This drawing by Samuel Hieronymus Grimm was engraved as an illustration in Jonas Hanway’s Proposal for county naval free schools, published in 1783. In this text, Hanway outlines his plan for the establishment of naval schools to educate poor boys. Built on waste land, these schools would instruct their students in maritime and agricultural matters, preparing them for careers in the navy or working the land. This illustration exemplifies the range of training and activities in Hanway’s proposed curriculum. In the foreground, groups of boys practice gunnery, weighing anchor and knotting and splicing ropes. Other boys practice drills with wooden muskets, dig ditches and plough the fields. A naval ensign flies from a flagpole in front of a sculpture of King George III (the plinth is lettered ‘GR’ in the engraving) and a large school building. To the left of the building, a training ship has been erected. The museum also holds two impressions of the resulting print by Francis Chesham (PAH7478 and PAJ3928) and the published book in which Hanway lays out his proposal is in the Caird Library collection. The print appears opposite page 130, alongside a series of patriotic and religious hymns.

Born in 1712, Hanway was a British merchant and philanthropist. At the outbreak of the Seven Years’ War in 1756, he and several other merchants founded the Marine Society, a new charity designed to recruit men and boys to the Royal Navy. Published towards the end of Hanway’s life, Proposal for county naval free schools was a statement of his charitable ambitions. The publication was funded by the Marine Society but the lavishness of the publication, which featured multiple full-page and fold-out illustrations, prompted the other governors of the Society to fine Hanway for his extravagance. The Society transmuted Hanway’s scheme to set up naval free schools into the more modest initiative of establishing a training ship at Greenwich. The Marine Society continued to play a role in naval recruiting throughout the 19th century and remains active today, although its ambitions now focus on supporting the learning, professional development and welfare of seafarers.

Samuel Hieronymus Grimm was a watercolourist who specialized in landscape, topographical drawing and book illustration. He was born and trained in Switzerland, before moving in 1765 to Paris and in 1768 to London, where he spent the rest of his life. He died on 14 April 1794 and was buried at St Paul’s Churchyard in Covent Garden.