Background
Chambers was born in a poor working-class area of Whitby, Yorkshire, the second son of a seaman. His mother took in lodgers.
Chambers was born in a poor working-class area of Whitby, Yorkshire, the second son of a seaman. His mother took in lodgers.
At the age of 10, he served as a cabin boy on a coasting vessel, and was afterwards apprenticed to the master of a brig trading in the Mediterranean and Baltic.
At the age of 8 years, he was working on the coal sloops in the town harbour. He proved to have an innate talent for art, and so impressed local captains and crews with his decoration of their ships, that the ship-owner released him from his apprenticeship so that he could devote himself full-time to painting. Returning to Whitby, he took up employment as a house painter and took lessons in drawing in his spare time.
Chambers worked his way on a trading vessel to London in 1825, where he was greatly helped by Christopher Crawford, formerly of Whitby, but then landlord of the Waterman’s Arms at Wapping.
In 1829, two of his pictures were purchased by Admiral Thomas Capel who drew his merits to the attention of other officers including Admiral Lord Mark Kerr. The latter in turn secured him the patronage of King William IV and Queen Adelaide in 1831-1832 and thereafter Chambers was an established artist.
He only showed three works at the Royal Academy 1828-1829 and 1838, but many more at the British Institution, 1827-1840, the Society of British Artists 1829-1838 and the Old Water-colour Society, 1834-1840, of which he was elected member in 1834. He also painted two other pictures for the Gallery.
Chambers’ career was hampered by personal diffidence in promoting himself and, when he began to succeed, cut short by chronic ill health.
A voyage to Madeira in the summer of 1840 failed to bring improvements and he died of heart failure at Brighton on 29 October 1840.