Print. The original artist is Charles Norris (1779-1858) a gentleman amateur who from 1805 to 1841 lived at Tenby, Pembrokeshire, and drew both the antiquities and other views of that town and adjacent parts of South Wales. Though he published some in his professionally engraved 'Architectural Antiquities of Wales' (2 vols, 1810-11) and his 'Etchings of Tenby' (40 self-etched plates, 1812) he did not need to sell his drawings and left about 2000 at his death. About 1200 survive in public collections in Wales, including some 200 in Tenby Museum and Art Gallery: see its publication and CD (ed. Douglas Fraser, 2012) 'Charles Norris in Pembrokeshire, 1805-1841'. A fair number of these are coastal and coastal shipping subjects, including his own boat 'Nautilus' and other identified vessels (the wreck of the 'Dorchester', c. 1838, and the 'Victoria of Boston', c. 1830, being illustrated in this source). Discussions began in 1758 on the suitability of Milford Haven as a place to construct ships, but the Navy only formally established a dockyard there for the purpose in 1814, adjacent to the fishing village of Paterchurch. This subsequently became known and developed as Pembroke Dock.Two 20-gun ships - 'Valorous' and 'Ariadne' - were the first launched there in February 1816. A vessel of similar size is shown here in frame against the covered building slip. In all, over 112 years until its closure in 1926, the dockyard built 268 Royal Naval vessels (the last launched in 1922), including five royal yachts. The date of this plate shows it is not from one of Norris's publications, but Havell may have done some work for the first and had the drawing from him for whatever topographical project in which it was first included. [PvdM 11/12]