(Recto) Inscribed top left: 'Sheerness / Dock Yard / Jany 25th 51/ seen from stern port of Trafalgar'. Identified at the bottom are the receiving ship 'Minotaur' on moorings in front of Blockhouse Point and the '1 o'clock boat' (steamer) in the foreground. This appears to be a naval picket boat carrying officers out from the Dockyard to ships in the anchorage. The Commissioner's House can be see to the right of the fort, with a ship shed and other buildings round one of the basin entrances, and a small schooner close in off the wharf. On the far left other shipping can be seen passing in the Thames. 
<p>'Minotaur' was a 74-gun 3rd rate, launched at Chatham in 1816. She was used on harbour service from 1842 and (as 'Hermes' from 1866) broken up at Sheerness in 1869.<br></p>
Sheerness Dockyard from stern port of the 'Trafalgar', 25 January 1851
Captain George Pechell Mends
1851-01-25
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