Philip John Ouless

(British, 1817-1885)

The Royal Yacht Fairy with Queen Victoria on board, making her way through ships of the fleet

Footnotes

Provenance
With St. Helier Galleries Ltd, St. Helier, 1975.
Private collection, UK.

Philip John Ouless was a Jersey painter and watercolourist who contributed illustrations to the Illustrated London News; he recorded the visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Jersey in 1846. This painting shows the Royal Yacht Fairy passing a frigate and other shipping, watched by a boatload of sightseers. The Royal Standard flies at the Fairy's mainmast, indicating that the Queen is actually on board, perhaps returning to Portsmouth from Osborne House in the gathering dusk of a beautiful summer's day.

The iron screw yacht Fairy was built by Ditchburn and Mare at Blackwall in 1844 as a tender to the first Royal paddle-wheel steam yacht, the Victoria and Albert, which was launched in 1843. Queen Victoria and her young family first stayed at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight in 1844; from then on the Royal Yachts were indispensable to her sojourns there, as well as trips to the Continent and round Britain to show herself to her loyal subjects. At 317 tons burden, 146 ft long, 21ft in the beam and 7ft 4 in draught, the Fairy could moor at Trinity Pier at East Cowes, convenient for Osborne, while the Victoria and Albert anchored in Cowes Roads. In 1846 the Fairy took the Royal Family to Liverpool and up the Tamar in Cornwall, where the four-year-old Prince of Wales in his sailor suit delighted sightseers. The pattern of happy Royal Families enjoying their kingdom's maritime beauties was set for several generations to come. In 1847 the Fairy took the Queen to Scotland and in 1854 she reviewed the Baltic Fleet at Spithead from the yacht before it departed for the Crimean War. The Fairy was gradually replaced by the paddle-wheel yacht Alberta from 1863 and she was broken up in 1868.

Philip John Ouless was one of the most celebrated marine painters of Jersey, the son of an auctioneer. His parents emigrated from Coutances, Normandy to escape the French Revolution and Philip was born in St Helier in 1817. He studied painting in Paris but returned to St Helier where he established himself as a marine, landscape and portrait painter. He received numerous commissions from ship owners and masters, benefiting from the nineteenth century boom in shipbuilding. As well as the new paddle steamers, Ouless painted early racing yachts.

Ouless's views of Jersey were engraved and sold to the increasing number of visitors to the island. He recorded the visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to Jersey in 1846 in eleven watercolours, which were published the following year. Ouless also recorded a number of events, particularly shipwrecks, which were reproduced in the Illustrated London News. He died at 53 New Street, St Helier in 1885. His son Walter William Ouless, RA (1848-1933) became a portrait painter.