18 Paintings, Marine and Seascape Paintings - with footnotes -13

Circle of Thomas Bush Hardy (British, 1842-1897)

The Harbour Bar, dated 1891 

Watercolour

19 x 45cm (7 1/2 x 17 11/16in).

Harbours that have a shallow sand bar across the entrance can create dangerous conditions in certain winds and tides. Low tide is particularly dangerous.

Thomas Bush Hardy (1842, Sheffield – 1897, Maida Vale, London) was a British marine painter and watercolourist. As a young man he travelled in the Netherlands and Italy. In 1884 Hardy was elected a Member of the Royal Society of British Artists. He exhibited with the Society and also at the Royal Academy.

His paintings feature coastal scenes in England and the Netherlands, the French Channel ports and the Venetian Lagoon.

Hardy had nine children. His son Dudley Hardy was a painter, illustrator and poster designer. His daughter Dorothy received an MBE after working as a nurse in the First World War. He died on 15 December 1897 in Maida Vale, London. More

Thomas Bush Hardy (British, 1842-1897)

Scarborough, dated 1895

Watercolour 

22 x 70cm (8 11/16 x 27 9/16in)

Scarborough, on the left, is a town on the North Sea coast of North Yorkshire, England. The town lies between 10–230 feet (3–70 m) above sea level, rising steeply northward and westward from the harbour onto limestone cliffs. The older part of the town lies around the harbour and is protected by a rocky headland. The town has fishing and service industries. More

Thomas Bush Hardy (1842-1897)

PORTSMOUTH HARBOUR; c. 1890

Watercolour

 16.75" x 27" - 42.5 x 68.6 cm

Portsmouth Harbour is a large natural harbour in Hampshire, England. The mouth of the harbour provides access to the Solent. (A narrow navigable waterway that connects two larger bodies of water). It is best known as the home of the Royal Navy, HMNB Portsmouth. Because of its strategic location on the south coast of England, protected by the natural defence of the Isle of Wight, it has since the Middle Ages been the home to England's (and later Britain's) navy. The narrow entrance, and the forts surrounding it gave it a considerable advantage of being virtually impregnable to attack from the sea. Before the fortifications were built the French burned Portsmouth in 1338. During the civil war parliamentary forces were able to carry out a successful cutting-out expedition within the harbour and capture the six-gunned Henrietta Marie (Below). More

The Henrietta Marie was a slave ship that carried captive Africans to the West Indies, where they were sold as slaves. The ship wrecked at the southern tip of Florida on its way home to England, and is one of only a few wrecks of slave ships that have been identified. More

T M Hemy, (1852-1937) 

Wellesley at her mooring off Coble Dene, c. 1881

Watercolour

School Ship on the Tyne – The Training Ship Wellesley at North Shields 1868 – 1914. The driving force behind having a training ship on the Tyne was James Hall, a local shipowner. Hall was worried about declining numbers of British seamen aboard the nation’s merchant ships, but he was also a social reformer with concerns about the links between poverty and crime. He proposed that a ship be brought to the Tyne and an Industrial School be established aboard. The Industrial Schools Act of 1866 had given magistrates the power to send to a certified industrial school any destitute child under 14 years.

T M Hemy, (1852-1937)  was an artist who specialised in marine paintings. He also was an author ('Deep Sea Days', published by H. F. & G. Witherby in London, England, in 1926) & actually specialized in the painting of shipwrecks. His most famous painting was the 'Wreck of the Birkenhead (see Below). More

The former 74 gun ship HMS Cornwall was acquired and brought to the Tyne. The ship was moored opposite Coble Dene, North Shields and on July 30th 1868 she was inaugurated as the training ship Wellesley. More

Wyllie, William Lionel

H.M.S. Cornwall

Watercolour

500 x 643 mm

National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

HMS Cornwall (1812) was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 16 January 1812 at Deptford. She served in the English Channel in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1831 she was razeed to a 50-gun ship, though never saw active service again.

In 1859 she was loaned to the London Association for use as a juvenile reformatory school. In 1868 she was renamed Wellesley (above) and moved to the Tyne to serve as a school ship. She was broken up at Sheerness in 1875. More

William Lionel Wyllie (London 5 July 1851 – 6 April 1931 London) was a prolific English painter of maritime themes in both oils and watercolours. He has been described as "the most distinguished marine artist of his day." His work is in the Tate, the Royal Academy, the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum and many other institutions around the world. More

The Birkenhead troopship. The only known picture of the ship as she actually existed.

