Welsh Rose

Painting – Oil on Board
61 x 45 cm

The painting depicts the Richard Hughes & Company Tramp Steamer Welsh Rose in the English Channel.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke-stack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin toys.

~ “Cargoes” by the English Poet-laureate John Masefield (1878-1967)

The Welsh Rose was one of the fleet of 28 ships with the Rose name that the Richard Hughes & Company had by 1932. Built in 1922 and of 531 gross registered tonnage. Richard Hughes was the largest coastal ship owner that Liverpool, or indeed Wales, produced and the company survived for almost 50 years.