Eastward Ho! and Home Again at the Museum in Docklands
Jack Lohman, Director of the Museum of London, explains the significance of two Victorian paintings and why the Museum is delighted to have been able to acquire them.
Henry Nelson O’Neil’s ‘Eastward Ho!’ ... presents nothing beyond what has over and over again been witnessed ... and not a week, or scarcely a day, has passed ... but the silent Thames has been witness to many a sad parting such as that depicted in this canvas.’ So said theIllustrated London News in 1858.
On the Thames of the 1850s, around Gravesend and Tilbury, it was a common sight to see requisitioned steamers carrying troops out to conflicts at the corners of the British Empire. It was also a familiar experience for many London families whose relatives and friends had enlisted to watch their loved ones leave for foreign climes in the hope that they would greet them on their return. It is this recognizable experience of embarkation and disembarkation, the epitome of the human cost and impact of such ordeals, that is brilliantly portrayed in Henry Nelson O’Neil’s ‘Eastward Ho!’ (1858) and its companion piece, ‘Home Again’ (1859).
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