Greenwich Pensioner

A Greenwich Pensioner is shown seated on a bench against a parapet, with his left leg up on the wall before him to his left and leaning with his right shoulder against the wooden stock of an Admiralty-pattern anchor. This in turn leans against a small gun on a sea-carriage, pointing toward the viewer. The Pensioner wears Hospital uniform, including cocked hat and is smoking a clay pipe. He has a book open in his right hand across the wider page of which, inverted, is printed the word 'TRAFALGAR'. A hook replaces his left hand and he raises this arm in salute to the viewer. He also has a peg-leg (right leg) and his crutch lies on the paving beside him. Behind, rather too closely set, the domes of Greenwich Hospital appear above trees with the masts of a ship on the right, the main flying a pennant inscribed 'VICTORY'.

The impression that the Pensioner might be seated on the roof of the Queen's House is false. The setting is invented, as shown by a matching print (PAD2211) of a Chelsea Pensioner, similarly posed, facing viewer's left, on a bench by a parapet, with a mortar and a view of Chelsea Hospital behind. The present example, entitled 'Greenwich' bears the inscription 'Designed and Etched by Chas. Castle'; the pair, entitled 'Chelsea', bears only Castle's address, '41 Castle St. Holburn'.