The Old Gun Tavern

The watercolour depicts a view of The Old (Gun) Tavern on the Thames near Hungerford Stairs, Charing Cross. Dickens described it in David Copperfield Chapter 57 as a place where the Micawbers lived.

At 30 Hungerford Street Dickens, as youth, worked. '...a little dirty, tumble down public-house which...close to the stairs, and whose protruding wooden rooms overhung the river.'

Very little is known about James Lawson Stewart who exhibited watercolours in various London galleries between 1883-1889. He died in c. 1918 and towards the end of life was employed to copy prints of London; the accuracy of some of the locations should therefore be questioned.

The Museum was gifted a large selection of watercolours featuring locations which appeared in Dickens's works in 1934 and a set of cigarette cards was issued by R and J Hill Ltd in 1926 and 1934 entitled Historic Places from Dickens Classics which featured watercolours by Stewart.