A ship’s portrait showing the ‘William Yeo’, broadside-on under full sail. It shows the vessel off Belfast where the artist Joseph Semple worked as a ship portraitist between 1863-78.

The ‘William Yeo’ was built in wood at Port Hill by James Yeo Jnr. for his father and brother. The Yeo family were one of the many West Country families who found fortune as successful emigrants to Canada in the early 19th century. James Yeo of Appledore (1789-1868) went to Prince Edward Island in 1819 and established a major shipbuilding and trading business there at Port Hill. Many of the ships he built were sold in Britain while others imported cargoes of timber and returned to Canada with emigrants. This trade was largely conducted through the port of Bideford and James’s eldest son William (1813-72) returned to live in Appledore as the family’s British agent.

The ‘William Yeo’ was launched in 1862 and registered at Prince Edward Island. She was sold to J. F. Folwie of Barrow in 1874 and converted to a barque in 1879. She was then sold in 1882 to J. Hunter of Barrow before changing hands again three years later when M.H. Smith of Arendal acquired her and she was re-named the ‘Gordon’. She was abandoned leaking in the North Atlantic in 1896 while bound from Miramichi, New Brunswick, to London with timber. The painting is signed and dated ‘J. SEMPLE Belfast 1867’.