Greaves Boatyard, Chelsea

The son of a Chelsea boat-builder, he and his brother Henry ferried Whistler on the Thames. Already an amateur artist and when he first met Whistler in 1863, he and Henry became his unpaid studio assistants and pupils. Whistler’s was an influence and friendship that was to effect the rest of his life leading him to produce not only Whistlerian oils and portraits but a wonderful series of watercolours and drawings recording the streets and river life of a changing Chelsea. His reputation was established by an exhibition at the Goupil Gallery in 1911 although his fame was short lived and, rejected by Whistler, he died in the poorhouse in 1930. Greaves’ boatyard, run by Walter’s father and then by his older brother Charles, was on the Thames waterfront near Lindsey Row, now numbers 95 to 100 Cheyne Walk.