Edward Woodville Ricketts Custom House Officer Attending a Diligence, Madrid

Edward Woodville Ricketts (1808–1895): Topographical Drawings of a Yachtsman

This drawing is one of a collection of pictures by Edward Woodville Ricketts (1808–1895). The pictures chart Ricketts' travels as a young man in his twenties, exploring the world by sea.

Edward was born at Kibworth Rectory in Leicestershire to George William Ricketts, who had an estate at New Canaan in Jamaica, and Letitia Mildmay. After studying at Oriel College, Oxford he entered the Civil Service and went on to become principal clerk to H.M. Treasury.

Ricketts was a keen yachtsman and his drawings predominantly document coastal topography. He works in a meticulous observational style, mapping coastal contours and noting locations and dates. This style owes much to the military and cartographic draughtsmanship pioneered in Britain in the mid-18th century by Paul Sandby (1731–1809).

The pictures cover views on the south coast of England from 1829 to 1834, Wales in 1830 and Devon in 1831, along with Yorkshire in 1835 and Scotland 1835–1839.

He visits Northern France 1829–1831, and the coasts of Ireland in 1830 and the Netherlands in 1849. More sustained travels include France, Switzerland and Italy in 1838 and the 1850s (Ricketts' three children were born in Naples between 1837 and 1840), and an extensive tour of the Andalusia region of Spain and Gibraltar in 1833.

There is also record of the area around his parents' home at Nascot House in Watford.