A half-length portrait, to the left, in chief engineer’s uniform in the merchant service wearing a cap. His left hand is on his hip and he holds a pipe in his right hand. In the background is a convoy.

The sitter joined the Union Castle Line in 1911 and remained a sea-going engineer with them until his retirement in 1952. During the Second World War, when this portrait was painted, he was chief engineer of the MV Rochester Castle and won the DSC for his services during the convoy ‘Pedestal’ to Malta in August 1942. This convoy came under ferocious attack and the ‘Rochester Castle’ was severely damaged when it was hit by a torpedo from an E-boat and bombed by aircraft.