File:HMS 'Victory' towed into Gibraltar, 1805 RMG RP6221.jpg

(Updated, March 2014) This painting was probably inspired by Clarkson Stanfield's of the same subject, exhbited at the Royal Academy in 1853, and shows the 'Victory' towed into Gibraltar by the 'Neptune' on 3 November 1805 following the Battle of Trafalgar - though in fact, the tow was dropped entering the narrows and the 'Victory' made her own way in under jury rig. It has been the subject of much confusion as to artist and from the 1960s was, in effect, 'mislaid' (for reasons no longer clear) on long loan to official Royal Naval quarters at Gibraltar until fortuitously seen there again in 2000 by a member of Museum staff and subsequently retrieved. It appears, in fact,to be the first individual oil painting that the NMM's founding benefactor , Sir James Caird, bought for it in 1928, (from the Parker Gallery, London). It was painted by William Stuart in 1855, purchaed by Admiral Tyron and later passed to his daughter. In 1891 it was exhibited at the Royal Naval Exhibition, Chelsea, as no. 1341 in its catalogue, with the title (slightly erroneous on date) 'The Victory being towed into Gibraltar the morning after Trafalgar.' The lender was given as General Viscount Bridport KCB.

William Stuart, born at Woolwich about 1809, was the father of an artistic household probably including his wife Amelia, nee McGuire (b. c. 1813, m. All Saints, Poplar, 13 June 1826), a son William - also called William E. D. Stuart (and sometimes William E.D. Stuart junior) - born in 1827 in Stepney (Ratcliff), Middlesex; and also a Miss G. E. Stuart who was a flower painter living at the same address, who may have been a sister of William senior. This, from their earliest overall exhibiting appearance at the Royal Academy and British Institution (1846) was the Manor House, Stepney, also numbered as 22 Stepney Causeway, which was the version consistently used by William junior in the RA catalogues (only) until he moved to Arbour Square, Stepney from 1856 to 1858, which was his final appearance at the RA, BI and Society of British Artists. William senior continued exhibiting into the 1860s to at least the last BI show in 1867. The family only appear in the 1851 census (as at no. 22) when William (52) and William junior (24) are both listed as 'School Teacher' by profession though the amount of work they did as painters, and of copiously exhibitable quality, hardly justifies calling them amateurs in that line. Amelia was then 49 and two other children present were Theresa (22) and Charles (12). No Miss G.E. Stuart was present on census day, and there appears no trace of them there in the 1861 census despite it still being William's exhibiting address. William was almost totally a marine and military subject painter, doing a few still life subjects: William E. D. Stuart (i.e. junior) overwhelmingly painted still lifes and genre scenes, with the odd Venetian gondola etc. Despite a 'Battle of Trafalgar' (now in the Foundling Museum) being exhibited as by William junior at the BI in 1848 and a lifeboat 'Rescue' scene in 1852, it is likely that both these were miscatalogued and in fact by his father, at least on comparison with both the present 'Victory' picture and one of George I's voyage to England (exh. BI, 1854) now in the Ulster Museum, Belfast. William senior's date of death is not yet known. This information supersedes that on the two William Stuarts in E.H.H. Archibald's 'Sea Painters' (third edition, 2000).