Sir Oswald Walters Brierly (19 May 1817 – 14 December 1894), was an English marine painter from an old Cheshire family and he was born at Chester.

He was the son of Thomas Brierly, a medical doctor and amateur artist, who belonged to an old Cheshire family, was born at Chester on 19 May 1817.

After a general grounding in art at the academy of Henry Sass in Bloomsbury, he went to Plymouth to study naval architecture and rigging.

[2] Brierly lived in southern New South Wales in a new settlement named Boydtown where he managed Boyd's whaling operations until 1848.

The cruise extended to the coasts of Chile, Peru, and Mexico, and the ship returned by the Straits of Magellan and Rio de Janeiro, and reached England at the end of July 1851.

[4] Keppel's account of the voyage, published in 1853, was illustrated by eight lithographs by Brierly, who was made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society on his return.

After the declaration of war with the Russian Empire in February 1854, Brierly was again Keppel's guest, on HMS St Jean d'Acre, and the painter was present at all the operations of the allied fleets in the Baltic Sea, and sent home sketches for publication in the Illustrated London News.

After his return, he was commanded by Queen Victoria to take sketches from the royal yacht of the great naval review which was held at Spithead at the end of the war.

This was followed by 'Drake taking the Capitana to Torbay' (Royal Water-colour Society, 1872), and many other subjects from the history of the Spanish Armada and other stirring incidents of the Elizabethan age.