John Atkinson Grimshaw - Whitby [1883]

John Atkinson Grimshaw - Whitby [1883], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Looking south from Pier Road, the present work shows Whitby’s first swing bridge (1835-1909) with the gas-lit windows of commercial premises running along St Anne’s Staith on the right. Grimshaw (1836 - 1893) employed this viewpoint, emphasising the elegant curve of the harbour following the river Esk, in several works from the 1860s onwards. 

Fishing became the principal maritime industry in Whitby following the slump in shipbuilding at the end of the Napoleonic War in 1815, as the harbour was too small to accommodate the larger ships then being built. The railway brought tourism to Whitby, and like Scarborough it became a seaside resort, inspiring writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell, Lewis Caroll and, most famously, Bram Stoker. Whitby was also well-known as a centre for the manufacture of jet jewellery in England, enormously popular in the nineteenth century with the advent of a much more elaborate mourning ritual. 

[Oil on canvas, 50.8 x 76.2 cm]