Randolph Caldecott, the son of an accountant in Chester, was born in that city on the 22nd of March, 1846, and educated at the King's School, where he became the head boy. He was not studious in the popular sense of the word, but spent most of his leisure time in wandering in the country round. Thus, his love of sport and fondness for rural pursuits, which never forsook him, were evidenced at an early age. His artistic instincts were also early developed, and many treasured sketches, models of animals, &c., cut out of wood, were produced in Chester by the boy Caldecott.
Perhaps the best and most characteristic record of his early life is, that he and his brother were "two of the best boys in the school;" the genius that consists in "an infinite faculty for taking pains" having much to do with his after career of success.
First Clerk—"Got Jones' Ledger?"
Second Do. (Newly Married)—"Yes, Love!"
"Coom, then."
In 1861 Caldecott was sent to a bank at Whitchurch in Shropshire, where, for six years, he seems to have had considerable leisure and opportunity for indulging in his favourite pursuits. Here, living at an old farm-house about two miles from the town, he used to go fishing and shooting, to the meets of hounds, to markets and cattle fairs, gathering in a store of knowledge useful to him in after years. The practical, if half-unconscious, education that he thus obtained in his "off-time," as he termed it, whilst clerk at the Whitchurch and Ellesmere Bank, was often referred to afterwards with pleasure. Thus from the earliest time it will be seen that he lived in an atmosphere favourable to his after career. But the bank work was never neglected; from the day he left his school in Chester in 1861 to become a clerk in Whitchurch, until the spring of 1872 when he left Manchester finally for London, the record of his office work was that he "did it well."