Ship-portrait painter born in Limehouse, probably in February 1841, as the youngest child of John Lashbrook Tudgay, since the June census of that year records him as then four months old. He presumably learnt his craft from his father, with whom he sometimes seems to have collaborated, and a painting of the ship ‘Ramsey’, now in the Manx Museum and unlikely to pre-date 1867, bears his father’s address of 47 Three Colt Street, Limehouse. This suggests they first worked together, as confirmed by Post Office directory entries to 1872. That for 1869 lists him separately at no. 47 as a ‘tobacconist’; those of 1870–1872 jointly with his father there as ‘Tudgay, John Lashbrook & Son, marine artists’. The 1871 census, however, also notes him as a 27-year-old ‘artist’ (though probably 30) lodging with his sister Clara (25) and others at 11 Oriental Street, Poplar, but that was only a short walk from Three Colt Street.
Apart from the final two, born in Stratford, the others were born nearer the Thames in Poplar (which may more specifically mean Limehouse as within its registration area). The family were in West Ham in 1891 and 1901 (31 Ranelagh Road and 14 Manbey Grove) and at 37 Belgrave Road, Wanstead in 1911 when Frederick was noted in the census as an ‘OAP [Old Age Pensioner] ship painter’, aged 70. His death was recorded in West Ham in the first quarter of 1921. The census of June 1841 had noted him as then four months old, so if he indeed reached 80, as registered, he only did so by a narrow margin.
Summarised from Art UK's Art Detective discussion 'Can you help us learn more about the Tudgay family of artists?' by Pieter van der Merwe, with later additions by Osmund Bullock
Text source: Art Detective
