To the Humber Union Steam Packet Company this Engraving of the Steam Ship Wilberforce in...

Creator: John Ward; Richard Gilson Reeve; Thomas Freebody; Rudolph Ackermann; S. H. Hawkins Hand-coloured, this shows a port broadside view of the paddle steamer 'Wilberforce' with the waterfront of Hull and other shipping behind: to its left is a view from astern slightly off the port quarter and to the right one from broader off the starboard bow. John Ward of Hull's simple port-broadside view of the ship in the Humber (oil on panel, unframed, 9 x 12 in / 22.8 x 30.5 cm) was sold at Christie's, South Kensington, Maritime and Naval Battles sale, on 17 November 2004, lot 576. Reeve was the present plate's engraver; Freebody was its Hull publisher, Ackermann the London one and Hawkins the printer. Ward was barely known in the early 20th century and then mainly locally to Hull until Dudley Harbron contributed a short illustrated biography of him to the 'Burlington Magazine' in October 1941 ('John Ward, Painter (1798-1849)', vol. 79, no. 463, pp. 130-34) in which this print is mentioned as engraved by 'R.C. and A.W. Reeve': R.G. is correct and they did work together on other items. The Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, published the catalogue/book 'John Ward , Marine Painter, 1798-1849' in 1981, when it held an exhibition of his work to mark the opening of the Humber Suspension Bridge.