File:Royal Aquatic Excursion to Greenwich Hospital RMG PW7629.tiff

This appears to be a reprint, with a shortened title, of an image originally issued in 1832. The title of the earlier version showed it to record a visit by William IV and Queen Adelaide to Greenwich Hospital on the afternoon of 4 May that year during the Governorship of William's old naval friend Admiral Sir Richard Keats. They had arrived by barge from a previous morning visit to Woolwich Dockyard and the names below the print tie up with the account in 'The Times' of 5 May: another and equally informative one adding more personal detail about William's visiting the Naval Gallery in the Painted Hall to look at the pictures and meeting Greenwich Pensioners, especially an old shipmate called Allen, who had lost both his legs, is in the 'Morning Chronicle' of the same day. The view from the river is almost due south, rather than axial, exposing the east fronts of the King Charles and King William Courts of the Hospital and showing a vast crowd of Greenwich Pensioners drawn up in the Grand Square to welcome the king at the watergate, where his barge is just arriving, heading upstream from the left. He stands, taking off his hat to the crowd, with Queen Adelaide seated beside him, although both are too small to be identified by feature. What appears to be the Hanoverian Royal Standard flies over the Governor's house in the north pavilions of the King Charles Court and on the king's barge.

The various vessels are identified in the two numbered columns to left and right of the title: 1. Harbour Mar.[Master] Barge, 2. Admiralty Barge, 3. Navy D[itt]o., 4. Ordnance Do., 5. Royal Do., 6. Kings Do., 7, Sir F. A. Collyer Pinnace, 8. Senior Lieuts. Do., 9. Capt. Warren Pinnace, 10. Vice Admiral Sir J. Beresford (Sir John Poo Beresford, 1st Baronet, GCH (1766 – 2 October 1844)), 11. Capt. Charles, 12. Capt. Symons, 13. Comdr. Bullock, 14. Admiralty Steamer, 15. Scotch Yacht Brittania [sic]. (HMY Britannia) PAF7630 is an identical copy, also published by Laurie at 53 Fleet Street and like this marked '180', upper right. Presumably the rather general nature of these images, in which the exact identity of the royalty concerned, is less than clear, made them commercially viable into the reign of Queen Victoria with no more than changing the title to something less specific.