Mitchell, Master of the 'Queen'

Watercolour portrait of William Mitchell (d. 1794) in profile to the viewer’s left, against a black background. He wears warrant officer’s uniform (1787–1807 pattern). Inscribed beneath the image is the sitter’s name and rank ‘Mitchell, Master of the Queen’. A further inscription indicates that this portrait and another mounted on the same page depicting Lieutenant Richard Dawes (PAF4926) were made to commemorate the deaths of their sitters at the Battle of the Glorious First of June in 1794: ‘Killed in the Battle of the 1st of June / Better nor Braver Men never Lived’.

The sketch was made by Aiskew Paffard Hollis (1764–1844), who served alongside Mitchell as a lieutenant in the ‘Queen’. It is part of an album containing fifty-seven drawings (PAH4886–PAH4943) created by Hollis while serving in ‘Queen’ and in other ships, including ‘Pegase’ in 1785–90 and ‘Andromeda’ in 1790–93. The album includes portraits of Hollis’s shipmates, as well as scenes of everyday life ashore and afloat.