A three-quarter-length portrait to the left showing Whitshed in his admiral of fleet’s full dress uniform, 1843–47, wearing the ribbon and star of the GCB and the St Vincent medal. His right arm rests on a chart on a window sill; his left holds his sword. A green curtain forms the right background; a ship can be seen through the window.
James Hawkins Whitshed was a lieutenant in the ‘Sandwich’, 90 guns, Lord Rodney’s flagship at the relief of Gibraltar in 1779 and at the Moonlight Battle of St Vincent the following year. He was made commander in one of the prizes on 10 February 1780 and then made post in the ‘Deal Castle’ on 18 April that year; the ship was wrecked in a hurricane the following October. He commanded the ‘Namur’, 98 guns, at the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797. He was promoted rear-admiral of the white on 14 February 1799 and of the red on 1 January 1801.
After service as a flag officer in the Mediterranean and the Channel, he was appointed naval adviser to the viceroy of Ireland in 1803, organizing Martello towers and signalling station among other things. He was promoted vice-admiral of the blue on 23 April 1804, of the white on 9 November 1805 and of the red on 28 April 1808. The previous year he was appointed commander-in-chief at Cork. He became admiral of the blue on 31 July 1810 and of the white 12 August 1812, before promotion to admiral of the red on 19 July 1821. That year he was made commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, retiring in 1824. Originally called James Hawkins, he took the additional name and arms of Whitshed in 1791.

This is in part a copy from a miniature from the life by Cruikshank, to which the 1844 date may refer. The oil was only finished from it, post mortem, in 1854-55: see Notebook field. PAD4550 is a related print, probably from the miniature. [PvdM 2/06]