The Naval Stores and Rosia Bay, March 1827

Watercolour by Major General Thomas Staunton St Clair (1785-1847).

This watercolour depicts the Rosia Battery on Gibraltar with a soldier of the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regiment of Foot, a goat herder and three goats in the foreground.

The inscription accompanying it reads: 'In the front ground of this view is Rosia Bay with a centennial of the 42nd Regiment in Royal Highlanders on duty. Immediately under the distant gun is Rosia Bay and the line wall extending round it. The building immediately behind the wall of Rosia Battery is the naval store and the large building standing higher up on the rock is the naval hospital and there cannot be a better adopted one or more commodious'.

Thomas St Clair enjoyed a successful military career and was awarded the Army Gold Medal towards the end of the Peninsular War for his part in the Battle of Nive in 1813. He was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1817 at the age of 32.

St Clair was third in command of the garrison of Gibraltar in 1827 and a prolific amateur artist. Due to a fear of spies and invasion, it was illegal to draw the peninsula's coasts or defences unless authorised by the military authorities. But as an officer St Clair was exempt from this exclusion. St Clair achieved the rank of Major General in 1846, the year before he died.