HMS Birkenhead was one of the first iron-hulled ships built for the Royal Navy. She was designed as a steam frigate, but was converted to a troopship before being commissioned.

Charles Dixon (1872–1934)

The Wreck of the 'Birkenhead' in 1852", c. 1901.

The Birkenhead was wrecked on 26 February 1852, while transporting troops to Algoa Bay at Danger Point near Gansbaai, 140 kilometres from Cape Town, South Africa. There were not enough serviceable lifeboats for all the passengers, and the soldiers famously stood firm, thereby allowing the women and children to board the boats safely.

Charles Edward Dixon (8 December 1872 - 12 September 1934) was a British maritime painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whose work was highly successful and regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy. Several of his paintings are held by the National Maritime Museum and he was a regular contributing artist to magazines and periodicals. He lived at Itchenor in Sussex and died in 1934. More

T M Hemy, (1852-1937) 

Title Wreck of the Birkenhead, circa 1892

T M Hemy, (1852-1937), see above

T M Hemy, (1852-1937) 

The sinking of the Birkenhead, 25 February 1852

T M Hemy, (1852-1937), see above

Only 193 of the 643 people on board survived, and the soldiers' chivalry gave rise to the "women and children first" protocol when abandoning ship, while the "Birkenhead drill" of Rudyard Kipling's poem came to describe courage in face of hopeless circumstances. More

Thomas Murray

Wreck of the "Birkenhead." Illustration for History of the Scottish Regiments, c. 1880

Print

Unknown

The sinking of the Birkenhead,

Thomas Marie Madawaska Hemy (British, 1852–1937)

On the Tyne , 1887

Oil on woodpanel

16 x 12 in. (40.6 x 30.5 cm.)

Thomas Marie Madawaska Hemy (British, 1852–1937)

A Frosty Day on the Tyne , 1875

Watercolour

15.5 x 29 in. (39.4 x 73.7 cm.)

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937)

Trawlers, South Shields on the Tyne, c. 1913

Oil on canvas

39 x 49.5 cm

Government Art Collection, London

John Falconer Slater (1857 - 1937). Landscape, coastal, marine, portrait, animal, flower and street scene painter. He worked on both oil and watercolour. He was a book keeper at his fathers corn mill before running a store in the diamond fields of South Africa before returning to Tyneside to become a full time professional artist. Slater exhibited in London, Scotland and other provinces as well as the Laing Art Gallery. Not only did Slater paint but he also wrote about art, in both the press and his own publication. He was known to have exhibited at the Walker Gallery - Liverpool, Manchester City Art Gallery and at the Royal Academy. More

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937)

A view of the River Tyne at North Shields, painted in 1911

Oil on canvas

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937), see above

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937)

Quayside at North Shields, c.1890–1910

Oil on canvas

93 x 123 cm

Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear 

North Shields is a town on the north bank of the River Tyne, in the metropolitan borough of North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear in North East England. Historically part of Northumberland.

Its name derives from Middle English schele meaning 'temporary sheds or huts (used by fishermen)', and still today, the area is synonymous with fishing and other trades associated with seafaring. The town was originally restricted to a narrow strip of land alongside the river because of the steep bank which hemmed it in. Eventually the town became too overcrowded and in the 18th century buildings began to be erected on the plateau 60 feet (20 m) above the old, overcrowded, insanitary dwellings alongside the river. more

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937), see above

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937)

Warehouses at North Shields

Oil on canvas 

24.0" x 16.0" 

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937), see above

A haunt of many a fisherman, as well as more than a few smugglers with customs and excise trying to catch up with them. Also a frequent haunt of Slater himself, the scene amply depicts the old river. The glow from the fire could well be smoking fish. More

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937)

North Shields, North Tyneside

Oil on canvas

50.3 x 75.6 cm

Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear

John Falconer Slater (1857–1937), see above

Thomas Bush Hardy (1842-1897) 
FISHING BOATS OFF THE COAST AT WHITSTABLE, c. 1887
Watercolour 
42 x 68cm

Thomas Bush Hardy (1842-1897), see above

Whitstable is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England, 8 kilometres north of Canterbury and 3 kilometres west of Herne Bay.

Whitstable is famous for oysters, which have been collected in the area since Roman times and are celebrated at the annual Whitstable Oyster Festival.

In 1830, one of the earliest passenger railway services was opened by the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway Company; in 1832, the company opened Whitstable harbour and extended the line to enable passage to London from the port. The railway has since closed but the harbour still plays an important role in the town's economy. More

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