James Edward Meadows was born in Mountnessing in Essex. (He is often listed as James Edwin but official documents confirm James Edward.) He was the son of marine painter James Meadows, Sr. (1798-1864). The second of five sons, he was not the only artist. His brother Edwin Lewis was also a landscape artist, Alfred John was an artist, actor and scene painter, William was a sculptor and painter and Arthur Joseph (1843-1907) was an artist who specialized in Venetian and Mediterranean subjects. James Edward is known as a landscape and marine painter.

When he was younger he lived in Essex, Stepney, Clapham but following his marriage to widowed single-mother Eliza Rackliffe, he moved with his family to Kennington on London’s South Ban...