Archive Note
Riley took drawing classes at a Leeds mechanics' institute, enlisted in the British Army in 1889 where he learned to tattoo, and served in the Second Boer War and in Sudan. He opened shops in succession near the Liverpool docks, then Glasgow, then the Royal Aquarium in London, and finally the Strand, developing a fine-lined style drawn from Japanese designs and a clientele of British high society, military officers, and royalty, including King Edward VII. The story that he patented an electric tattoo machine in 1891 traces to George Burchett and cannot be confirmed in any British patent record; the first confirmed British tattoo-machine patent was Sutherland Macdonald's, in December 1894. He is grouped with Macdonald and Alfred South as a founder of the English tattooing style. His death year is not established in reached records.