T. G. Purvis

A sea captain who turned to painting, he was a prolific painter of ship portraits and marine scenes from the early 1890s to the late 1920s.

[3] He was the only child of the then 46-year-old[4] Jane Scott, daughter of a master mariner,[3] and her husband, Thomas Joseph Purvis (1821–86), a blockmaker born in Alnwick.

[4] Purvis went to sea as an apprentice in December 1878, working his way up to obtain his Master's certificate in August 1887.

[3][6] As a ship's captain, T G could only find employment delivering new small steamships to South America,[5][7] and he gave this up in July 1891[5] to become a full-time painter; he had already described himself as "marine artist" in the census earlier that year.

By the outbreak of the First World War, the great sailing ships Purvis loved to paint were in decline.