A caricature of Greenwich Pensioners

This caricature is a rare original image showing a black Greenwich Pensioner in Greenwich Hospital uniform. Although the balustrading across the background is inauthentic, the presence of moored shipping behind suggests the scene is supposed to be the Grand Square of the Hospital. Pensioners rest along the length of the balustrade. Some converse with one another, and one looks down at a dog. Several have visible signs of disability, such wooden legs or walking sticks.

In the foreground, the focus of the image is an exchange between two Pensioners, one black and the other white. The black Pensioner stands on the right with his hands in his pockets. His right leg has been amputated below the knee and he wears a wooden prosthesis with his stump protruding behind the socket. His expression suggests that he is not amused by whatever remark his colleague has just made. The white pensioner stands with the aid of two crutches. His right leg is bandaged and held in a wooden brace. A spherical earthenware pot hangs from a cord in his left hand. This recalls other depictions of Greenwich Pensioners carrying containers, which they probably used to collect their rations of beer or – in later periods – tea. The inclusion of the pot in this image has led to the suggestion that the caricature was intended as a pun on the phrase ‘the pot calling the kettle black’. However, this is only conjecture as the original title of the image does not survive. Similar images from this time often mocked racial difference or promoted racist stereotypes.

Both Pensioners wear crumpled cocked hats and Hospital uniform. This uniform usually included a blue waistcoat, as worn by the white Pensioner. However, the black Pensioner wears a red waistcoat. Other images of black Pensioners also show them in red waistcoats, suggesting that this may have been a fashion adopted by or imposed upon the Hospital’s black population. Alternatively, it may have been a stereotype perpetuated by caricaturists.

The image date could be from any point in Thurston's mature working life (b. 1774, d. 1822). His name, 'Thurston', is the only apparently meaningful jotting of some pencil scrawls on the reverse.