George Weatherill was a farmer's son from Staithes but his eyes focused on far horizons at an early age and he enjoyed sketching on the beach as a youngster.

Initially he pursued a clerical career and then moved to Whitby to work in a bank, eventually rising to the responsible position of chief cashier. Business trips to London introduced him to Italian art at the galleries there but his clientele was almost exclusively in the north, many of whom were keen to buy his Turneresque sketches of the coast in and around Whitby.

Weatherill left banking in 1860 following a crisis in his health and found that art was yet more lucrative, even allowing his four children to follow in their father's footsteps. This quietly intelligent ma...