Printmaker, painter, teacher and writer, born in London, he married the artist Mabel Royds. Because of poor health Lumsden had to abandon an ambition to go to sea, so aged 15 he entered the University College art department at Reading, five years later studying briefly at Académie Julian, Paris. Back in London he taught himself to etch so well that in 1907 examples were shown at the Paris Salon; a year later he had his first solo exhibition at Arcade Studio, Reading. A 1908 summons from Frank Morley Fletcher to teach at Edinburgh College of Art started his lifelong association with Scotland. Lumsden began to exhibit widely and to travel in several continents, so that in 1912 he left teaching and travelled to India, a country which he loved and which he depicted wonderfully in etching and aquatint.