Kenneth Shoesmith

Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert passing the Harland & Wolff yard, Belfast, in 1921, by Shoesmith

Kenneth Denton Shoesmith (5 July 1890 – 6 April 1939) was a British merchant navy officer and marine artist.

Early life

Born in Halifax, Yorkshire, in 1890,[1] Shoesmith was baptized into the Church of England at Salterhebble on 9 October 1890, when his father's name was not recorded.[2] In 1901, Shoesmith was living in Blackpool with his grandmother, Jane Shoesmith, who kept a seaside boarding house, and his unmarried mother, Mary Shoesmith.[3] As a boy, he took drawing lessons, before being educated on the training ship HMS Conway, which was then on the River Mersey, with the aim of becoming a master mariner. On Conway, he continued to sketch and paint in watercolours. [4][5]

HM School-ship Conway, off Liverpool, by Shoesmith

Career

In August 1908, aged eighteen, Shoesmith was indentured for three years in the Port of London as an apprentice and cadet of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, and went to sea.[6] He also painted the ships he saw around the world. By 1918, he was Chief Officer of SS Cardiganshire, but this left him little time for painting, and at the end of the First World War he resigned from his shipping line to become a full-time marine artist. He was soon a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours and the British Society of Poster Designers.[7][4]

Shoesmith exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and had one-man shows in Belfast. His work also appeared at the Royal Academy and the Paris Salon. As a marine painter he often worked for his old employer Royal Mail Lines and was also hired by Cunard-White Star, Union-Castle, Canadian Pacific Railway, Blue Funnel, and other shipping lines.[7]

The future Poet Laureate John Masefield had also been educated in the Conway. In 1933, Shoesmith contributed the cover art for Masefield's book The Conway: from her foundation to the present day.[8]

His best known work is a series of murals and paintings for Cunard's RMS Queen Mary, which was launched in 1936.[7][9] These survive on the ship, now at Long Beach, California.[7]

"Mediterranean Harbour Scene", a folding screen for RMS Queen Mary

Personal life

On 18 April 1916, in Hendon, Middlesex, Shoesmith married Sarah Ritchie, known as Saidee. A notice of the marriage in The Belfast News-Letter described them as "only son of the late Denton Shoesmith, Halifax" and "youngest daughter of the late Thomas Ritchie, Royal Terrace, Belfast".[10][11] His wife's father had been a shipowner,[4] and she was then aged about 36.[12]

Shoesmith died suddenly at home in Willifield Way, Hendon, in April 1939, aged 48,[5] after suffering a fatal stroke,[4] leaving an estate valued at £4,260.[13][1] When his widow died in Cultra, County Down, in January 1975,[1] aged 95,[12] she had a large collection of her late husband’s paintings and sketch-books and left them to the Ulster Museum.[7][4]

In 1977, the Ulster Museum put on a major Shoesmith exhibition, which moved on to Liverpool, Hull, and Southampton.[1] This was repeated in 2011. A marine insurance underwriter, Glyn Evans, took a keen interest in Shoesmith and produced a book about his life and work.[4]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d "KENNETH DENTON SHOESMITH", in Portraits and Prospects: British and Irish Drawings and Watercolours from the Collection of the Ulster Museum, Belfast (Ulster Museum, 1989), p. 142, gives year and place of birth and says of the museum’s Shoesmith collection "Bequeathed by the artist's widow, Mrs Sarah Shoesmith, Cultra, Co Down, 1975".
  2. ^ "1890 October 9 No. 72: Kenneth Denton Shoesmith" in Baptisms Solemnized in the Parish of Salterhebble in the County of York, p. 9
  3. ^ 1901 United Kingdom census, 9, Imperial Terrace, Blackpool, Ancestry.com, accessed 15 July 2026 (subscription required)
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Book Review: Two Books about the Marine Art of John Ward and Kenneth Shoesmith", Longhill Publishing, 2010, accessed 17 July 2026
  5. ^ a b Ship's Officer Who Became Artist", Hull and East Yorkshire Times, Saturday 15 April 1939, p. 7: The death at his home, Willifield Way, London, N.W., of Mr Kenneth D. Shoesmith, the marine painter, was announced on Saturday. He was 48. Mr Shoesmith was educated in the training ship Conway."
  6. ^ "Kenneth D. Shoesmith" in United Kingdom Apprentices Indentured in Merchant Navy, 1824-1910, Ancestry.com, accessed 16 July 2026 (subscription required)
  7. ^ a b c d e Kenneth Denton Shoesmith, Odon Wagner Gallery, accessed 15 July 2026
  8. ^ John Masefield, The Conway: From Her Foundation to the Present Day (London: Heinemann, 1933), p. 233 (Acknowledgements)
  9. ^ David Ellery, RMS Queen Mary: The World's Favourite Liner (Casemate Publishers, 2023), pp. 179–180
  10. ^ "MARRIAGES: Shoesmith—Ritchie", The Belfast News-Letter, Saturday 22 April 1916, p. 1
  11. ^ "SHOESMITH Kenneth D / Ritchie". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 15 July 2026.
  12. ^ a b "Name: Sarah Shoesmith; Age: 95; Birth Date: [about 1880]; Last Known Residence: Inverloch, Old Cultra, Holywood; Death Date: 18 Jan 1975; Cremation Date: 28 Feb 1975; Burial Place: Belfast, Northern Ireland; Cemetery: City Cemetery; Cemetery Section: D 265", belfastcity.gov.uk/find-burial-records, accessed 17 July 2026
  13. ^ “SHOESMITH Kenneth Denton of 4 Willifield Way Hendon Middlesex died 6 April 1939” in Wills and Administrations (England and Wales) 1939 (London: High Court of Justice, 1940), p. 385

Bibliography

  • Glyn L. Evans, The Maritime Art of Kenneth D. Shoesmith (Silver Link Publishing, 2010, ISBN 9781857943580)
  • David Reynolds, Kenneth D. Shoesmith and Royal Mail (Bygone Ships, 1995, ISBN 9780620194853)
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