The Hemy family set sail for Australia when Charles was 10 years old and, as he later recalled, 'I can remember it (the open sea) entered my soul, it was imprinted on my mind, and I never forgot it'. Hemy sketched and painted at locations on Narrow Street's river front and other notable artists who used Limehouse as a backdrop for their paintings included James McNeill Whistler and James Jacques Joseph Tissot. Whistler was living near the docks in Wapping between 1859-1863 and produced a series of etchings known as 'The Thames Set', which must have been a great influence on Hemy. These concentrated on the picturesque wooden buildings of the lower Thames, the barges, wharfs, warehouses and inns of Wapping, Rotherhithe and Limehouse, together...