A plan of the Royal Dockyard at Chatham, surveyed and drawn by John Milton (active c. 1743-76) with shipping by John Clevely the Elder. The plate is one of a set of the dockyards, Cleveley being involved for the prints of Sheerness, Chatham, and Plymouth (1755–6): the others of Deptford, Woolwich, and Portsmouth were published in 1753-4.Cleveley was a shipwright by profession and became an artist relatively late in life. He spent most of his working life at the Royal Dockyard in Deptford, and specialized in painting ship launches. Milton was a minor marine artist artist whose son, Thomas, who appears to be the dedicator of the plate, was only born in 1742/3 and died in 1827. It has to be assumed that the father was the main artist in the enterprise rather than a teenage boy, whom he may have been bringing to notice as a printmaker and topographical draughtsman in this way (which Thomas certainly was). John (as I. Milton) appears as delineator and surveyor on this Chatham print unless this is simply an error. The decorative border contains a series of marine vignettes and keys to both plan and elevation.