Marine painter, sculptor and engraver, born in London. Was the son of the marine artist William Lionel Wyllie and married the portrait painter Euphans Hilary Strain. Harold Wyllie was intended for the Navy, but failed his examinations and turned to art. In 1898 he went to New York as a special artist for The Graphic, then served in South Africa during the Boer War. For part of World War I he was a pilot with the Royal Flying Corps, then gained a commission in the Army, which he left in 1920 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Wyllie was then a student with Frank Short, having prior to the war studied with his father, Thomas Graham Jackson and Edwin Austin Abbey, the American painter. Acknowledged as an expert on shipping matters, Wyllie was in 1932 called on to supervise restoration of the Implacable.