William Gay Yorke's paintings of ships evolved naturally enough from a combination of artistic talent and an early life spent around sailing vessels as a shipwright, painting in his spare time. In his early thirties, he was successful enough as a painter of ships to give up his trade and paint full-time.

Yorke was born in Canada in 1817 in St. John's, New Brunswick. In 1848, he had a son, William Howard York, whom he taught to paint and with whom he collaborated on ship paintings until 1870 when their relationship soured for unknown reasons. Speculation was that the twenty-two year old artist wanted to go out on his own, rather than work with his father.

An oddity in the spelling of Yorke's name developed between 1861 and 1870...