William Lionel Wyllie (1851-1931) had first-hand knowledge of the River Thames. He sailed its length from London to the sea and painted, drew and etched most of its features &endash; its craft, people and landscape.

Wyllie was born into a family of artists in 1851. The rather bohemian family spent their summers on the coast of northern France. Wyllie recalled the journey by steamer down the crowded Thames from London on their way to Boulogne.When he was about 12 he went to art school in London, and in 1866 he started at the Royal Academy Schools. In 1869 he won the Turner Gold Medal for landscape.In 1870 one of the first pictures he exhibited at the Royal Academy was London from the Monument, a panoramic view of the city and the river and he began working as an illustrator of maritime subjects for The Graphic magazine.He had to reproduce detail accurately in black and white, and this discipline probably influenced him when he began making etchings in the early 1880s.Wyllie's first known etching, made in 1884, is Toil, glitter, grime and wealth on a flowing tide. It was commissioned by the print publisher Robert Dunthorne.Wyllie's Thames pictures led him to be elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1889. By 1907, when he became a Royal Academician, he had moved to a house at the entrance of Portsmouth Harbour. He had largely turned to painting naval and historical subjects. Nevertheless, he continued to make prints of London and the Thames to the end of his life.

It is the first of some hundreds of prints, many of the Thames, which Wyllie was to make. Wyllie exhibited the picture on which it is based at the Royal Academy in 1883. This oil painting is now in Tate Britain. In 1884, the year after he exhibited Toil, glitter, grime and wealth on a flowing tide, Wyllie held his first one-man exhibition in London. Later that year the drawings were reproduced by the new process of photogravure. They were included in a large book with the same title and with a narrative written by Grant Allen.Wyllie constantly made studies of what he saw. This ranged from cloud formations, water, buildings and people, to ships and craft, such as this sheet of studies of Thames barges.He kept these for reference when making paintings, watercolours or etchings. Many are among the 7000 drawings that make up the Wyllie collection are now in the National Maritime Museum.

When Wyllie died in Portsmouth in 1931, he was the country's most famous marine painter. He was known for: * his paintings of the Navy* his late work, the Panorama of the Battle of Trafalgar* his watercolours* his drypoint etchings.

Lt.Col. Harold Wyllie OBE, RSMA (1880-1975) Marine painter in oil, watercolour, gouache and etcher of marine subjects. Born in London on 29th June 1880, son of W.L. WYLLIE He went to New York in 1898 as special artist to The Graphic. Fought in South Africa during the Boer War. He was a pupil of his father and studied under Frank Short in 1920. Served in the Royal Flying Corps in France as a pilot in 1914-18 war and received a Commission in the Regular Army. Posted to the Wiltshire Regiment in 1916 and awarded O.B.E. 1919, and was granted rank of Lieut.-Colonel on retirement in 1920. He was appointed Hon. Marine Painter to the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1934, and became Vice President of the Society of Marine Artists in 1958. His work is represented in several public collections. He lived in Portsmouth and later in Perthshire.

Charles William Wyllie (1853-1923): the younger brother. During the 1880s, when Wyllie was making his name with paintings of the Thames and Medway, his younger brother Charlie often painted similar subjects. but lacks the fine eye for detail and sense of life

Rowland LANGMAID (R.I., R.B.A., A.R.E., R.CAM.A.) (1897-1956)

A marine painter and etcher who studied under William Lionel Wylie. He served in the Royal Navy reaching the rank of Lt Commander. Born on 1 December 1897. He was the eldest son of Captain J Langmaid, who was an engineer in the Royal Navy. Langmaid joined the Royal Navy in 1910 and went to sea at the beginning of the First World War serving at the Dardenelles in HMS "Agamemnon" where he made official sketches for landings.During the World War I era Lieutenant Rowland Langmaid, R.N., made a series of etchings to accompany the poem,The Rules of the Navy which was published .After the war Rowland Langmaid studied at the Royal Academy School and the Royal College of Art. He held exhibitions at the Royal Academy and in London, New York, and Paris. Langmaid was a highly accomplished engraver as well as a painter in oil and watercolour with a style similar to the famous marine artist W L Wyllie with whom he collaborated in Sea Fights of the Great War, 1914-18. Langmaid returned to the Active List in 1939 in the rank of Lieutenant Commander and served as official Admiralty artist to the Commander-in-Chief Mediterranean Fleet from 1941 to 1943. He died in Calle de la Bolsa, Malaga, Spain 11th February 1956.