[1] 'David James' was a pseudonym, his real name being Joseph Donahue, the fourth child of a London porter and a probably Irish mother.

He had little education and for a while, eked out a meagre existence as a pavement artist in London until his talent attracted the attention of a German-born picture dealer, who supported his training and with whose family he lived for much of his life (ibid).

James lived in Plymouth during the 1880s, where he began painting a series of realistic "sea-pieces" from the south-western and southern coasts of England from Cornwall to the Thames.

James exhibited throughout London and at the Royal Academy in 1886 (living in Dalston), 1888 (having moved to Maida Vale), 1892 and 1897.

[4] Like Henry Moore (painter), James was more interested in pure studies of the sea, rather than topographical coastal views.