The paddle-steamer 'Forfarshire' leaving Hull for Dundee
Traditionally this canvas shows the 'Forfarshire' leaving Hull on her fateful voyage of 1838, but it is equally likely that it depicts her first passage from Hull to Dundee, just two years earlier. The vessel was built by Adamson of Dundee for his fellow townsman Alexander Martin and the Dundee and Hull Steam Packet Company. In 1838, outward bound from Hull and carrying a heavy cargo including spinning machinery, with forty passengers, her boilers failed and she ran aground off the Farne Islands in high seas. Although many lives were lost the wreck has achieved immortality through the heroic efforts of Grace Darling who helped her father take a rowing coble out to the stricken vessel to rescue survivors. Ward sets the ship against the backdrop of Hull's waterfront, from the blockhouse in the east to the entrance of the Humber Dock basin in the west. The pilot office and Vittoria Hotel flank the entrance to Queen Street with the tower of Holy Trinity Church rising in the distance. In the left foreground the composition is framed by the stern of a Dutch sloop and a Humber Keel.
