Alexander Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947)
A Sketch, Mousehole Harbour, Cornwall
POA
HMS Warspite was a training ship berthed on the Thames at Woolwich. There were two, the first of which was burnt in 1876, and it is likely that this is the second, also owned and run by The Marine Society. She was launched at Chatham dockyard in 1833, with 120 guns. Originally named HMS Waterloo, she was also eventually destroyed by fire in 1918. Wyllie often drew, etched and painted the shipping he saw at anchor in the Thames and the Medway, particularly in the first half of the 1880s when he cruised the Thames in his yacht Ladybird, painting as he went. In these years his Academy exhibits were exclusively Thames subjects. He particularly loved the old ships of the Napoleonic era, the unbowed leviathans that evoked memories of past heroism and trained young sailors for future duty, that were a common sight in the rivers and harbours of southern England right up to the Great War.