on the Occasion of the Opening of the Grainger Market, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1835 was another large commemorative picture containing many portraits of local dignitaries, such as John Dobson, Richard Grainger, John Clayton (the town clerk) and John L. Hood (the mayor). Critiques and Working Methods With debts from the Northern Academy affair outstanding and a large family to support, Parker resorted to further self-publicity. Critiques on Paintings by H.P. Parker was published by Parker in 1835. It is a compendium of newspaper reviews of 67 of Parker’s paintings and 48 portraits. It includes ‘slight etchings’ to serve as an aide-memoire or an introduction to the compositions. With eighteen oil paintings unsold, Parker explains his hope that the book will interest new patronage as ‘many of his early patrons [have been] removed by death and other circumstances.’Pitmen at Play, shown at the Royal Academy in 1836, proved popular and led to other ‘at play’ subjects. It has been noted that Thomas Gainsborough’s ‘beggar children and humble families at work or at play outside tumbledown Picturesque cottages … were not meant as criticisms of social conditions; the whole intention was to move the beholder’s affections.’ Similarly, while the social import of Parker displaying ‘pitmen’ at the Royal Academy is itself of note, ultimately their function was to please and entertain the spectator. Parker recognised the importance of drawing as the foundation of picture-making, and at various times in his life he had drawing pupils. In the late 1830s he was teaching drawing at the Bruce Academy, Percy Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. Parker usually started with making watercolour sketches ‘from Nature’, then assembling the elements into the final composition. His father was often called upon to model the head of a smuggler or a seventeenth-century ‘Covenanter’. A Rescue … After the demise of the Northern Academy, Richardson and Parker were no longer on good terms – with debts and an absence of patrons, Parker was at a low point. However, he had ‘the happy business knack of seizing upon some stirring event, and fixing it upon canvas ere the interest faded and the excitement died out’. In September 1838 the wrecking of the steamship Forfarshire off the Northumberland coast with the loss of 62 lives and a heroic rescue of five of the nine survivors by lighthouseman William Brook Darling and his daughter Grace Horsley Darling became a national sensation. Parker saw