opposed his desire to become an artist, he came to London and entered the Royal Academy schools. His first contribution to the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, a “St John in the Wilderness,” appeared at Somerset House in 1806, and from that year onwards Geddes was a fairly constant exhibitor of figure-subjects and portraits. His well-known portrait of Wilkie, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, was at the Royal Academy in 1816. ”