Being a waterman at Chelsea on the Thames was a good way to get to know artists. With its cluttered wharves and shadowy hulls in the mist, Chelsea Reach was a famous painting spot. An old boat maker named Greaves (rhymes with leaves) used to row famed Painter J. M. W. Turner up & down the Reach. Walter Greaves, the boatman's son, painted heraldic devices on his father's boats and, as he grew up, longed for broader canvases. One day in the 1860s, when Walter was in his late teens, he got to know a Chelsea neighbor, an eccentric young...
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