‘The General and Commodore settling the question of precedence’, King’s House, Jamaica

Location

Country: Jamaica
City: Kingston
Place: High Commission

This sketch shows two British colonial leaders at King’s House in Kingston, Jamaica, in about 1883. From 1661 to 1962 Jamaica was a British Crown Colony with a colonial government, lead by an appointed governor. The inscription on this sketch ‘The General & Commodore settling the Question of Precedence, King's House, Jamaica’ suggests there was a degree of tension between the two characters depicted.

From 1872 the King’s House was the official residence of the governor-general in Jamaica. Following the departure of the former governor, Sir Anthony Musgrave, in 1883, two acting governors, Somerset M. Wiseman Clarke and Dominic Jacotin Gamble, served briefly before the appointment of the new governor, Sir Henry Wylie Norman (1826-1904), later that year.

The general, referred to in the inscription and seen in a red and black uniform, is Major-General Dominic Jacotin Gamble.

The ‘Commodore’ in charge of Jamaica, depicted here, is either Commodore Edward White, who was in Jamaica from 2 March 1882 to 25 July 1883, or Commodore Francis M. Prattent, in Jamaica from 25 July 1883 to sometime in 1885.

Lionel Grimston Fawkes, grandson of Walter Ramsden Hawkesworth Fawkes (an MP and patron of Turner), began his military training at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. By 1883 he was Dominic Gamble’s aide-de-camp in Jamaica. In 1885 he entered Staff College, Sandhurst. He became a Colonel in the Royal Artillery and later a Justice of the Peace. In 1891 he married Lady Constance Eleanor Kennedy, daughter of a Scottish peer. He was Professor of Military Topography at the Royal Military Academy from 1895 to 1900. By 1923 he and his wife had moved to Canada, purchasing the Point Comfort Hotel on Mayne Island and changing its name to Culzean after Constance’s ancestral home, Culzean Castle. They remained at Culzean for the rest of their lives.

People

Dominic Jacotin Gamble (1823 - 1887)

Places

Caribbean Islands (West Indies), Jamaica, Kingston (Jamaica)

Subjects

male portrait, genre, 19th century costume, military uniform, dress coat, epaulettes, medal, diplomat, commodore, general

Materials & Techniques

paper (as artists material), watercolour (as artists materials), watercolour (as object name)

Artist

Lionel Grimston Fawkes (1849 - 1931)

Title

‘The General and Commodore settling the question of precedence’, King’s House, Jamaica

Date

c1883

Medium

Watercolour on paper

Dimensions

height: 13.00 cm, width: 10.00 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Morton Morris, June 1979

Inscription

Inscribed top: The General and Commodore / settling the question of precedence. King's House, / Jamaica.

Provenance

Purchased from Morton Morris & Co., London, June 1979

GAC number

14614