Thomas Somerscales

Thomas Jacques Somerscales was an English painter, born on 29 October 1842 and died on 27 June 1927, best known for marine paintings depicting Chilean naval history. He served in the Royal Navy as a schoolmaster from 1863, mostly in the Pacific, and after contracting a fever in Tahiti was discharged and settled in Valparaiso, Chile, where he taught at the Mackay School and turned to painting professionally from 1874. His paintings of Chilean naval subjects became patriotic national icons in Chile, where he is far better known than in his native Britain, even though he returned to Britain in 1892. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/