A half-length portrait to the left showing the sitter in a reefer jacket. Signed and dated 'H. Lamb 45'.
Charles Lindsay Keighly-Peach (known as ‘KP’) was the son of Admiral Charles William Keighly-Peach, DSO (1865–1943). Keighly-Peach entered the Navy as a cadet in 1915, training at Osborne and Dartmouth, graduating as a midshipman in 1919. He was promoted sub-lieutenant in 1922 and lieutenant in 1924. On 25 April 1925 he was granted a temporary commission as a flying officer and attached to the Royal Air Force for four years. He trained at RAF Leuchars, December 1925 to December 1926, qualifying in Fairey ‘Flycatchers’, and spent two months flying ‘Woodcocks’ with no. 3 Squadron. He then served in HMS ‘Columbine’ before joining the 402 Flight of the Fleet Air Arm at Malta and in HMS ‘Eagle’ in 1927. In 1929 he transferred to the 406 Flight at Donibristle, but that July he was posted to Lee-on-Solent to serve in HM Submarine ‘M-2’, flying the vessel’s Parnall ‘Peto’ aircraft (the ‘M-2’ was later lost). In 1930, he joined HMS ‘Centaur’, flying a Fairey ‘IIIF’, using the catapult. On 24 October 1932 he was promoted lieutenant-commander. In April 1933, with the creation of 802 Squadron, he was attached to HMS ‘Glorious’.
In a break from flying, Keighly-Peach was a special operations officer on the staff of Rear-Admiral (destroyers) in 1935 and then served in the cruiser HMS ‘London’. He was promoted commander in 1938 and from March 1939 to March 1940 commanded RNAS Lee-on-Solent, before re-joining HMS ‘Eagle’ as Commander (F) in the Mediterranean. The aircraft of HMS ‘Eagle’ provided vital protection to the Mediterranean Fleet in the war against Italy prior to the arrival of HMS ‘Illustrious’, destroying enemy planes and sinking Italian ships. On 11 September 1940 he was awarded the DSO. Back in Britain, he became Naval Assistant (Air) to the Second Sea Lord, 1941–43, being promoted captain on 31 December 1943. In 1944 he commanded HMS ‘Heron’, the naval fighter school at RNAS Yeovilton. He then commanded HMS ‘Sultan’, the land base at Changi, Singapore until 1947. Keighly-Peach then joined HMS ‘Troubridge’ to command the Third Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean. In 1949 he became Directing Captain of the Navy’s Senior Officers’ War Course; in 1951 he was made Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (Air) on loan to the Royal Canadian Navy. He retired in 1953. His son was also a naval flyer with 807 Squadron in HMS ‘Theseus’ during the Korean War. He too was awarded the DSO, becoming the third generation of the family to receive the honour.
Henry Taylor Lamb (1883–1960) was encouraged in his artistic talent at school in Manchester, but ultimately attended medical school with a scholarship. He put aside university and his career in medicine, however, to study art in London with Augustus John and William Orpen in 1905. The particular influence of John is evident in his early work. A founding member of the Camden Town Group and the London Group, he painted an acclaimed portrait of Lytton Strachey and, later, of Evelyn Waugh. At the beginning of the First World War, Lamb returned to medicine, qualifying in July 1916 and served as a medical officer until he was gassed and invalided home. He was an official war artist attached to the Army during the Second World War, painting portraits of servicemen and foreign military attachés.