Marsh, Purser of the 'Queen Charlotte'

Graphite and watercolour portrait of Robert Marsh (d. 1800) in a striped waistcoat and blue coat. The handwritten inscription beneath the portrait reads: ‘Marsh, Purser of the Queen Charlotte / when Mr Marsh was told the ship was on Fire and was requested to come on Deck he went into his Cabin and locked the door.’ This references the burning of the ‘Queen Charlotte’ on 17 March 1800. The ship caught fire by accident about five miles off Leghorn (Livorno) and blew up. About 800 men died by drowning or in the explosion. Marsh was one of those killed. Only twenty commissioned and warrant officers and 142 seamen survived. The ship was at the time Lord Keith's flagship as Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, but he and some of his staff had gone ashore that morning so escaped the fire.

The watercolour is part of an album containing fifty-seven drawings (PAH4886–PAH4943) created by British naval officer Aiskew Paffard Hollis (1764–1844) during the late 1780s and the 1790s. The majority relate to his service as a lieutenant in ‘Pegase’ in 1785–90, in ‘Andromeda’ in 1790–93 and in ‘Queen’ in 1793–96. Hollis seems to have drawn Marsh’s portrait during these years and later added the inscription about his death in 1800. The rest of the album includes portraits of Hollis’s shipmates, often with humorous captions, as well as scenes of everyday life ashore and afloat. The portrait of Marsh is mounted on the same page as PAH4887.