(Recto) HMS Frigate 'Phaeton', 1822; (Verso) HMS 'Active'
No. 27 of 73 (PAI0889 - PAI0961)
(Recto) Drawing insribed in the upper right 'Monday Sepr 16 – 1822 -/ H.M. Frigate Phaeton -', with an indistinct inscription in the upper left.
HMS 'Phaeton', 38-guns, was launched at Liverpool on 12 June 1782.
(Verso) There is a watercolour of the hull of a frigate on the reverse which extends across a double page. It is extensively annotated in Schetky's handwriting, and by a different hand or hands. It is dated 23 September 1822 as well as 26 September and the frigate is identified as HMS 'Active'. The annotation in the centre of the drawing above the hull (in Schetky's hand) is Sir James Gordon's Frigate. This is, therefore, HMS 'Active', 46-guns, which Schetky's friend and fellow Scot, Sir Sir James Alexander Gordon twice commanded. Gordon became lieutenant-governor of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich in 1840, and governor in 1853.
Schetky was a frequent visitor as described by SFL Schetky (pp. 96-7): 'At Greenwich Hospital, when the late Admiral Sir James Gordon was its honoured governor, and my father was his constant visitor, the grey parrot in the hall knew his bos'n's whistle well; and so soon as she heard his voice at the door, uplifted a scream in anticipatory imitation of the notes she expected from it. "All well?" he would ask; and then came the long ringing "call," answered immediately from the room where his old friend sat, by the kind cheery greeting which never failed him in that house, - "Come along, Schetky! There's only one man out of the service that can do that."
(Recto) Drawing insribed in the upper right 'Monday Sepr 16 – 1822 -/ H.M. Frigate Phaeton -', with an indistinct inscription in the upper left.
HMS 'Phaeton', 38-guns, was launched at Liverpool on 12 June 1782.
(Verso) There is a watercolour of the hull of a frigate on the reverse which extends across a double page. It is extensively annotated in Schetky's handwriting, and by a different hand or hands. It is dated 23 September 1822 as well as 26 September and the frigate is identified as HMS 'Active'. The annotation in the centre of the drawing above the hull (in Schetky's hand) is Sir James Gordon's Frigate. This is, therefore, HMS 'Active', 46-guns, which Schetky's friend and fellow Scot, Sir Sir James Alexander Gordon twice commanded. Gordon became lieutenant-governor of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich in 1840, and governor in 1853.
Schetky was a frequent visitor as described by SFL Schetky (pp. 96-7): 'At Greenwich Hospital, when the late Admiral Sir James Gordon was its honoured governor, and my father was his constant visitor, the grey parrot in the hall knew his bos'n's whistle well; and so soon as she heard his voice at the door, uplifted a scream in anticipatory imitation of the notes she expected from it. "All well?" he would ask; and then came the long ringing "call," answered immediately from the room where his old friend sat, by the kind cheery greeting which never failed him in that house, - "Come along, Schetky! There's only one man out of the service that can do that."
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