Thomas Craskell (died 1790)[1] was a British engineer and painter active in Jamaica during the eighteenth century.
He was a military engineer for much of his life. He was a lieutenant in the Engineer Corps among the troops Major-General Peregrine Hopson led in the invasions of Martinique and Guadeloupe in early 1759.[2] His career as a marine painter involved working alongside Peter Monamy and Samuel Scott in the mid-eighteenth century. Craskell was familiar with naval technology, and showed precise rendering of sails and rigging in his paintings. There are only four known works by Craskell; two of these are in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.[3]
In 1758, he started the supervision of the King's House in Spanish Town.[4]
His son, also called Thomas Craskell, was a Captain in the army who was appointed Superintendent General of the Maroons to replace Major John James.[5]
Survey of Jamaica
editFrom 1756 to 1761 he worked with James Simpson in conducting a survey of Jamaica that resulted in three maps which could be combined to create an overall map 90 x 38 inches in size.[4]
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Cornwall -
Middlesex -
Surrey
_Cornwall,_Jamaica.jpg)
_Middlesex_Jamaica.jpg)
_Surr(e)y,_Jamaica.jpg)
Paintings
edit-
Knowles' Action, the Battle of Havana 1948, painted 1753 -
Illustration to map of Surrey, Jamaica, 1763
_Illustration_to_map_of_Surrey,_Jamaica.png)
References
edit- ^ "Obituaries of Considerable persons with biographical anecdotes". The Gentleman's Magazine. 70: 467. 1790.
- ^ Porter, Whitworth (1889). History of the Corps of Royal Engineers. London: Longmans, Green and Co. p. 189.
- ^ "Thomas Craskell biography". Rountree Tryon. Rountree Tryon. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
- ^ a b "Thomas Craskell & James Simpson: To the Right Honorable Wills Earl of Hillsborough". Rare Maps. Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps. Retrieved 6 January 2016.
- ^ Kaifala, Joseph (2016). Free Slaves, Freetown, and the Sierra Leonean Civil War. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 9781349948543. Retrieved 9 June 2019.