The civil war in China (1850–64), also named as the Taiping Rebellion, erupted northward from Guangxi to the Yangtze. During the height of the uprising, French and British forces chose to aid the Qing government to fight with the Taipings. This image shows the bombardment of the East Gate at Fungwha (Fenghua) by guns from HMS Encounter and Sphinx on 9 October 1862. The battle was fiercely fought and Able Seaman George Hinckley of HMS Sphinx received a Victoria Cross for his conspicuous bravery during the action.

The drawing is inscribed beneath the image ‘The Civil War in China: Expedition of Imperialists, headed by British Officers to Fungwha. Bombardment of the East Gate by field pieces of HMS Encounter and Sphinx’. It is signed ‘M’ in the bottom left.

A print after the drawing was published in the Illustrated London News on 7 February 1863 (p.137). According to the accompanying report (p. 150), ‘A.D. McArthur, Esq. of her Majesty’s ship Encounter, at Ningbo, has courteously placed at our disposal some sketches in connection with the expedition to Fangchow Bridge’. McArthur was a paymaster in the Royal Navy. McArthur also produced an oil painting of this subject, which was offered for sale at Bonhams, London, on 15 September 2010 (lot 39).

This drawing is part of a set of seven drawings showing scenes from the Taiping Rebellion, all of which were engraved in the Illustrated London News. The set was given to the museum in October 1964 in memory of Margaret Maxwell Wood, step-daughter of Captain Alexander Douglas, who was reportedly present at the actions and owned the drawings. They were originally miscatalogued as depicting scenes from the Second Opium War. For the full set see, PAI0719, PAI0720, PAI0721, PAI0722, PAI0723, PAI0724 and PAI0725.