Battle Bridge

This watercolour depicts Battle Bridge, which featured in Oliver Twist and Sketches by Boz. It is situated on the area known as St Pancras at the junction of Gray's Inn Road and Pentonville Road. Fagin mentions it in Oliver Twist, 'and you can have a few good beats chalked out in Camden Town and Battle Bridge and neighbourhoods like that where they are always going errands'.

Very little is known about James Lawson Stewart who exhibited watercolours in various London galleries between 1883-89. 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.